TEMPE, Ariz. \u2014 The highs and lows from Kyren Paris\u2019 season in 2025 would rival the most stomach-churning rollercoaster.<\/p>\n
Paris began the year as the Angels\u2019 biggest surprise of the spring<\/a>, and he ended it playing winter ball in Mexico to make up for the half-season lost to injury in a frustrating finish.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was real unfortunate,\u201d Paris said of the injury. \u201cBut it\u2019s all part of the journey.\u201d<\/p>\n His journey has come almost full circle, because now he\u2019s pretty much where he was at the start of last spring. He\u2019s buried in a crowded depth chart, trying to fight his way past infielders like Christian Moore, Vaughn Grissom, Oswald Peraza, Adam Frazier and Chris Taylor, and outfielders like Bryce Teodosio and Jos\u00e9 Siri.<\/p>\n Last season Paris sizzled in spring training and won regular playing time as an outfielder, hitting an eye-opening .366 with five homers in his first 15 games of the regular season.<\/p>\n Over the next 28 games, he hit .106 with 47 strikeouts in 91 plate appearances. He was sent to Triple-A in late May, and about five weeks later he was hurt diving for a ball in the outfield, essentially ending his season.<\/p>\n How did he go from being so hot to being so cold?<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a young player that is adjusting to the league and this game is about adjustments,\u201d manager Kurt Suzuki said. \u201cHe came out and obviously he was on fire. And then the league made an adjustment and now KP has to make an adjustment.\u201d<\/p>\n Paris, 24, explained last spring that the hot streak was the result of a reworked swing<\/a>. Paris sought the help of controversial hitting coach Richard Schenck, who is best known for working with New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge and having a huge social media footprint<\/a>.<\/p>\n Schenck got Paris to move back in the batter\u2019s box, and open his stance. He squatted more and hovered his front foot to delay his swing.<\/p>\n It all worked great until pitchers adjusted and started pounding him with low and away pitches that he couldn\u2019t quite reach. Paris chased 37% of pitches that were out of the zone, low and away, and he whiffed on 77% of those swings.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the pitchers adjusted to how they were pitching me, I think that I could have done a better job with my approach,\u201d Paris said. \u201cThat\u2019s something I\u2019ve been continuing to work on and look at. I don\u2019t think it had anything to do with the swing. I think it was more just the pitches that I was swinging at.\u201d<\/p>\n Paris didn\u2019t get to play much at Triple-A after the big league slump because he got hurt. He returned for just five minor league games in September. That\u2019s why he chose to get extra at-bats in the winter league in Mexico. He hit .264 with an .814 OPS in Mexico. He did walk 15 times and strike out 16 times in Mexico, which is perhaps a sign that he\u2019s figuring out which pitches he needs to take.<\/p>\n Paris said he talked to Schenck this winter but did not work out with him.<\/p>\n So far this spring, Paris is 1 for 6 with two strikeouts and a walk.<\/p>\n His path to playing time last season was in the outfield. After the Angels moved Mike Trout to right field, they had an opening in center. Now, the Angels have more options in center and Paris is spending more time in the infield. He can play, second, third and shortstop. He was originally drafted as a shortstop.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m ready to play wherever,\u201d Paris said. \u201cI just want to be on the field and help the guys and help the team win.\u201d<\/p>\n BACHMAN UPDATE<\/p>\n It\u2019s now been almost a year since the last time that right-hander Sam Bachman had to deal with any injuries, after the previous few years were a frustrating series of interruptions.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing on the field consistently and getting reps and not start-stop, start-stop, I think it\u2019s been hard to find my footing,\u201d Bachman said. \u201cBeing healthy, that\u2019s the only thing I\u2019ve been missing.\u201d<\/p>\n In Bachman\u2019s first outing of the spring, he walked the bases loaded and couldn\u2019t get out of the inning. But on Wednesday, he pitched a perfect inning, with two strikeouts.<\/p>\n Bachman\u2019s primary weapons are a 98 mph fastball and a slider, and he\u2019s trying to integrate a changeup.<\/p>\n \u201cI did it a lot in Triple-A and liked the results I was getting from it,\u201d Bachman said. \u201cJust mixing that in to lefties.\u201d<\/p>\n Bachman, 26, was the Angels\u2019 first-round pick from their all-pitcher draft in 2021. So far he\u2019s pitched just 37\u2153 innings in the majors, with a 4.82 ERA.<\/p>\n NOTES<\/p>\n The Angels had a \u201cshow and go\u201d day on Thursday, meaning there were no formal workouts in the morning before the game. Many players still showed up for individual hitting or fielding work, though. \u201cYou\u2019re excited right in the beginning, the first two weeks, then you kind of start hitting a little bit of a wall,\u201d Suzuki said. \u201cYou\u2019ve been going every day, waking up at 6:00 in the morning, 5:30, whatever. You wake up. You come here. Your body hits a little bit of a wall. I\u2019ve experienced it. I just felt like it was the right time to give the guys a \u2018show and go\u2019 and maybe energize them a little bit and break up the monotony of waking up at 5:30 every day. \u201c \u2026<\/p>\n Right-hander Caden Dana is still limited by an illness. He has not participated in any formal workouts with the rest of the pitchers. He\u2019s been coming to the facility to play catch on his own. Once Dana can return, the Angels will be able to assess how far behind he is, Suzuki said. \u2026<\/p>\n Left-handed reliever Brent Suter will start the Angels\u2019 exhibition against the Cincinnati Reds on Friday. Suzuki said they want Suter to be stretched out to be a multi-inning reliever. With Yusei Kikuchi gone for the World Baseball Classic, the Angels have a hole in their spring training rotation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEMPE, Ariz. \u2014 The highs and lows from Kyren Paris\u2019 season in 2025 would rival the most stomach-churning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2322,363,99],"class_list":["post-492262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}