As expected, Angels starter C.J. Wilson has decided to undergo elbow surgery and will miss the rest of the season, Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times reports on Twitter. Wilson is expected to be ready for the spring.
Wilson was reportedly weighing whether or not to go under the knife after dealing with multiple bone spurs all season long. He’s previously had clean-up operations with good results, and was able to toss over two hundred innings in 2013 after having bone spurs removed over the prior offseason.
Wilson topped that inning mark in four straight seasons, including his first two with the Angels, but fell shy last year and will do so again in 2015. He’ll wrap up his season with 132 frames of 3.89 ERA pitching, with 7.5 K/9 against 3.1 BB/9. The Halos owe Wilson $20MM next year, the final season of his contract.
At this point, it’s no surprise to the Angels that they’ll be without Wilson, and an outside addition seems unlikely. But it certainly hurts to lose depth, and the injury (plus his large salary) will make it rather difficult for the team to consider trading Wilson over the winter.
only one more season of this guy
I bothers me that people think he’s soft though. He’s 20th in IP over the last 3.5 years and has a 3.87/3.94/4.06 ERA/FIP/xFIP line. That’s not an ace, but he never ever was one. He’s always been a #3 and he’s been that his entire deal.
Regardless if you think CJ was good or not this year, his inning(s) output was important to the Angels. I just can’t help but wonder why a front office would add 3!!! Aging corner out fielders at the trade deadline when the obvious need was starting pitching.
Outside of Richards the rest of the rotation isn’t contention worthy. Just baffles me that the best (regular season) team last year didn’t add any starting pitching this year. Heaney has been great but he’s still young and has had what? 12 career starts. If the Angels want to take the next step forward they have alot of work to do in the off season.
Because they need Offense more than anything, and gave pretty much nothing for those 3 OF
They are currently 7th in the AL in OPS+ and 8th in the AL in team ERA+, so they really needed to upgrade both. However, they did go down the stretch last year with only a 4 man rotation and handed the 5th day over to the pen when needed, so maybe they will just do that again. Did they have farm pieces to move that other teams would want though? Nope, not yet. They couldn’t match the quality of young talent moved by the teams that made the big splashes at the deadline.
And Richards, Weaver, Shoemaker & Heaney is a just fine rotation, thank you very much. The Angels are in ok shape but I wouldn’t be surprised if they took on Shields contract this month as a precaution as the Astros look to be in free-fall and the Angels certainly are contending.
Still think the rotation is just fine? You’re tripping. Shoe just got optioned. Weaver is not effective anymore. CJ is gone. Santiago only lasts 5-6 innings. Leaves Richards and Heaney.
Angels are free falling. They should be in first no doubt. Going to be a rough stretch on the rotation. The offense is still sputtering.
The Angels lose their starting C/3B after this year. 2b has been a black hole since Howie left. LF was addressed at the trade deadline. Starting pitching is expensive and lackluster.
Like I said above. Angels got some work to do in the offseason. Weak farm system doesn’t help either.
It’s disappointing that people still question CJ Wilson. If he needs surgery, he needs surgery. As far as trading him? No way– he may have had a rocky second half of last season, but he’s been mostly solid…. not his fault that the Angels largely stink this year. Want to point the fingers? Maybe start with Chris Ianetta and Matt Joyce. You gotta like Albert’s 30 home runs, but half of those were clustered in a two week span… but he’s hitting about .240 excluding all that hot streak. CJ didn’t trade Howie Kendrick. CJ didn’t acquire a bunch of light hitting middle infielders. CJ didn’t prematurely pull the eject lever on Hamilton. The whole DiPoto vs Scioscia thing wasn’t CJ’s fault. He’s actually pitched pretty well and I’d keep him around if we could.