Angels Articles

Jan 9, 2025 - Written by Noah Pohle

We are one year in for Angels’ pitching coach Barry Enright, and with a full season’s worth of data and a few months to spare, it seems it is only appropriate to take a deeper look into where Enright, his staff, and their game planning stood out the most. Taking over for Matt Wise, who was hired away by the lowly Chicago White Sox, Enright and company put their fingerprints on the Angels’ system in many ways, some large and small, some for the better or worse. I tasked myself with taking a look at some of the most notable and tangible changes over the Angels’ pitchers in the last year.

Barry’s Beginnings

In order to understand Barry’s full impact as a coach, it is important to understand that he was a former grinder himself. He never quite reached stardom, but he was a standout for Pepperdine in his senior year(1.99 ERA, 14 walks through 18 starts and 131.1 innings) and a second-round draft pick in 2007. While he was a prospect of some note and reached the majors with the Diamondbacks, Enright’s career stalled after a promising rookie 2010 season in which he started 17 games with the big league squad. He struggled in a rotation spot to begin the next year and never got another opportunity to crack the starting staff with the D-Backs, pitching in Reno by June of 2011, and until he was traded in 2012 to the Angels. He was only able to work 12 total innings at the Major League level in his first Halos stint before beginning his ventures as a true journeyman, picking up time for five major league affiliates and spending two full seasons pitching in Mexico before ending his playing career with the Diamondbacks, the team that drafted him. Enright was immediately hired as a minor league pitching coach for the 2019 season with the Snakes, as well, and held minor league roles in the 2019 and 2021 seasons, skipping over 2020 due to the pandemic, before being promoted to split duties of Assistant Pitching Coach and Minor League Pitching Coordinator with a partner, Dan Carlson, for the 2022 and 2023 seasons. That leads us into 2024, where Enright helmed his first sole position as a Major League Pitching Coach. His experience as a former pro player and his work under famous pitching coach Brent Strom in Arizona are factors that could bring Enright’s particular brand of success to the Angels.

Where can we Look?

One unfortunate fact of the matter is that the Angels have relatively few pitchers who threw considerable amounts of innings in both 2023 and 2024, and even fewer of whom are still around on the roster today. What kind of impact we can draw from Enright’s time will grow with time, but for now, two pitchers that have some of the most discernible fingerprints of Enright’s are Carlos Estévez and Hans Crouse. There are conclusions to be drawn from other players, but these two pitchers showed perhaps the most positive tangible changes to occur in the 2024 calendar year.

Smaller-Scale Tweaks and Trends

Many players showed some minor tweaks in their style of pitching. Reid Detmers altered his release point of a few of his pitches to better mask his pitches together; however, this was not to great success. Detmers struggled to find comfort in the new arm slot, and looks like a project now more than perhaps ever. However, it is worth noting that even in the minor leagues he stuck to his new approach, and seems to be on board with the concept behind it. Caden Dana has that repeatable, over-the-top look as well; as do newly acquired prospects Sam Aldegheri and Mitch Farris. Patrick Sandoval, too, altered the release point of his changeup to better fit the rest of his repertoire, but he pitched poorly and wound up injured; he will be pitching for Boston when healthy.

Conversely, Tyler Anderson became more distinct with the release points on his individual pitches, creating a spectrum of five different looks from sidearm to overhead. He was able to find and repeat some of the success he found in 2022, when he first diversified his release angles to three different slots. It is worth highlighting José Soriano’s breakout as well, and he threw more sinkers and drew ground balls more than he did as a reliever last year. Another heavy groundball pitcher to make waves was Jack Kochanowicz, and they both pair well with an infield wizard such as Ron Washington. These players each have more to their relationships with the pitching staff, but for now, I would like to put the focus on two relief pitchers specifically. Imprints of Barry Enright and bits of his formula are present throughout the pitching staff, even after just one year.

The Estévez Breakout

Estévez was truly in the midst of a breakout season as our closer at the time of his trade. While his strikeout rate was lower than his career averages and his fastball lost some life for the second consecutive season (down to 96.8 MPH on average), he reduced his walks, HR/FB ratio, and BABIP considerably, leading to a 2.38 ERA with the Angels. Enright and his staff were able to create weaker contact from his opponents by slightly tweaking Estévez’ delivery. This was intended to hide his offspeed pitches better. For his career with the Rockies, his arm slot had sat between 35-38 degrees. Upon signing with the Angels, he began throwing slightly steeper, with a release angle of 40 degrees. This led to a career-high strike percentage of 58.3%. Simply throwing more strikes does not necessarily imply improved command, but he was able to locate his pitches well enough for career-best results, even with diminished velocity. This was a result of a plan to place more intent on buying strikes early in counts by throwing his offspeed pitches in the zone, to get ahead in counts earlier.

In terms of stuff, Estévez has a power arsenal, with a hard fastball and diving changeup. He also throws a hard slider that has average movement, and has occasionally thrown a slower curveball to very limited success. However, while his fastball and changeup tunneled well together, there was still a gap between the way those pitches looked out of the hand when compared to his breaking stuff through 2023. With the 2024 alteration in his mechanics, his release point moved up to 42 degrees on average. This allowed him to get more on top of the slider at his release, adding a layer of deception to his power arsenal. This kept hitters from seeing the slider too early, and left them more susceptible to Estévez’ offspeed pitches early in counts, since they each look like a fastball until the hitter picks up the spin. While none of the movement profiles of his pitches were altered drastically, his fastball and changeup performed much better than they have in recent years. Even with less life on his fastball, he still managed to hold opposing hitters to a 60 wRC+, the first time in his career hitters have been below-average against his fastball, and opposing hitters’ .143/.217/.190 slash line against the changeup speaks for itself.

These developments for Estévez and the resulting production was able to facilitate a trade that netted the Angels two well-regarded young pitchers in Sam Aldegheri and George Klassen. Estévez will have a shot to secure another closing gig, even if he might be better suited as a setup man; he has a case as the second-best reliever left in free agency. The Angels may not be a realistic fit, contractually, but Barry Enright and him played together in the Rockies’ system and had a good relationship, not to mention his breakout season began in Anaheim. If the Angels choose to target a top reliever and Estévez would accept a role as the setup guy before Joyce, the familiarity may bring them back together in 2025.

Hometown Hans Recovers his Career

Hans Crouse got his first extended stay in the Majors this season, even though he was drafted as a high school arm out of Southern California back in 2017. He was a prospect of note, seen as a guy with stuff that played at the lower minor leagues, but always carried huge relief risk due to a violent delivery, lean body, and a fiery demeanor that scouts and coaches tend to value in shorter, higher leverage stints. His pro career began with the Rangers, and they developed him as a starter nonetheless, intrigued by his raw fastball/breaker combination and the work he did with his changeup. He pitched in 45 games over four Rangers seasons before being included in a 2021 trade deadline deal with the Phillies, as a lottery pick who had performed through AA but would need to be rostered the next offseason or exposed to the Rule 5 draft. The Phillies selected him in September of that same season, preventing that, and let him start 2 games. Unfortunately, the next year he would throw all of 12.1 innings, all in the minor leagues, as he dealt with right biceps tendinitis, and the Phillies opted to outright him off the roster in the 2022 offseason. He also dealt with injuries that limited him to 22 innings in 2023, and became a minor league free agent at the end of the season.

Although he was once a notable prospect, his 7 Major League innings and 34.1 combined innings over the prior two seasons left him off of most radars, understandably. He only got into two games in Spring Training and was sent to work in Salt Lake for the Angels’ top affiliate, and began accumulating a résumé there. Now, he looks like one of the top setup options to Ben Joyce. Dating back to his high school days, there was always a lot of risk inherently in his command and durability with a delivery like his. Watch any video of him, even through 2023 with the Phillies’ affiliates, and Crouse just looks like an injury waiting to happen. He would come set slightly hunched over at his shoulders, and would throw his head down, back, and forward as he pitched, and it seemed to happen more on fastballs and sliders than changeups. It also appeared that he never transferred his weight out of his back leg, which put more stress on his arm, as his front leg was never able to absorb the force of throwing.

As an Angel, Crouse put up his first healthy season since 2021, when he was traded to the Phillies and got his first Major League opportunity. In the time he spent with the Angels, his delivery has become more concentrated and deliberate. While he stills begins in a hunched position and seems to not fully finish his follow through, he ends his pitches with more motion, instead of remaining upright on his back leg, whereas before he would occasionally not even touch his front foot to the ground. Additionally, his old head whack has become much less violent, with his motion reduced to just a slight nod towards the catcher as he kicks upwards. This ironed out his control somewhat in the minor leagues, where he notched his lowest BB/9 since his 2021 season, and helped him to harness the stuff which he has commonly shown when healthy. These delivery changes were not by accident, and it is likely that Barry Enright or a close collaborator, perhaps AAA pitching coach Shane Loux, had some cues for Crouse in mind when he was signed that clearly took hold.

Crouse pitched to a 2.84 ERA in The Show and worked to a 2.27 figure in AAA. While his secondary numbers in AAA, particularly a strand of 88.4%, showed some luck contributed to this, a massive 16.77 K/9 rate in AAA had estimators thinking he was a sub-3 ERA pitcher in his 31.2 innings. A 12.08 strikeout rate in the Majors will play, but his walk rate rose to 6.04 per nine, which is untenable. It could stand to reason that he was more amped up after being in the show for the first time in a few years, and for his hometown team no less. Even with all the walks, he only allowed earned runs in 5 of 25 appearances, and profiles as an upside optionable arm at the least. More improvements to his command could turn him into a good-or-better middle reliever, though, and any positive production is a coup from minor league signings. The story here is perhaps less about Barry Enright, but more a positive note that came out of the pitching department as a whole. The Angels have had very few storylines in this category recently, and it is important to at least take note.

Disclaimer : (1) All photos are not owned by InsideHalos and have been given proper credit beneath each photo. (2) Links of players are property of MLB, MiLB, and Baseball Reference. (3) InsideHalos is a fan-made site not affiliated with Angels Baseball.