We’re either delusion dreamers or hardened doomers. But if you can allow yourself to believe in a 2023 playoff appearance for our beloved Angels for just a moment, what does that actually look like?
Here’s the current playoff picture (as of 8/21/23) plus full season prediction based on current win%.
| SEED | TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PRED WINS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| E | BAL | 77 | 47 | 101 |
| C | MIN | 65 | 60 | 84 |
| W | TEX | 72 | 52 | 94 |
| WC1 | TB | 75 | 51 | 96 |
| WC2 | HOU | 70 | 55 | 91 |
| WC3 | SEA | 69 | 55 | 90 |
| LAA | 61 | 64 | 79 |
Assuming teams maintain their current win-loss ratio, it looks like it’s going to be 91 wins for Troutani to make a play off appearance (assuming losing H2H tie-breaker against SEA). With 37 games left in the season, that’s a completely attainable 30-7 record moving forward (0.811 win%).
OK, so most of you who took 4th grade math already knew this. So, what does a reasonable 30-7 record look like on the field?
I’m going to use WAR to paint this picture. So WAR correlates nearly 1:1 in actual team wins + 47 wins. In other words, a team with a cumulative 60 WAR is expected to win 107 games that season. Thus I present to you the 2023 Angels WAR by position, with a full-season extrapolation.
| POS | WAR | EXT WAR |
|---|---|---|
| 🦄 | 9.4 | 12.2 |
| C | 1.3 | 1.7 |
| 1B | -0.4 | -0.5 |
| 2B | 1.4 | 1.8 |
| 3B | 1.2 | 1.6 |
| SS | 1.8 | 2.3 |
| LF | 1.1 | 1.4 |
| CF | 3.2 | 4.1 |
| RF | 0.9 | 1.2 |
| P2 | 1 | 1.3 |
| P3 | 0.9 | 1.2 |
| P4 | 0.3 | 0.4 |
| P5 | 1.2 | 1.6 |
| P6 | -0.2 | -0.3 |
| RP | 1.7 | 2.2 |
| PH | 0.5 | 0.6 |
| TOTAL | 32.8 |
Using our handy formula from earlier, that’s ~80 wins, which is very close to the 79 win estimate based on win%. In order to get to a paltry 91 wins, we need a team WAR of ~44.
Let’s see what the Angels need to look like for the next 37 games to hit 44 WAR. I set the 2 negative WAR positions to zero (I’m not trying to write Angels playoff fanfic here). And I kept Ohtani’s WAR on its current path. I then juiced the rest of the team’s WAR to reach our mark, while keeping their contributive ratios intact. In layman’s terms, I expect more out of CF (AKA Trouty) than our bullpen, based on year-to-date performance, so the numbers reflect that.
| POS | MORE WAR | EQUIV FULL-SEASON WAR |
|---|---|---|
| 🦄 | 2.8 | 12.2 |
| C | 0.8 | 2.5 |
| 1B | .05 | 0 |
| 2B | 0.9 | 2.7 |
| 3B | 0.8 | 2.4 |
| SS | 1.1 | 3.4 |
| LF | 0.7 | 2.1 |
| CF | 2 | 6.1 |
| RF | 0.6 | 1.8 |
| P2 | 0.6 | 1.9 |
| P3 | 0.6 | 1.8 |
| P4 | 0.2 | 0.6 |
| P5 | 0.8 | 2.4 |
| P6 | 0.3 | 0 |
| RP | 1.1 | 3.3 |
| PH | 0.9 | 1.1 |
| TOTAL | 44.1 |
To put those equivalent full-season WAR numbers in context:
| WAR | RATING |
|---|---|
| <0 | BUTTERCUP |
| 0 | REPLACEMENT LEVEL (AAA) |
| 0-2 | BENCH |
| 2-3 | STARTER |
| 3-6 | ALL-STAR |
| 6+ | MVP LEVEL |
| 10+ | 🦄🐟 |
I’m sure I’ve flubbed the math here and there. But that’s the gist of it. Trout needs to make an instant comeback (powered by the storm rains of Hilary), Ohtani just doing #Ohtanithings, and the rest of the team needs to be putting up B-list All-Star numbers. I mean when put like that, seems pretty simple.
PREDICTION: 100% LIKELY
