The Philadelphia Phillies fell off at the end of the season, but they challenged for the NL East division title all season. How did things look down on the farm?
As part of our continuing coverage at Call to the Pen of the minor leagues, we will be covering each organization’s top players for 2018. The coverage will go in reverse order of record. Today, we will look at the Los Angeles Angels.
We are going to review the system’s leaders for each organization statistically, then choose one hitter and one pitcher to honor for every team. This will be primarily based on statistical performance, though some “age relative to level” could come into play, so a very impressive season from a 28-year-old in AA will rank below a nearly as impressive season from a 20-year-old at the same level.
After we review each organization’s hitter and pitcher of the year, we will close out October with Call To The Pen’s Minor League team of the year. That will lead into November starting our team top 10 prospect lists. In other words, there will be plenty of minor league content on the way at CTTP, so keep coming back for more each day this offseason!!
Los Angeles Angels minor leagues
The Los Angeles Angels started the season with a chance to compete, but in a very deep American League West, they ended up falling back to fourth in the division. The big news in Anaheim this year was the rookie on the team, Shohei Ohtani, who made an impact both on the mound and at the plate before injuries took him off of the mound.
The Angels have been working hard at rebuilding what was a barren farm system under Billy Eppler, and they had some help from that system this year. More should be coming in the next season or two as waves of talent start to work up to the majors.
Before we offer up awards on the season, let’s take a look at the system’s statistical leaders:
Organization Leaders (min. 150 PA, 50 IP)
BA: David Fletcher .350
OBP: Taylor Ward .446
SLG: Jabari Blash .700
OPS: Jabari Blash 1.131
R: Luis Rengifo 109
H: Luis Rengifo 150
2B: Matt Thaiss, Jared Walsh 34
3B: Luis Rengifo 13
HR: Jared Walsh, Jabari Blash 29
RBI: Jared Walsh 99
SB: Luis Rengifo 41
TB: Jared Walsh 255
W: Alex Klonowski 12
G: Jeremy Rhoades 54
GS: Jose Suarez 26
IP: Alex Klonowski 136
SV: Matt Custred, Ryan Clark 10
K: Jose Suarez 142
ERA: Austin Krzeminski 2.23
WHIP: Jeremy Beasley 1.15
K/9: Conor Lillis-White 12.3
K/BB: Tyler Stevens 3.92
Let’s look at the award winners…