LA Angels Thursday News Crash: Catch and Release

Both change of scenery candidates to me.

Paris I simply don’t believe in – he has a 68% contact rate in Salt Lake, well below average, and barrel and hard hit rates under MLB averages. His maxEVs show he can tattoo the ball when he finds it, but he just can’t find it enough.

Moore looks better under the hood, with strong in-zone contact rates and better selectivity vs pitches outside the zone, but his contact overall is still middling, and he seems to completely lose his plate approach when he’s called up to the MLB. The pressure seems too much.

I’m a hard skeptic on Paris, and give Moore a 50/50 chance of making an MLB impact, but I think he needs another organization to get the best out of him. Feels like he’s in a doom loop here.