Why the Angels only selected the pitchers in the MLB Draft

We’ve completed the All Star Break, and the MLB batting average this year is .240. According to Baseball Reference, this was the lowest league-wide average since 1968 (0.237), known as the “Year of the Pitcher,” and before that, 1908 (0.239), which was in. right in the middle of the infamous “dead ball era” of sport.

There has been some evidence that Commissioner Rob Manfred’s crackdown on ‘sticky stuff’ is working – bating averages jumped seven points in June, while base percentages and hits have also increased – but it is clear that MLB in general has a violation problem. The pitchers (especially the high-speed, single-situation relievers) got too good, while hitting a round ball with a round bat didn’t get any easier.

All of this makes it really amazing that the Los Angeles Angels just finished the 2021 MLB Draft without writing a Single batter. That’s right. The franchise selected 20 pitchers in 20 rounds. This is the second time a team has selected pitchers only, but the previous instance (the Miami Marlins last year, in a shortened five-round draft) barely counts. The Angels drafted 19 college pitchers and one secondary pitcher; their first choice was right-hander Sam Bachman of the University of Miami.

What is the rationale here? Well, the team’s current arsenal of weapons is pretty bad. They rank 26th in the league in ERA (4.90), which is roughly the point where they finish each year. And when their enclosure implodes, it really implodes, with more than 10 games of nine or more points allowed in just the first half.

As it turns out, the staff has an ace who just started the All Star Game for the American League, but his name is Shohei Ohtani and he’s a two-way star on his way to becoming this year’s Home Run King. The entire baseball world would love this story to continue for many years to come, but general manager Perry Minasian can’t put all his pitching hopes on the Ohtani wing.

The good news: In this anemic offensive era, the Angels are doing well. They have Ohtani, Mike Trout (who was chasing an MVP trophy before straining his calf) and a lineup that ranks near the top five in each relevant static category. So while writing only pitchers sounds dramatic, it does make sense. The front office prefers to fill its coffers with sharp arms that can capitalize on this new pitch-dominated era, rather than recruiting replacements for an already powerful troop of positional players.

However, there is no guarantee that the move will pay off. Twenty pitchers might seem like a lot, but research has shown that only 17.6% of drafted players actually make it to the majors. Seriously. Miners is a long, unromantic and uncertain job. While it is rare for a first-round pick to not speed up in a farming system, first-round picks with fantastic scouting ratios are routinely ‘stuck’ in systems for years, and the majority of picks later rounds (which would include most of those angel selections) never get away with it at all.

Still, you only need five men for a rotation, and about seven or eight to fill a pen. And that pool includes existing starters, free agent arrivals, deadline business goals, international bonus pool signings, and all previous projects combined. It might take a while, but at some point the Angels will stop giving more points than they are scoring. And that’s a great recipe for winning baseball games.