Although Taylor Ward is now 28 years old and in his fifth season with the Los Angeles Angels, the outfielder is having his best season yet as he proves he’s among MLB’s best offensive players.
Although he has cooled off from his early-season start where he was the best hitter in baseball, Ward is still slashing .312/.399/.548 with a .406 wOBA, 172 wRC+ and 11 home runs across 54 games.
Coming into 2022, Ward was sort of just a guy that former manager Joe Maddon noted would be in the mix for the starting right field slot. As a career .254/.333/.435 hitter, nobody could’ve predicted this level of production.
Ward is having so much success because of a swing change and new philosophy on hitting that he worked on in the offseason, he said via Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times:
“I did a lot of swing changes with my guy, Trent Woodward,” Ward said. “He learned a lot while he was with the Astros and filled me in on the philosophies they were learning at the time. I’ve taken those to heart and have really taken them to another level, and that’s really what helped me.”
Ward just misses advancing to All-Star voting phase 2
Although it looked like Taylor Ward had a good chance to advance to the second round of All-Star Game voting, he finished seventh in outfield voting with 1,159,474 votes. The Angels had two players advance to Phase 2 of voting for the 2022 MLB All-Star Game. Trout and Ohtani both placed within the top two vote-getters at their respective positions in the American League ballot. With 3,381,758 votes, Trout trailed only New York Yankees star Aaron Judge, who led all players in MLB with 3,762,498 votes. Ohtani finished second at the designated hitter position with 1,664,012 votes to Yordan Alvarez of the Houston Astros, who had 2,215,456. Make sure to follow Angels Nation on Twitter for all the latest news and updates surrounding the Halos!
