Angels Biggest duds of 2016 - Pitchers

The duds will be a two part article (sadly), while the studs will be  a one part article (no surprise there).  For pitchers I tried to look at just the guys that hat 15 innings or more which means guys like Javy Guerra, David Huff, and Al Alburquerque were not included in this list, even through they combined for only 13.2 innings and a -0.7 WAR.  Ouch.

Jose Valdez narrowly missed this list, but thanks to a great month of August he avoided that.  In August, Valdez threw 11.2 innings and had a 3.09 ERA with a .167 BAA.  His overall BAA on the year was only .202 and he finished strong with no runs and only 1 hit in his last 3 appearances and 3.1 innings.

Also not on here are guys who didn't help the team due to injury such as Andrew Heaney, Garrett Richards and CJ Wilson.  Richards, however, actually put up a postive 0.7 WAR in just 34.2 innings and Heaney broke even in his one game.

These craptastic 6 dudes combined for a -3.2 WAR.

1. Tim Lincecum. I don't think it was a bad idea to sign him.  You could argue that the experiment went on too long, but that Angels also had little to lose so it was worth a shot to see if he could find his groove.  We'll have to wait until the 2017 season to see if he can get another call-up now that he is in Salt Lake, but in 2016 he was the worst pitcher we had, and it's hard to top Huston Street.

2. Huston Street. Street was plain horrible in 2016, and if you think it's because of his injury, I present to you his second half 2015 stats: 4.39 ERA, .274 BAA, .342 OBP, 1.46 WHIP.  You can count me among the ones who are not convinced we'll see a prime closer come back in 2017 and I wouldn't be opposed to him losing his starting job to Bedrock.  During his 26 appearances in 2016, he notched 9 saves while blowing 3 saves and logging two losses as well.  Yep.  He had a 75% save rate which is third from the bottom in relievers this year - just ahead of Tony Cingrani (Reds) and Luke Gregerson (Astros).

3. Brett Oberholtzer. He was probably worth the risk at the time since he basically cost the Angels nothing - and you never know what you can find in someone else's dumpster.  But Overholtzer has been pretty stinky as a Halo and sometimes someones trash is not someone else's treasure.  Like Street, he has racked up a high amount of negative WAR in a short amount of time.

4. A.J. Achter.  Achter had a deceivingly low ERA in 2016 despite striking out less hitters than last year, walking more, and having a significant jump in BAA.  Achter was perhaps a bit lucky in 2016 as well since 85% of hits against him were medium or hard contact.  His ground ball rate was way up in 2016 and he left a very high 93% of runners on bases so was getting some outs when he needed them (he induced 7 double plays in 27 games).  Mostly he was a bit lucky and benefited from some good defense as well. His negative WAR paints that picture better than his low ERA and I'm not convinced we'll see an ERA under 4 from him in 2017.

5. Greg Mahle. This kid is young and maybe not ready for the big leagues yet.  He showed promise early but he allowed 7 of his 11 inherited runners to score and gave up 4 homeruns in just 18 innings.  His AAA numbers were not much better this year, though he is playing in a very non pitcher-friendly league.  We'll have to see what he can do in Salt Lake next year.

6. Cory Rasmus. Remember when Rasmus was good? (either Rasmus actually - have you seen Colby stat's recently?)  Yep.  It was 2014.  Rasmus had a great year and everyone loved him.  Then 2015 hit and his ERA doubled, FIP went up an entire point, BB/9 doubled, etc.  2016 is the worst year of his young career so far though he did have a really impressive start in April when his ERA was 4.74 but his WHIP was only 0.975 and BAA was at a very low .114 through 13 innings.  Outside of April, he had a pretty rough season.