The series on playoff teams continues with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, henceforth referred to as the LAnaheim Angels.

Strengths

This is an unusual Angels team in that their success is based on their offense. Under Scioscia, the team hacked a lot. They tried to put the ball in play, minimizing both strike outs and walks. It’s not a bad strategy, as more balls in play leads to more hits. Against a poor defensive team, it’s a very good strategy.

From 2002 through 2008, the Angels ranked 28th in the majors in walks. This season, they rank sixth in the American League. Their team batting average hasn’t suffered, as their selectivity paid off in getting better pitches to hit. This is a much deeper and dangerous Angels offense.

The Angels hit better as the scoring opportunities increase. The team batting average is higher with men on than none on, goes up again with men in scoring position, then goes up again with the bases loaded.

I actually like the Angels starting pitching. Scott Kazmir, John Lackey, Ervin Santana all improved in the second half. Jered Weaver and Joe Saunders, the two pitchers there all season are a combined 30-15. Scioscia has a lot of options to play to strengths of his starters based on park, handedness of the opposing team, and offensive tendencies of their playoff foes.

Weaknesses

The bullpen is the biggest concern for this team, although they improved after a rough start. Brian Fuentes has 46 saves but a 4.05 ERA. He’s not striking out opponents at rate he did with the Rockies. He’s blown seven saves. He’s hittable. Outside of Darren Oliver, there just isn’t a reliever who really blows away the opposition. This, too, is a departure from previous Angels teams.

The Angels are an aggressive base running team. They’ll try to steal lots of bases, and they’ll try to take an extra base on hits to the outfield. This can backfire as running into extra outs can cost them runs.

For some reason, the team plays better on both sides of the ball in day games (32-13) than night games (61-51). I’m not sure how the schedule is going to work out yet, but I can see where Boston-LAnaheim would be a great prime time series. I could imagine the Tigers and Yankees playing a late afternoon game followed by the Red Sox Angels as the early west coast game and the Dodgers getting the west coast prime time slot. The Angels success might actually work against them in this series by forcing them to play more games at night.

Conclusion

This is a different Angels team than we’re used to seeing. They’re strong offensively with an improving pitching staff. I would suggest that the recent playoff history of LAnaheim doesn’t really apply to this post season.