Angels Rumors

Angels To Place David Fletcher On Injured List

By Darragh McDonald | September 17, 2022 at 10:03am CDT

Angels interim manager Phil Nevin told reporters, including Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register, that infielder David Fletcher will be going on the 10-day injured list. The corresponding move is not yet known.

Fletcher, 28, was hit on the hand by a pitch a week ago and has been clearly hurt since then. Despite a diminished swinging ability, he has continued taking the field but it seems the ailment will finally put him out of action for a spell. Sam Blum of The Athletic relays that scans on the hand came back negative, which is encouraging. Nevertheless, the club will keep him out of action for 10 days and hope to have him back for the final week of the season. The club is well out of contention, making it fairly logical to let him heal up and get some healthy at-bats before the winter arrives.

Regardless of how things play out from here, it will surely go down as a frustrating campaign for the infielder. This will be his third trip to the IL on the season, having already twice landed on the shelf due to a hip strain. With all that missed time, he’s only been able to get into 54 games on the season so far, producing a .259/.296/.349 batting line that’s been 18% below league average by measure of wRC+.

Fletcher has always provided strong defensive marks at multiple positions, which allows him to be a valuable player even if his bat is a bit below average. The shortened 2020 season is the only time he’s produced a wRC+ above 96, but he’s still produced 7.3 fWAR in 494 career games thanks to his glovework.

Despite having two superstars in Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani on the same team, the Angels have still struggled for years due to subpar performances elsewhere on the roster. MLBTR’s Steve Adams recently took a look at how the starting pitching may be in a better position than it has been in quite some time. With 2023 being Ohtani’s last season before becoming a free agent, it could be argued that the middle infield is the biggest weakness for next year’s club.

This year’s breakout of Luis Rengifo is an encouraging development in that department, but getting Fletcher healthy and productive could be another boost. In 2019, Fletcher played 154 games and produced a wRC+ of 96 but was still worth 3.1 fWAR thanks to his glovework at second base, third base, shortstop and the outfield corners. Rengifo can also play those positions but not as well, though he has hit .275/.305/.443 for a wRC+ of 110 this year. Anthony Rendon and Jared Walsh are expected to be on the corners, though each of those comes with question marks after injury-plagued seasons of their own. Rendon has missed most of this year due to a wrist injury that required surgery while Walsh underwent surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome a few weeks ago. Both are expected to be ready for Spring Training, and Rendon could even return this season, though there’s a great deal of uncertainty hanging over the club’s infield mix for a very crucial season.

The Angels’ Promising Young Lefties

By Steve Adams | September 15, 2022 at 7:08pm CDT

For years, there have been commonly cited (and generally deserved/accurate) narratives surrounding the Angels: They’re squandering the primes of Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. They can’t keep their roster healthy. They overspend on the wrong free agents. Holy cow, do they need pitching.

There’s merit to each and every one of those criticisms, but perhaps the longest-running critique has been that the Angels are in dire need of starting pitching. Year in and year out, the team would trot out an expensive core of position players while hoping to patch things together on the pitching staff.

Generally speaking, the Angels have shown an aversion to committing virtually any long-term risk to a starting pitcher. The team’s pursuit of Gerrit Cole is an exception to this thinking, but he may have been the exception. And the (obvious) fact of the matter is that even if the Angels were legitimately interested, Cole chose to sign elsewhere. The last time the Angels signed a free-agent starter for multiple years, Jerry Dipoto was the GM and Joe Blanton was inking a two-year deal.

That the Angels haven’t spent on starting pitching is just a fact — one that spans multiple general managers, thus pointing more toward an ownership preference. The team’s lack of investment beyond one-year deals, often for former stars in need of a rebound (e.g. Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, Julio Teheran), was generally apparent in the results. A repeated inability to develop homegrown arms is as big a factor, if not a larger factor of course, but from 2016-21, the Angels’ rotation ERA ranked 20th (4.78 in 2016), 12th (4.38 in 2017), 19th (4.34 in 2018), 29th (5.64 in 2019), 29th again (5.54 in 2020), and 22nd (4.78 in 2021). Taken as a whole, the 2016-21 Angels ranked 24th in the Majors with a 4.76 rotation ERA and 29th with just 39.8 fWAR out of their starting pitchers — about 42% of the nearby Dodgers’ MLB-best 92.4 fWAR in that time.

With yet another diappointing season brewing in Anaheim, it’s tempting to assume that it’s more of the same. The Angels, once again, stuck to one-year free agent deals for Syndergaard and Michael Lorenzen. They didn’t trade for anyone meaningful. And yet… the Angels’ rotation this season has not only been pretty good — ninth-best ERA in the sport — but finally appears poised for some longevity.

Ohtani, of course, is at the center of all things Angels — well, when Trout isn’t homering in seven straight games — and he’s been a huge part of the Angels’ rotation success this year. A lower innings count will probably keep Ohtani from legitimate Cy Young candidacy, but he’s tossed 141 innings of 2.55 ERA ball with a 33% strikeout rate that trails only Atlanta’s Spencer Strider for best in the game among starters. For once, Ohtani isn’t the only horse pulling his weight, however. Here’s a look at the next three up in the Anaheim rotation:

Patrick Sandoval, 25, LHP (controlled through 2026): 132 1/3 innings, 2.99 ERA, 23.6% strikeout rate, 9.3% walk rate, 3.19 FIP, 3.95 SIERA
Reid Detmers, 23, LHP (controlled through 2027): 113 innings, 3.82 ERA, 23% strikeout rate, 9.1% walk rate, 4.03 FIP, 4.13 SIERA
Jose Suarez, 24, LHP (controlled through 2026): 91 1/3 innings, 3.84 ERA, 22.3% strikeout rate, 7.9% walk rate, 4.03 FIP, 4.03 SIERA

It’s an impressive group of lefties all under 26 years of age and all controlled for at least four seasons beyond the current campaign. Health and year-to-year volatility are obviously considerations with any group of starting pitchers, but the Angels still have a solid trio here on which to build.

Sandoval is the “most experienced” of the bunch, though he’ll finish the season with just over two years of big league service time. Yesterday marked the 18th time in 24 starts this season that Sandoval has allowed two or fewer runs to an opponent.

The Halos originally acquired Sandoval from the Astros alongside a $250K international bonus slot in exchange for a Martin Maldonado rental back in 2018. (Maldonado re-signed in Houston a couple years later and has since signed an extension.) It’ll go down as one of the best moves now-Mets GM Billy Eppler made during his time as general manager of the Halos, as Sandoval looks to have established himself as a high-quality hurler.

While the 25-year-old southpaw isn’t a flamethrower, he’s turned in an above-average strikeout rate, a slightly worse-than-average walk rate, a strong ground-ball rate, and very good marks in swinging-strike and opponents’ chase rates (13.1% and 35.6%, respectively). He generates plenty of spin and whiffs with his breaking pitches and sits in the top quarter of big league pitchers in terms of limiting hard contact.

Dating back to last season, Sandoval has a 3.28 ERA in 219 2/3 innings. He’s fanned nearly a quarter of his opponents in that time — a bit more than a batter per inning — and kept nearly half of the batted balls against him on the ground.

Among the 104 pitchers who’ve totaled at least 200 innings since Opening Day 2021, only eleven have induced swinging strikes at a greater clip than Sandoval, and the names atop him on the list are a group of the game’s best: Corbin Burnes, Shane McClanahan, Max Scherzer, Kevin Gausman, Dylan Cease, Clayton Kershaw, Robbie Ray, Shane Bieber, Carlos Rodon, Cole and Ohtani. Not bad company! Sandoval has also posted the ninth-lowest opponents’ contact rate, trailing only Burnes, Cease, McClanahan, Freddy Peralta, Bieber, Kershaw, Scherzer and Blake Snell. Again — not a bad list of names with which to surround oneself.

Good as Sandoval has been, it might be Detmers that proves the best of the bunch. The No. 10 overall pick in the 2020 draft, Detmers sprinted through the minors and made his big league debut less than 14 months after being selected. Had there been a minor league season in 2020, the former Louisville standout might have reached the Majors even sooner.

Last year’s debut was rough for Detmers, and there’s no sugar-coating that fact. He was excellent across three minor league levels but was absolutely rocked in the Majors, yielding a 7.40 ERA with disappointing K-BB numbers and a hefty five long balls allowed in just 20 2/3 innings (five starts). Not the way anyone wants to make his debut — and certainly not a top prospect and former first-rounder who comes with a good bit of hype and lofty long-term expectations.

Detmers improved early in the 2022 season, even throwing a May 10 no-hitter against a contending Rays club. Skeptics could point out that he managed only two strikeouts that day, but a no-hitter in any capacity is a feat. The greater course of concern was simply that Detmers’ no-no was bookended by general mediocrity; as of late June, Detmers had a 4.66 ERA and 5.36 FIP in 58 innings. His career, to that point, included 17 starts of 5.38 ERA ball with peripherals that generally matched.

On June 22, Detmers was optioned to Triple-A. On July 8, he came back a different pitcher. Detmers threw 47.8% fastballs, 21.5% curveballs, 16.6% sliders and 14% changeups prior to being optioned. Since returning, he’s thrown 42.7% heaters, 32.4% sliders, 15.3% curveballs and 9.6% changeups. The slider usage is way up — nearly doubled — and all other offerings have been scaled back a few percentage points.

Prior to being optioned, Detmers’ 4.66 ERA/5.36 FIP were backed by an 18.6% strikeout rate, an 8.9% walk rate, a 35.9% grounder rate and an 8.7% swinging-strike rate. Since returning and ramping up his slider use, Detmers touts a 2.95 ERA/2.62 FIP with a 27.5% strikeout rate, a 9.4% walk rate, a 42% ground-ball rate and a 12.5% swinging-strike rate.

Detmers has given up eight runs in his past 9 1/3 innings — beginning the very day I mentioned this altered repertoire in a broader piece for our Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers… sorry for the jinx, Reid — but he also threw his slider less frequently in Monday’s start than he has since the June 21 outing that saw him optioned. It’s also worth pointing out that Detmers is up to 119 innings on the season between his one minor league appearance and 22 big league starts; there’s probably some fatigue for a pitcher who only threw 82 2/3 innings last year and didn’t have an actual minor league season in 2020.

The bottom line for Detmers is that he features high-end breaking stuff, even if his fastball is more hittable. Opponents are hitting .206/.257/.302 and have fanned in 29.2% of the plate appearances Detmers has ended with a slider this year; they’re hitting .192/.288/.365 off the curve and punching out at a 27.1% clip. No wonder he’s throwing the heater less and less often.

Not to be overshadowed, the 24-year-old Suarez has had a fine season of his own. He’s flown even more under the radar than his two teammates — so much so that I initially planned to title this “The Angels’ Pair of Promising Lefties” before reminding myself what a strong season Suarez has had.

Suarez hasn’t been as flashy as either Sandoval or Detmers. He throws a bit softer than both (92.8 mph average fastball compared to 93.3 mph for Detmers and Sandoval), doesn’t have a gaudy strikeout rate and is about average in terms of his walk rate. Suarez limits hard contact nicely, but not anywhere near league-leading levels. He’s posted solid but not elite marks in swinging-strike and opponents’ chase rate. Suarez hasn’t excelled in any one specific category, but he also hasn’t been bad or even much below-average in many areas, either.

It’s not the dominant ace profile around which to build your rotation… but no one’s asking Suarez to be that. He’s the Angels’ fourth starter right now, and he’s posting solid numbers while averaging 5 2/3 innings per start. It’s the second straight year that Suarez has notched an ERA right in this same vicinity — he was at 3.75 in 98 1/3 innings last year as a swingman — but he’s improved each of his strikeout rate, walk rate, swinging-strike rate, chase rate and first-pitch strike rate. Suarez has been more aggressive in the strike zone, and a quite likely corollary has seen hitters chase off the plate more often (while making contact on those chases at a lower rate than in 2021).

It’s not an out-of-nowhere development, either. Suarez doesn’t have the big-time draft pedigree that Detmers does. Still, he was a well-regarded prospect in an admittedly thin Angels system, even reaching top-100 status at FanGraphs back in 2019, when he was listed baseball’s No. 79 prospect. At the time, Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel noted on their scouting report that an uptick in velocity elevated Suarez to “project as a good fourth starter,” which is exactly what he’s become.

Understandably, the long-term focus for Angels fans is on what the future holds for Ohtani. Will he be traded? Can a new owner somehow convince him to sign an extension, even though Ohtani has publicly stated a desire to win? Those questions might not be answered until it’s clear who’s purchasing the team and when that theoretical new owner might be installed as the club’s control person.

At least for the time being, however, Ohtani is in line to return for his final season of club control, when he’ll both serve as DH and the ace to a staff that can follow him with a pair of solid No. 2/No. 3 starters (Detmers, Sandoval) and a quality No. 4 starter (Suarez). It’s a very nice foundation on which to build a starting staff, and while the Halos might need another starter — or even two, if they continue to deploy a six-man group — for once, the primary question surrounding them won’t be, “When are they going to get some pitching?”

Andrew Velazquez To Undergo Knee Surgery

By Steve Adams | September 14, 2022 at 10:29am CDT

The Angels announced Wednesday that infielder Andrew Velazquez has been diagnosed with a torn meniscus in his right knee and has been placed on the 10-day injured list. Infielder Michael Stefanic is up from Triple-A Salt Lake in his place, the team added. Velazquez exited yesterday’s game after four innings due to a knee injury sustained while making a play at shortstop.

Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register tweets that Velazquez is set to undergo surgery, which comes with a recovery period of six to eight weeks. That, obviously, brings the season to an end for Velazquez, who’ll likely be transferred to the 60-day IL the next time the Angels need a 40-man roster spot.

Claimed off waivers out of the Yankees organization last November, Velazquez received a career-high 349 plate appearances with the 2022 Angels — nearly double his career total of plate appearances in parts of four seasons prior to the current campaign. He posted a dismal .196/.236/.304 batting line in that time — roughly 51% worst than league average, by measure of wRC+.

As one would expect for a player who struggled so considerably at the plate, Velazquez’s glovework graded out quite well. He posted a whopping 13 Defensive Runs Saved at shortstop, and while Statcast wasn’t as bullish, he still notched positive marks in Outs Above Average (5) and Runs Above Average (3). Strong as the defense may be, however, the overreliance on Velazquez speaks to the general lack of depth in the Angels organization; he split time at the position with the since-traded Tyler Wade and fellow infielders David Fletcher and Luis Rengifo. Both Fletcher and Rengifo are best suited for other infield positions, and Fletcher missed substantial time on the injured list this season.

As for Velazquez’s future with the club, it’s possible that between this year’s struggles and this new injury, that he could be removed from the 40-man roster following the season. If he remains on the 40-man roster he’ll be right on the cusp of Super Two status this winter, finishing out the season at two years and 126 days (2.126) of service time. Over the past three years, the respective Super Two cutoffs have been 2.116, 2.125 and 2.115.

Whether Velazquez returns or not, addressing the organizational depth at shortstop figures to be on the offseason to-do list for the Angels. They’ll stand out as a feasible landing spot for an impactful option at the position, depending of course on a potential new owner’s willingness to spend, but even in the absence of a major acquisition, the Halos should be in the market for at least a modest short-term upgrade.

Outrights: Aguilar, Beaty, Garcia, Barrera

By Anthony Franco | September 13, 2022 at 8:14pm CDT

A handful of players recently designated for assignment have gone unclaimed on waivers in recent days.

The Angels announced today that outfielder Ryan Aguilar was outrighted to Triple-A Salt Lake. The 28-year-old is now in line for what’ll be the first Triple-A experience of his career. Aguilar had never played above Double-A before he was called up last month — first as a temporary replacement for players unable to travel to Toronto and then as a formal addition to the 40-man roster. Aguilar only got into seven games during his MLB look, though, striking out in 14 of 26 plate appearances before being designated for assignment last week. He’d struck out in 27.2% of his plate appearances at Double-A Rocket City this year, but he’d also drawn walks at an incredible 19% clip and posted a huge .280/.427/.517 showing in 88 games there. The lefty-hitting outfielder will stick in the organization for now, but he’ll qualify for minor league free agency at the end of the year if he’s not reselected onto the 40-man roster.
Infielder/outfielder Matt Beaty has cleared waivers after being designated for assignment by the Padres, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. Acquired from the division rival Dodgers before the season, Beaty only appeared in 20 games with San Diego and hit .093/.170/.163 without a home run. He lost the bulk of the year to a shoulder impingement. It’s been a tough season, but the left-handed hitter is only a year removed from a productive .270/.363/.402 showing over 234 plate appearances with Los Angeles. Beaty surpassed three years of MLB service this season, giving him the right to refuse an assignment to Triple-A El Paso in favor of free agency.
The Orioles announced that right-hander Rico Garcia was outrighted to Triple-A Norolk. Baltimore designated the 28-year-old for assignment over the weekend upon claiming Cam Gallagher off waivers. Garcia has appeared in six big league games this season, working eight frames of four-run ball. He’s only struck out two batters, but he has a more impressive 27% strikeout rate in 30 1/3 innings with the Tides this year. Garcia has never previously been outrighted and doesn’t have three years of service, so he’ll stick in the organization without occupying a 40-man roster spot. He’ll be eligible for free agency at the end of the season if not added back to the roster.
Athletics outfielder Luis Barrera has been outrighted to Triple-A Las Vegas, according to his MLB.com transactions log. Barrera lost his roster spot when Oakland claimed Conner Capel from the Cardinals last week. The left-hander has tallied a career-high 85 MLB plate appearances this year, hitting .234/.294/.338 with his first home run. Barrera has slightly below-average numbers in Triple-A and has been outrighted twice this season, giving him the right to test free agency this time around.

Anthony Rendon Hoping To Return This Season

By Anthony Franco | September 12, 2022 at 10:19pm CDT

Anthony Rendon underwent right wrist surgery in June, the continuation of a series of injuries that have plagued his past two seasons. The Angels announced he’d need four-to-six months to recover and proclaimed the surgery season-ending, but Rendon is holding out hope of a late-season return.

“That’s always been the thing, to come back,” Rendon told reporters this afternoon (via Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register). “That’s what I was pushing for the whole time. I’m going to push myself, push myself. I’m going to have them push me, push me. And if it works, we’re going to listen to my body. If it doesn’t feel good, we’ll pull it back. We’re just going to push as much as my body will take.”

To that end, Rendon took on-field batting practice for the first time since his surgery today. Fletcher adds that he’s been able to participate in defensive drills as well, perhaps enabling him to get back on the diamond before the season is out. There are a bit more than three weeks remaining on the schedule, with the season wrapping up on October 5.

The Halos are just playing out the stretch, of course, so there’s no reason to force Rendon onto the field before he’s ready. If he’s up to playing for even a week or two, however, it could have some benefits for the club as they turn their attention to 2023. Rendon indicated he’d feel better about his offseason preparation if he were able to make it back this year and log some game action heading into the winter.

Getting reinstated from the injured list this season would also expedite his return to the field in 2023. Not long after Rendon was injured, the Angels and Mariners engaged in a massive bench-clearing brawl. MLB handed the third baseman a five-game suspension for his actions during the melee. His suspension can’t be served until he’s reinstated from the IL. If he doesn’t make it back this season, Rendon would have to serve that ban to kick off next year.

Rendon appeared in 45 games before the surgery, hitting .228/.324/.383 with five home runs. After a massive showing during the shortened 2020 campaign, he’s had two seasons with roughly average production with IL stints for groin, knee, hamstring, hip and wrist issues interspersed throughout. He’s under contract for another four seasons beyond this year.

AL West Notes: Angels, Verlander, Gray, Howard

By Mark Polishuk | September 11, 2022 at 6:19pm CDT

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong is considering a bid on the Angels, according to Sportico’s Eric Jackson and Scott Soshnick. The billionaire isn’t giving official comment, but Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times heard that Soon-Shiong is indeed weighing the possibility of buying the franchise. The 70-year-old Soon-Shiong is a former transplant surgeon who built a fortune in the medical technology and pharmaceutical industries, and his business holdings also include both the L.A. Times and San Diego Union-Tribune newspapers.

This isn’t the first time Soon-Shiong has tried to get involved in baseball, as his ownership group was the runner-up bidder for the Dodgers in 2012 when Guggenheim Baseball Management bought the franchise. Now, Soon-Shiong will apparently see if he can purchase the other Los Angeles area team, as Angels owner Arte Moreno said last month that he is considering a sale. There is expected to be plenty of bidding on the Angels, and it seems quite possible that the price tag could end up approaching the $3 billion mark.

Angels Designate Ryan Aguilar For Assignment

By Steve Adams | September 9, 2022 at 1:06pm CDT

The Angels announced Friday that outfielder Ryan Aguilar has been designated for assignment, and right-hander Touki Toussaint has been optioned to Triple-A Salt Lake. That pair of roster spots will go to righty Michael Lorenzen and outfielder Mickey Moniak, each of whom has been reinstated from the injured list.

Aguilar, 27, made his big league debut this year after six years in the minors. He appeared in just seven games with the Halos, hitting .136/.231/.182 in a tiny sample of 26 trips to the plate. He had a much better showing with the Halos’ Double-A affiliate, where he turned in a .280/.427/.517 with 15 homers, 13 doubles, three triples, 11 steals and a ridiculous 19% walk rate in 348 plate appearances. Strikeouts have been an issue in the minors, however, and Aguilar fanned in 14 of his 26 Major League plate appearances as well (53.8%).

A 31st-round draft pick by the Brewers back in 2016, Aguilar was in Milwaukee’s system until last August, when he was released on the heels of a dismal showing in their own Double-A affiliate. He’s still never played a game at the Triple-A level. The Angels will place Aguilar on either outright waivers or release waivers within the week, now that he’s been dropped from the 40-man roster. He’s never been outrighted and doesn’t have three years of Major League service time, so if Aguilar clears waivers, he’ll remain with the Angels organization (sans the 40-man roster spot).

Lorenzen, who carries a 4.94 ERA in 71 innings this season (13 starts), has been out since July 1 due to a shoulder strain. He inked a one-year, $7MM deal with the Angels over the winter and will again be a free agent this coming offseason. Moniak, acquired in the deadline trade that sent Noah Syndergaard to Philadelphia, went 4-for-14 with a pair of homers in his first 15 plate appearances with the Angels, but he suffered a broken finger on a bunt attempt during just his fifth game with his new team. He missed just over a month of action.

The Changing Landscape Of The AL Cy Young Race

By Steve Adams | September 8, 2022 at 6:57pm CDT

Two weeks ago, the Cy Young race in the American League looked like a two-horse race, with both Houston’s Justin Verlander and Tampa Bay’s Shane McClanahan hovering at or below the 2.00 ERA mark and racking up innings atop their teams’ respective rotations. McClanahan has the larger strikeout percentage and subsequently superior marks from fielding-independent metrics that some voters increasingly weigh. Verlander was averaging one extra out recorded per start prior to being lifted early his last time out, and his 16-3 win-loss record might hold some sway with traditionalist voters.

Or, all of that could be rendered moot.

Both Verlander and McClanahan are on the 15-day injured list, and Verlander, who had been improbably leading the Majors in ERA as a 39-year-old in his first season back from Tommy John surgery, sounds as though he’ll miss several weeks rather than just the 15-day minimum. McClanahan, a late scratch from his last start, is already throwing and seems likelier to make a quick return. However, the Rays could very well take a cautious approach and limit his innings after a two-week absence due to a shoulder impingement.

At the very least, the door is now open for further competition in Cy Young voting, ostensibly setting the stage for the closest AL vote we’ve seen since 2019, when Verlander and then-teammate Gerrit Cole finished in the top two positions on the ballot. Last year’s NL Cy Young voting sparked plenty of controversy and debate as well, and as things currently stand, we could get an encore of that scene in the AL this year.

If not Verlander or McClanahan, who are the top names to consider? Let’s dive in.

Dylan Cease, RHP, White Sox

Cease, following a near-no-hitter against the Twins that saw him go 8 2/3 before Luis Arraez cracked a ninth-inning single, may have leapfrogged both Verlander and McClanahan as the odds-on favorite in the American League. He’s sitting on MLB’s third-lowest ERA — sandwiched right between Verlander and McClanahan, no less — and that 2.13 mark is complemented by a 31.4% strikeout rate that ranks as the fourth-highest of any qualified starting pitcher in baseball.

At 5.5 wins above replacement (per Baseball Reference), Cease already leads American League pitchers — even over Verlander and McClanahan. That’d due largely to the fact that Cease is putting up these numbers in front of one of the game’s bottom-10 defenses.

It’s not all roses, as Cease has a 10.4% walk rate that sits dead last among qualified starters. He hasn’t been terribly efficient, either; where both Verlander and McClanahan have averaged comfortably more than six innings per start, Cease has averaged 5.77 innings per appearance this year.

Still, Chicagoans can no doubt see the parallels between Cease’s 2022 showing and the 2016 performance of another Chicago hurler — crosstown righty Jake Arrieta, when he rode a historic summer surge to Cy Young honors. Over his past 15 starts, Cease has tallied 93 innings of 1.45 ERA ball and held opponents to one or zero runs on a dozen occasions. Cease isn’t quite in Arrieta territory (0.86 ERA in his final 147 innings), but he’s not terribly far off, either. If he can sustain anything close to this pace, Cease will finish the season at or near the top of the AL in terms of innings pitched, ERA, total strikeouts and strikeout rate.

Alek Manoah, RHP, Blue Jays

Manoah looked borderline unhittable for the season’s first two months, carrying a 1.67 ERA in that time and allowing just 55 hits and a 0.59 HR/9 mark through June 13 (75 2/3 innings). He had a solid but closer-to-average run for much of the summer but has now yielded just three runs in his past 28 1/3 innings.

At 171 innings of 2.42 ERA ball on the year, the 24-year-old is on the periphery of the race at present. He ranks fourth in American League ERA but trails McClanahan, Cease and especially Verlander in that department. He lacks the gaudy strikeout ratios boasted by both Cease and McClanahan but limits hard contact better than any non-McClanahan pitcher in the AL, evidenced by a 31.3% hard-hit rate. (McClanahan leads qualified AL starters at 30.1%.)

However, Manoah’s 171 are second-most in the American League, and if he continues this hot streak, there’s a chance he could wind up among the league leaders in ERA, innings pitched and other key categories. In terms of wins and losses, everyone’s trailing Verlander’s 16 victories, but Manoah’s 14 are tied with Framber Valdez for second in the league. Speaking of which…

Framber Valdez, LHP, Astros

It’s easy to be overshadowed by the season Verlander is enjoying, but we should all probably be discussing Valdez’s outstanding year more than we are. The 28-year-old southpaw is just one-third of an inning behind Manoah at 170 2/3, and he also sits sixth in ERA (2.64) and ninth in bWAR (3.4).

Valdez has emerged as baseball’s preeminent ground-ball starting pitcher, and it’s not close; he leads all qualified pitchers in ground-ball rate at 66.7%, and Logan Webb’s 57.5% rate is second-best. Even dropping the minimum to 50 innings as a starter, he still leads Alex Cobb (61.9%) and Andre Pallante (61.4%) by a wide margin.

In an age where starters are yanked from the game earlier than ever before, Valdez is a throwback. He’s worked at least six innings in every one of his starts since April 25, completing seven or more innings on 11 occasions and twice going the distance with a complete game. Over his past five starts, Valdez has 35 2/3 innings of 1.77 ERA ball. It’ll be a challenge for him to drop his ERA into the low 2.00s, and he can’t match Cease or McClanahan in terms of strikeouts, but Valdez will likely be the American League innings leader and finish with a mid-2.00s ERA and MLB-leading ground-ball rate.

Shohei Ohtani, RHP, Angels

When Ohtani pitched to a 3.99 ERA through the first six weeks of the season, it looked as if we were in for an (almost) mortal season out of the two-way phenom. He averaged just over five innings per start, and while the strikeouts were still there in droves, he was also unusually homer-prone. A Cy Young pursuit did not appear to be on the horizon.

In 88 2/3 innings since that time? Ohtani has a 1.83 ERA with fewer homers allowed (six) than in his first 47 1/3 innings (seven). He at one point rattled off six consecutive starts with double-digit strikeout totals, and opponents have batted .199/.249/.301 against him during this stretch.

Ohtani’s 33% strikeout rate on the season leads qualified starting pitchers (though would trail Braves phenom Spencer Strider by a good margin if Strider had a few more innings), and while many fans and Ohtani detractors bristle at the notion, it’s hard not to consider that he does all this while also serving as a middle-of-the-order slugger who ranks among the league’s top power threats.

Ultimately, with just 136 innings pitched this season, it’s hard to imagine that Ohtani will actually garner many (if any) first-place Cy Young votes. Yes, he’s sporting a 2.58 ERA, leading the league with a 33% strikeout rate and sitting second among AL starters with 4.7 bWAR. But Ohtani is ultimately going to be up against multiple starters with better bottom-line run prevention numbers and as many as 40 to 50 additional innings pitched. Corbin Burnes won an NL Cy Young last year with just 167 frames, but the top names in the American League this year have had better seasons.

Kevin Gausman, RHP, Blue Jays

Gausman will be the analytic darling in this year’s field. I debated whether to mention him at all for this breakdown, as he’d need a pretty dominant finish to push his way in among the leaders in more traditional categories, but the right-hander is second in the American League at FanGraphs with 5.2 wins above replacement. fWAR is based on fielding-independent pitching rather than actual runs allowed, and Gausman has been quite good this season — 3.12 ERA in 147 innings — despite being one of the game’s least-fortunate pitchers in terms of balls in play. He’s lugging around an MLB-worst .368 BABIP, and the next-highest mark (Jordan Lyles at .323) isn’t even close.

There’s perhaps some temptation to think that Gausman is then yielding far too much hard contact, but that’s not necessarily the case. He’s not managing contact as well as any of the others profiled here, but his 89 mph average exit velocity and 39% hard-hit rate are barely north of the respective 88.6 mph and 38.3% league averages in those regards.

Gausman has the game’s third-best walk rate (3.8%), the tenth-best strikeout rate (27.9%) and is sixth-best in the differential between those two (24.1 K-BB%). He’s averaging just 5 2/3 innings per start, however, and isn’t particularly helping his cause down the stretch (3.99 ERA over his past five outings… again, with a .370 BABIP).

—

A lot can (and will) change between now and season’s end, but since this is all just for debate anyhow, I’ll include a poll to close this out:

Two Minor Leaguers File Lawsuit Against Angels In Dominican Court

By Steve Adams | September 8, 2022 at 2:48pm CDT

A pair of minor league players have filed suit against the Angels for allegedly reneging on verbal agreements made back in 2019, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports. Outfielder Willy Fañas, now with the Mets, and infielder Keiderson Pavon, now with the Rangers, claim that the Angels verbally agreed to respective signing bonuses of $1.8MM and $425K in 2019. The Dominican Prospect League shared a video of former Angels director of international scouting Carlos Gomez (not the former player) informing Pavon the team plans to sign him, at which point a then 15-year-old Pavon breaks down in tears of joy (YouTube link).

Fañas and Pavon allege that those agreements, which came more than a year in advance of the players’ eligibility to sign under Major League Baseball’s rules — international amateurs can sign beginning on their 16th birthdays — were withdrawn in 2020, less than one month before the international signing period was set to commence. Fañas had been 14 at the time of his agreement; Pavon was 15. As Passan points out, the Covid-19 pandemic pushed the July 2, 2020 signing eligibility date back to January of 2021, and by that point, the Halos had fired then-GM Billy Eppler and replaced him with current GM Perry Minasian. With that change came alterations in the international scouting department; Minasian hired Brian Parker to oversee the team’s international operations.

Both players have since signed with new clubs, though Fañas waited until the following signing period to put pen to paper on a contract with a new team. Because early deals just such as these are so common throughout the industry, neither player was able to find a team able to immediately commit a substantial bonus; like the Angels, other teams had already verbally committed the majority of resources in their hard-capped signing pools to other amateurs well in advance of those teenage prospects reaching actual signing eligibility. Fañas, perhaps unsurprisingly, ultimately inked a $1.5MM bonus with the Mets, where Eppler is now GM. Pavon signed for $150K with the Rangers.

While both players eventually found organizations with which to sign, albeit at reduced rates, they’re still seeking damages from the Angels. Fañas is seeking $17MM, while Pavon seeks $4.25MM.

Those figures represent roughly ten times what the Angels had initially promised, though the representatives for Fañas and Pavon could cite multiple factors in seeking such weighty sums. It’s common for players, upon reaching a verbal agreement with a team, to take out loans with exorbitant interest rates, with the intent that the eventual signing bonus will allow those players to pay back that loan. The team withdrawing an offer obviously creates complications in such instances. Speculatively, it’s also plausible that the Fañas and Pavon camps could claim the players’ delayed paths to potential arbitration and free-agent paydays were delayed by the alleged Angels actions. There’s no guarantee they’d ever reach those milestones, of course, and quantifying the exact amount that delay cost either player is impossible.

Whether the suit is successful carries long-term ramifications with regard to the broader international market. Because the league and players association were unable to come to terms on an agreement regarding an international draft, the status quo system that permits this level of largely unregulated advance agreements is likely to remain in place until 2026, when the current collective bargaining agreement expires. If Fañas and Pavon are successful in demonstrating that there are repercussions for teams pursuing premature verbal agreements that flout the rules put into place by MLB, it stands to reason that they may be more reluctant to barter such deals.

The sword cuts both ways, it should be noted. It’s also not uncommon for a player and his trainer and representation to back out of an agreement with a team if he elevates his profile considerably between the time that agreement is reached and the time he’s actually eligible to sign. The rampant disregard for rules prompted agent Ulises Cabrera, who helped establish the Dominican Prospect League and who works with dozens of Latin American players, to refer to the entire system as “the wild, wild West” when speaking to ESPN.

Although the suit was initially filed in May, any ruling on the litigation will wait until months down the road. Passan adds that a Dominican judge recently moved to postpone the appearance of witnesses until late November. And while many American fans may wonder whether there’s any real chance that a court of law would agree to uphold a verbal agreement as a binding contract, Passan quotes several Dominican lawyers and legal professionals who emphasize that the Dominican justice system places greater emphasis on verbal declarations than the United States court system does. The report features lengthy quotes from Cabrera, from the lawyers representing Fañas and Pavon, from third-party legal professionals in the Dominican and from the plaintiffs themselves, so those with interest will want to check it out in its entirety to grasp the full scope of the controversy.

Angels Acquire Nash Walters From Brewers

By Darragh McDonald | September 4, 2022 at 7:47pm CDT

The Angels announced a trade with the Brewers today, acquiring right-hander Nash Walters in exchange for cash considerations. Walters has been selected to the 40-man roster and optioned to Triple-A Salt Lake. To make room on the roster, left-hander Jhonathan Diaz was recalled from Salt Lake and placed on the 60-day injured list. Walters was eligible to be traded after the deadline because he had not been on a 40-man roster or been on the Major League injured list all year.

Walters, 25, lands on an MLB roster for the first time, but it hasn’t been an easy ride. He was a third-round selection of the Brewers, getting scooped up 90th overall in 2015 out of Lindale High School in Lindale, Texas. After getting drafted, he pitched in rookie ball in 2015 and again in 2016, but he had his progress paused by Tommy John surgery in 2017. He returned to the mound in 2019, throwing 50 1/3 innings in rookie ball, but then the pandemic wiped out the 2020 season for minor leaguers.

Last year, Walters was able to throw 60 1/3 innings out of the bullpen of the High-A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. He put up a 4.33 ERA along with a 29.9% strikeout rate and 41.3% ground ball rate. The 10.6% walk rate was definitely on the high side, though it was an improvement over his rookie ball days. Here in 2022, he’s split his time between Double-A and Triple-A, throwing 48 1/3 innings with a 4.47 ERA, 32.2% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate. A 62.3% strand rate is likely making that ERA look worse than it should be, given that the MLB league average is 72.4%.

As for Diaz, 25, he’s been optioned and recalled for much of the season, splitting his time between the Angels and the Bees. He last pitched in Triple-A on July 16. He has a 2.93 ERA this year in 15 1/3 MLB innings and a 4.98 ERA in 47 Triple-A innings.

« Previous Page

Load More Posts

Show all

Headlines

Angels Rumors

Navigation

MLBTR INFO

Connect