Angels News: Four Halos Among the Finalists for Silver Slugger
Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout, Taylor Ward, and Luis Rengifo are among the finalists announced on Thursday for the annual Silver Slugger awards. Trout and Ward are among the ten outfield finalists, Ohtani is one of five finalists at designated hitter, and Ohtani and Rengifo are among the four finalists as utility players.
The Silver Sluggers, like the Gold Gloves, are voted on by managers and coaches, which is great for getting real "baseball people" involved but less great in that those people's actual jobs prevent them from watching many baseball games their teams aren't playing in. So there always end up being some interesting selections. This year, one of those is Bryce Harper, who is a finalist at DH in the National League despite not being eligible for the award because he only played in 99 games.
Ward's season OPS sat at 1.249 on May 14, and his hot start got the attention of all of baseball. From May 15 through the end of the season, Ward had a much more pedestrian .742 OPS, but finished the season reaching base safely in 24 of the team's final 28 games, hitting .369 in that time span. His overall season numbers — .833 OPS, 135 OPS+, 23 homers, 22 doubles — make him a deserving finalist even if he's unlikely to win.
Trout had about the season we've come to expect from him the last few years: outstanding when he was on the field, but not on the field as often as we'd like. He had just 499 plate appearances in 119 games, but he whacked 40 homers and posted a .999 OPS (178 OPS+) in that limited time.
Rengifo is a bit of an odd choice. While he had his best offensive season, he came into the year with a .618 career OPS, so "best" is extremely relative. He posted a .724 OPS (103 OPS+) in 511 plate appearances for the Angels, playing five different defensive positions.
And finally, we have Ohtani, a finalist at both DH and utility. He's unlikely to win both awards, as he's up against Yordan Alvarez in the DH category and Alvarez had a monster season. Ohtani should win the utility award, though, as the only real competition is Luis Arraez, who won the American League batting title but otherwise was below Ohtani in overall production. Ohtani's .875 OPS and 145 OPS+ are both significantly better than Arraez's .795 and 130.
The winers will be announced on MLB Network on November 10.
