The Angels will promote one of their top pitching prospects this weekend when 21-year-old lefty Jose Suarez takes the hill for his MLB debut on Sunday, as first reported by Halos Prospects (Twitter link).
Suarez is currently ranked as the game’s No. 97 overall prospect by Baseball America and No. 79 overall at Fangraphs. The Venezuelan-born southpaw soared through three levels in the minors in 2018, pitching to a combined 3.92 ERA with 10.9 K/9 and 3.4 BB/9 through 117 innings. He’s only appeared in five games (four starts) so far in 2019, all of which have come at the Triple-A level. In 23 innings, he’s worked to a 3.91 ERA with a 20-to-11 K/BB ratio and a 42.9 percent ground-ball rate. He’s averaged nearly 10 strikeouts per nine innings pitched throughout his minor league career.
When he arrives on the scene, Suarez will at least temporarily join the Angels’ other top pitching prospect, right-hander Griffin Caning, in the big league rotation. If nothing else, it’s an exciting pair of arms for Halos fans to dream upon as the rest of the rotation deals with familiar injury issues and some poor showings from offseason signees.
The Angels entered the season hopeful that better health from their in-house arms and the winter signings of Matt Harvey and Trevor Cahill to one-year pacts would yield better results than they’d gotten in recent seasons. Instead, both Harvey (currently on the injured list) and Cahill have earned run averages north of 6.00. Meanwhile, left-hander Andrew Heaney, arguably the team’s most talented starter, has made just one appearance after otherwise spending the season on the IL himself.
Struggles from the rotation have been a key factor — but not the only factor — in another lackluster start for the Angels, who currently sit at 27-29. They’re trailing the division-leading Astros by a 9.5-game margin but could still have Wild Card aspirations, as the AL Wild Card race is currently rife with mediocrity. The Rays and Yankees are currently only separated by a half game in the AL East, but whichever falls back to the Wild Card spot on a given day has a stranglehold on the first of the two AL slots. At the moment, that’s the 35-19 Rays, who have a seven-game lead over the two teams tied for the second position.
They really are desperate for pitching, rushing their prospects.
Lmao rushing? Canning is absolutely killing it right now, are you just a hater?
Agreed. Canning’s floor is so low and he’s two years older than Soroka. Who is a nice comp. Canning is so ready.
I don’t think Jose Suarez is ready, but he’s been pitching in this organization since 2015. So he might be half right.
How do you know Suarez is not ready unless you watched him pitch for SLC this year?
phi447
I never know who people are replying to. I wouldn’t know he wasn’t ready even if I did see him pitch. I’m not a scout. But he has walked 4.1 per nine at AAA and that’s concerning.
Canning was/is a different animal.
Unless everyone clicks the correct button,we are all replying to the 1st poster, the reply below each person is for them but everyone clicks and they all tag the 1 st person who posted
They have not rushed anyone. Why do you think they’ve had so many one year commitments the last few years?
He spent the majority of last year in AAA, as well as all of this year. I don’t think you’re looking at experience, rather you’re strictly looking at age. Maybe it’s a month or two early, but he was going to make his debut sometime this year. Especially with the way Cahill and Harvey have been pitching
Love it. Already has a good fastball and plus plus change. Added a curve last year and slider this year. Can’t wait to see how he does
Good to see a couple top notch rookies come up, hope it works out,Trout deserves to go to the show sooner or later, as with every team including ours we get stuck with some bad contracts that hamstring us. We’re still paying 16 million a year for Prince Fielder, you guys are stuck with a large sum of money for Pujols and I think the last of Hamilton. Actually we have 9 contracts this years of players not on our team to pay off,7 won’t be on us next year.
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Any idiot could have told Eppler Harvey and Cahill were not going to bring them into contention. Really really bad signings that contributed heavily to another down year, andwasting another of Trout’s prime years.
You are so right. Eppler bargain hunting on tight budget hurt the team. Too bad he did not sign one decent starter instead of two mediocre ones. Reminds me when the Angels did not sign Nolan Ryan.
Who would you have signed otherwise? It was pretty slim pickens.
Really.? So when the A’s took a chance on Cahill last year they were idiots? At the close of the 2018 season, Cahill was their best pitcher.
But you knew he was going to go from the best pitcher on a 97 win team to someone who would totally stink?
You guys really need to get a front office job because you are smarter than everyone.
Look at his entire career, not just one small sample size. Same problem haunts Dodgers with Joe Kelly, he did great in the playoffs last year, but look at his career. So, yeah myself and maybe a few million others with common sense could have made that prediction. Oh by the way, it wasn’t just Cahill that he whiffed on, he also whiffed on Harvey, but you conveniently failed to mention that.
Which is why you sign him to one year. The A’s took a chance on him last year and they won 97 games.
You want to rip him for Harvey. That has merit, but not Cahill.
It was never about actually trying to be in contention. The signings were solely about trying to convince low-information fans they were trying by giving big money to names they might know.
It is all a dog & pony show, and one that has been going on for years. Suarez being called up now is just more of the same.
Define contention? You people kill me.
The Angels starting point was a 500 team. By making small changes and getting some breaks, they could have pushed 88 to 90 wins.
What went wrong?
Cahill went from the best pitcher on a 97 win team to someone who should be out of baseball.
They lost their best pitcher. He has one start.
They lost their second best pitcher for three weeks.
They lost their second best player.
They lost their third best player.
Ohtani hasn’t hit…. yet.
Cozart has been less than worthless.
Bour forgot to hit RH pitching. HIs OPS went from over 800 to 575.
And with all those things going wrong, and little going right, they are a 500 team.
Imagine where they would be if things went right. Oh, they’d be pushing a team on pace for 88-90 wins.
Unless you have a math background you are just guessing.
Math background? How about a common sense background?
They were never going to compete with the Astros. So they wanted to add an extra 7 to 9 wins based on their starting point., a 500 teams. Which their W-L Exp Record supported.
Things didn’t go right. No
With so many things going wrong, SO MANY, and their team still being a 500 team, it’s not hard to understand what they were tying to do.
Cahill threw merely 110 innings last year.
Over the last 5 years he’s thrown just 413 innings and had a 4.50 ERA.
Harvey was only slightly better with 529 innings of 4.43 ERA over those 5 seasons
They knew Heaney was hurt before the season started
They knew Othani was hurt before the season, and they know he can’t hit a LH pitcher to save his life
No one wanted Bour for a reason
Cozart is over 30 and has only hit really 1 year in his entire career – despite playing in a hitters paradise. He’s also not a Third-baseman (similarly, Pujols isn’t a First-baseman either, but the front office doesn’t care about production so it’s ignored)
And they’ve gotten unbelievably lucky to be anywhere near 500, with players like Pena and Goodwin playing way over their head to make up the difference on guys who are hurt
This team was never constructed to do anything special – they were constructed to ideally stay around 500 so low-information fans like yourself keep the blind faith alive
Couldn’t have said it better. It’s the same narrative every season with this team. So many things go wrong and yet they’re still a .500 team.
Baseball dialog. No one wanted Boar because what teams other than the Angels needed a part time first baseman. It had nothing to do with his ability to hit.
So why did the A’s take a chance on Cahiill last year if it was so obvious? You knew his HR rate would go from 1 per nine to 2.7? You think the Angel would have been upset with a 4.36 ERA? Look who he was replacing.
About Cozart, they should have gotten Moustakas. It was a mistake. Who here wanted Moustakas? Oh wait, that was me.
They knew Othani was hurt. All the more reason for brining in a LH batter who could hit RH pitching. Oh wait, that didn’t work out. Bour with a lifetime 837 OPS against RH pitchers all of a sudden completely stopped hitting RH pitching.
And with all the other things that went wrong… They are still a 500 team.
Things go wrong because they were never really intended to go right
Harvey – past prime, always hurt, pitches poorly when is on mound
Cahill – past prime, always hurt, pitches poorly when is on mound
Allen – past prime, pitched poorly last 2 years because way overused
(Those are the supposed reinforcements for a rotation that had the fewest innings pitched of anyone because of constant injuries and nothing reliable in bullpen)
Lucroy – past prime, hasn’t been able to hit or field prior 2 years
Cozart – old, has one fluke year with bat in career, otherwise never once been above average player – and doesn’t even play position he was hired for
Bour – past prime, off nearly replacement level season,
They all have a lack of production and on the wrong side of their age curve in common, yet they were signed to a huge accumulative dollar amount not to honestly be productive and instead mainly to bring their name to the roster.
Same reason Peter Bourjos got into 26 games this season – Angels fans remember him and it made them excited to see him on the roster.
Right now the team doesn’t even have a back-up infielder, and instead has Pujols taking fielding practice at Third. They don’t care about being prepared at all, what so ever. Instead, they merely care about keeping the low-information fans appeased seeing names they know on the field
Want further proof it’s a dog and pony show though? Easy – start counting up all the rehab appearances of players before they were added back to the ML roster. Othani? Zero. Allen? Zero. Cozart last time he was on DL? Zero. Heaney? One at Triple-A. Skaggs? Zero
They don’t care about any of it. Health, production, depth; none of it. It’s not about any of that, it’s solely all about pulling the wool over the eyes of low-information fans
And just because you apparently know nothing about Cahill and seem to honestly believe it was a worthy chance signing, I’ll fill you in on a non-secret
2018 Home – 1.84 ERA, .179/.246/.289/.535 line against
2018 Road – 6.41 ERA, .285/.374/.419/.793 line against
Cahill wasn’t good last year, he just benifited heavily from the stadium in Oakland and having so few innings to be exposed further.
There is a lot of stuff here, which I do appreciate. I’m gong to completely stay away from the one year contracts, you either get it or you don’t. Seriously, did you think the answer was long term contracts this off-season? No one in their right mind thought that.
Lucroy – No one in their right mind has a problem with Lucroy. Especially on a one year deal. He was one of the best off-season signings period.
Fletcher is their back up infielder. So they don’t have a backup to their backup? Seriously.?
” a dog and pony show” Do you have a different cliché. It’s a stupid one.
I think you are the one that doesn’t understand things.
Back in January, who did you want to bring in? Most of those contracts are jokes. Lynn for 30 million? Talk about a gamble. I would have loved to sign Morton, but he wanted to play in Florida. He wasn’t coming here.
Did you want Eovaldi for 68 million. Corbin for 140 million? How about Happ? You saw Yusei Kikuchi last night. How’d he look? Typically Japanese pitchers hit the floor running, then get worse. I’m glad the Angels didn’t throw away 2020, trying to catch the uncatchable Astros. Eighty Eight wins, doable, catching the Astros… NOT.
Go down the list, other than those two, you have to go all the way down to #35 to get someone who might be someone you want. That’s Moustakas, and that’s the one guy I wanted. I was very vocal about it. Few agreed with me. Where were you then?
If you are going to be that ridiculous… His ERA in Anaheim lifetime is 3.56 in 60 Innings pitched.
And this year he did allow 6 runs in 4.1 innings at Oakland. I guess he forgot how to pitch there.
When you have 9 road starts and 6 are either at Boston, Houston and Texas, You might have a higher ERA.
I guess you don’t know Cahill all that well.
Lucroy has hit fine, with fairly average defense. That doesnt change the fact it was a chance signing with a huge dollar amount attached (5th highest Catcher AAV signed last off season) on a guy without production for 2 straight years. And for perspective, Smith has almost duplicated his production for league minimum while guys like Weiters have done about the same for less than half the cost. Now Lucroy isn’t the worst signing ever, but when coupled in together with all the other poor signings they tried to pass off as actually trying then all of a sudden you have a very, very clear trend
Then, do you even watch the games? Simmons is out for at least 2 months and Cozart went down 4 days ago – leaving them merely Rengifo at 2B, LaStella at 3B and making Fletcher the full time SS
So if Fletcher is now the full time SS, how can he also be the backup Infielder? Answer is, he can’t – they haven’t had one of those for 4 days. There is no backup infielder on this team right now
And it’s weird they have literally 0 backup infielders on the ML roster considering there are 6 possibilities on the Bees right now – so it’s not because no one is available to call up; it’s flat out they don’t care one bit to have any depth at the ML level
“Back in January, who did you want to bring in? Most of those contracts are jokes.”
The Angels signed these guys in the middle of December, well before seeing who would be available at bargin prices. They rushed out to get these guys
And they picked old/past prime absolutely always injured with poor production guys to go with their constant injured pitchers because?? I ask since that’s the exact opposite of what they actually needed – but getting what the needed wouldn’t have been flashy, so there’s your answer
And you really need to look in a minor to find the person that clearly has no idea what their talking about and doesn’t understand anything at all it seems. Seriously, a minute ago you were saying Bour was a good signing because he is a DH who can only hit RH pitching …to go with the other 2 DHs that can only hit RH pitching they have. This is because everyone knows a team needs 3 DH who can only hit RH pitching?
Or maybe you do honestly believe the plan was always to send Bour down after about a month when Othani, was hoped to come back? If that’s the case though, why did they give him 2.5 million? You believe they think Bour is a 2.5 million per month kind of hitter? Nope, they don’t – their plan was to have 3 DH limited guys who can only hit RH pitching
As far as Cahill – ohh, well your counter argument is ‘he didn’t pitch good in Oakland that one game this year’ which clearly proves …who knows what in your mind.
Here, I’ll go slow again for you:
Cahill – just 413 innings of 4.50 ERA pitching last 5 years. Only time he looked halfway decent? About 60 innings in Oakland with their massive foul territory last year, but not the other 50 innings on the road where he looked just as bad as he always has.
Now maybe you honestly feel those very, very few healthy innings of positive production only when in Oakland, after an accumulative 5 years of constant injuries and bad play, is honestly worth a minimum of 9, and up to 11 million after incentives?
Of course we know why you might believe that though too – you’ve completely bought into the dog and pony show they have been putting on your you (we’ve had this conversation before, I know how devoted you are to your blind faith and eternal optimism in the face of all hard evidence)
And here is where I’ll repeat this;
Othani – zero rehab games
Allen – zero rehab games
Cozart – zero rehab games
Skaggs – zero rehab games
Heaney – 1 rehab at AAA (70 pitches)
I believe that is even everyone to be activated from the IL directly to ML roster
Funny you apparently just missed that inclusion. It, coupled with zero backup infielder on the roster right now really slams home how uninterested the Angels are in being healthy and productive. There is absolutely no excuse for it, what so ever, yet it’s what the team does to keep the low-information fans going
I skipped over it because I have no idea what you are trying to convey. That Heaney should have been in the minor leagues and thrown another game or how Heaney wasn’t actually hurt?
And again, Flectcher is the backup infielder. They are suppose to have a back up to a back up.? Are you expecting a star to be your back up to your back up infielder.? Or do you want to acquire a worthless player and cut someone from the 40 roster? Or do you want to bring up a player? If someone gets hurt they’ll move Pujols to 3rd and the next day someone we’ll be here. I can’t believe you are getting worked up over a backup – backup infielder.
Oh wait, I get it, you want a back up, back up infielder instead of Cesar Puello, who came up when Cozart was put on the DL. That’s smart. Yeah move was a disaster.
By the way, your worry about Harvey and Cahill is they wouldn’t be healthy and you could spend the money batter. How would you have spent that 21 million dollars better? You made no comments how you you could, just that you could. People like you who don’t commit to anything but complain about how people do things are a dime a dozen.
They’re 5 games away from WC. That’s with 2 garbage SPs. It could fix in time.
Simmons was the nail in the coffin. The Angels had no wiggle room. They did a reasonable job of hanging around 500 with all their injuries, but he’s out for at least two months and I’ll be surprised if they don’t put him on the 60 day DL.
It was difficult to see before but now it’s nearly impossible.
Lmao clearly uneducated, how is it a bad signing when angels are working under pujols bad contract? They were worthy gambles that could have supplied angels with additional assests, unfortunately they havent panned out but the can cut bait after this year.
Any idiot should be able to understand that those short term commitments are meant to buy time for the farm system to get ready. If it works out and results in contention, great. But the Angels know where they stand and they’re focus is their future.
*their
You are wasting your time as a keyboard warrior. Why aren’t you running an organization?
As for the “idiots” … there were a lot of them. Both signings were generally praised by people who evaluate baseball for a living.
With Cahill, it was reasonable to expect a decent performance with limited innings. He was coming off a 2 win season in just 110 innings.
— Last 3 years of ERA included 3.76, 4.93, 2.74, So of course, the Angels should have expected him to post a 6.92 mark playing in Angel stadium behind their defense.
— His problem this year is the long ball. A full 25% of the fly balls hit off him are leaving the park. That’s double his career average. Further doesn’t help that people are hitting more fly balls in general against him. It’s also a number that tends to stabilize.
He needed to return a little over 1 win in value to justify the expense. A very reasonable bet to take.
As for Harvey, he came with more question marks (and arguably more upside). After turning things around in Cinc last year, he has slipped back to his 2017 form (a disaster of a season, recovering from one major surgery and requiring another major surgery later in the year). His performance this year isn’t completely shocking but it wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Plenty of people felt like he had turned a corner and could become a mid-rotation arm. It was a total gamble – one that didn’t pay off.
Finding articulate and coherent responses such as yours on a message board is a rare occurrence.
Thank you for adding sanity to an insane world.
The Angels were not trying to catch the Astros, they were trying to add 7 wins without adding contracts that would have to swallowed in 2020. I thought it was a good gamble.
Just Look at how many bad multiyear contracts were signed last year.
Suarez has improved on his ERA from last year!
the MLB needs to fine the Angels (as well as the Mets) for having such poor training staff/conditioning or whatever. both of these teams seem to not be able to properly treat their players and protect them from injuries properly.
What? Previously injured players tend to be more likely to be injured in the future. It’s a real water is wet type idea. Id imagine that you will see far fewer injuries on the next crop of Angels prospects.
Fine a team for their players getting injured? That makes as much sense as fining a car manufacturer because you drove your car into a ditch.
Arguably the stupidest comment I’ve seen on this thread.
He’ll have TJ by July.
Yay…let go Angel’s
Sweet! My wife and I have tickets to Sunday’s game up here in Seattle! Stoked to see the kids MLB debut!
This is exciting, we are starting to see some of the Angels top pitching prospects come up. Soon we will see LHP Patrick Sandoval.
Literally 3 days ago Ausmus said that Suarez was never considered an option to call up for a start because he is not ready and needs more time in the minors.
3 days later, the dog and pony show wins out over the longterm best interests of the team and it’s players.
“the dog and pony show”
Using the tired and meaningless Cliche’s I see. Get some new material.
By the way, a Dog and Pony show would have been raving about Suarez and then not bringing him up or Ausmus dissing him two days ago then raving about him today. Do you have those quotes? I’ve searched and can’t find them.
Does “I’d like him to get a little more work down there.” Mean he’s not ready? Maybe he wasn’t impressed with Nick Tropeano and thought Suarez might be better.
If you are going to use cliche’s at least understand their meaning.
luv the idea of these young arms. i’m sick and tired of guys that can’t hang. Skaggs and Heaney, if they can’t stay healthy, bye bye