The Angels announced today that they have shut down rookie right-hander Griffin Canning. He’s said to be dealing with mild inflammation in his right elbow.
That general diagnosis was already known. Canning was placed on the injured list yesterday. What wasn’t clear then is the newly announced course of action, which is obviously intended to avoid any further problems down the stretch.
The team did not expressly specify in its announcement whether there is any concern regarding underlying structural issues. But some reporters, including Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register (Twitter link), have suggested that’s the appropriate interpretation of the comment. If so, that’s rather promising news for an important organizational asset.
Regardless, it’s a disappointing and all-too-familiar way for the season to end for a Halos hurler. The club has endured a seemingly endless array of injuries to starters in recent seasons.
Canning won’t wrap things up as hoped, but he still turned in an impressive initial showing. After three outstanding starts at Triple-A, he worked to a 4.58 ERA with 9.6 K/9 and 3.0 BB/9 in 90 1/3 MLB innings. Canning proved he can induce whiffs in the majors, sporting a 13.8% swinging-strike rate, and seems likely to be a quality and cost-controlled big league starter for years to come — so long as he can stay healthy.
Good. He got his feet wet at the MLB level, held his own for the most part, experienced enough adversity to learn. No need in putting miles on his arm in a lost season.
He threw 113 innings last year. He threw 106 innings this year.
It’s not like the Angels are overworking this guy.
He did get overworked in college (why he fell to 2nd round, or at least that’s what they say). But the way things have gone with Angels’ pitchers last few years, I don’t have good feelings about this.
He’s hurt. There is no reason to rush him through a rehab to get him back on the mound in the next 5 weeks.
Better to protect your pitching assets as your organization has a history of losing starting pitching to injury and to eh other outside forces.
R I P
Is that funny. Or are you just socially clueless?
the end of that comment was uncalled for.
glad. season is done. get ready for next year.
He’ll be the next J.C. Ramirez
and you will be die someday.
We’ll all die before this team has a true chance to compete
what are this week’s lotto numbers, genius?
Both of your dads combined IQ:
2
true but I hope yours is slow….hehe lovely
the team needs to lose as many games considering which free agent pitchers it needs to sign.
One fact doesn’t apply to the other.
Are you actually talking
about draft pick
position?
Well, it’s about time they shut down this awful practice. Griffins are beautiful creatures.
Comment of the day!
Except Kathy Griffin. She’s definitely not beautiful.
Mr. Ed called her. He wants his face back.
There’s a lot blaming the Angels training staff for these arm injuries, and that’s absurd. If the Angels organization has to take any blame for these injuries then it has to be for acquiring too many pitchers with previous arm concerns. Canning, Heaney, and Ohtani are examples. That’s what happens I guess when you’ve had a barren farm system. They’ve worked to rebuild their farm system but the talent that exists there is position player heavy. Yankees, Dodgers, Astros, and Cubs all rebuilt their teams with mostly young position player talent, and then went out and got arms from the open market with proven durability. There are a few exceptions like Rich Hill and Yu Darvish. But for the most part veteran arms have held the fort in those teams’ starting rotations. That’s the next step for the Angels. They have enough offensive depth to compete. Now they need to move away from trying to push these young pitchers with arm concerns and go out and get proven starting pitching off the free agent market this coming offseason. If they don’t make themselves a lock for postseason contention in 2020, it’ll likely be 2021. Angels fans need to accept that it was never going to happen this year because the focus was locking up Trout and getting the farm system ready. The pitching they signed was just plan b to buy time for their young players to get ready, and because it was a thin starting pitching market after losing out on top arms that also had red flags attached to them anyway. If the Angels load up on starting pitching this winter, then they will finally position themselves.
Good observations. I think Harvey, Cahill and Allen were all long shots but meant to bridge this year. Unfortunately that bridge collapsed.