Angels outfielder Juan Lagares has been designated for assignment, per an announcement from the team. His spot on the active and 40-man rosters will go to fellow outfielder Monte Harrison, whose contract has been selected from Triple-A Salt Lake.
Selected to the big league roster late last month for his second stint with the Halos, Lagares has appeared in 20 games this year but managed only a .183/.210/.250 batting line. While he’s always been a defensive-minded outfielder, Lagares’ production at the plate has taken a major downturn over the past several seasons; dating back to the 2019 campaign, he carries a .222/.267/.341 output in 674 trips to the plate.
The Angels will have a week to trade Lagares, pass him through outright waivers or release him. He’d have the ability to reject an outright assignment to Salt Lake if he clears waivers.
Harrison, 26, once rated as one of the best outfield prospects in all of baseball. One of four players traded from Milwaukee to Miami in the lopsided Christian Yelich blockbuster, he made his MLB debut in 2020 but has yet to make much of an impact in the big leagues, where he’s batted .175/.230/.263 in a tiny sample of 62 plate appearances.
Harrison’s prospect sheen began to fade as he faced mounting strikeout concerns in the upper minors. He’s fanned in a whopping 35.1% of his plate appearances at the Triple-A level, including exactly 35% of his 200 trips to the plate this season. Harrison is only hitting .213/.305/.368 in Salt Lake this season, but he’s nevertheless gone 20-for-23 in stolen base attempts and will bring some speed, defense and a right-handed bat to the Angels’ bench. Scouting reports on Harrison, at his peak, praised his plus raw power, but he’s never topped 21 home runs in a single season.
The most impressive stat for Lagares this year is ZERO RBI’s leaving 21 runners on base 14 of them in scoring position. MacKinnion has one major league hit for his career and 2 RBI’s
Most impressive stat is -0.9 bWAR in only 60 ABs. He’s the Anti-Trout.
That’ll happen when you go 11 for 62
Caleb Joseph went 141 plate appearances (or the entire 2016 season) with out driving in a single run. Lagares was seemingly on that path with the difference being Joseph was a backup Catcher who played sparingly while Lagares was playing more frequently due to Taylor Ward being on the IL
Got himself a nice gig as jays analyst on Sportsnet outlets. Lol don’t recall him bringing that up
Maybe he could be the new Bob Ueker
We knew this would happen, but I thought’d be for Lorenzo Cain.
Just looked up Monte Harrisons AAA numbers so far this year. How about a .213 batting average with 70Ks in 174ABs.
Trayce Thompson was out there for the taking a couple weeks back who had way better #s and MLB experience..
Is Perry Minasian just looking for way to get fired?
Monte Harrison is the wish.com Wily Mo Peña.
Interesting…thought Adell would get the first shot back in the line up. Must think he needs more fielding or more reliable bat. Maybe tradeable next month. Should be an interesting July for our Halos.
Adell isn’t hitting his weight. Swing is just too big, Brandon Wood part 2
Harrison DFAed in about 15hrs
He wasn’t the right guy at the time. Probably tome for him to look overseas for a chance to put his game back together, though they don’t wait too long in Japan before cutting under performers. Maybe he could stand to play alongside some ver disciplined performers.
Lagares just isn’t a very good player. His younger days he was striving towards being a league average bat. His glove was great but he couldn’t stay healthy. His metrics were inflated by OF assists, then players just stopped running on him. Without the A plus plus glove he’s probably not even Korea material.
I once saw Monte Harrison play a game in A+. In that game he made a Jim Edmonds level catch in CF. One hell of an athlete. His other fellow outfielders were Trent Grisham and Corey Ray, two first round picks, and he outplayed both of them. Don’t know if his bat-to-ball skill will ever come around, but at least he can contribute with speed, defense, and some pop. If he ever can put it all together, he’s a Preston Wilson type of player…
Harrison will probably bat cleanup. Are they morally opposed to impact trades? Just another AAA callup of guys who arent ready for prime time.
I’d rather see them bring up Tori Hunter Jr just because that would be fun for everyone!!
Torri Jr doesn’t seem to have the talent of his father. Seems like a favor he was drafted. He already in his late twenties and wasting a spot. He did make it in football either
Torri Jr doesn’t seem to have the talent of his father. Seems like a favor he was drafted. He already in his late twenties and wasting a spot. He did not make it in football either
I think that’s the “fun” part
First Villar and now Lagares, bad day for exMets
Meh, those ships have sailed. Looking back is a bad habit that only Wilpon-era fans had.
It seems as though they are surrendering this season already and giving some youngsters some time in the bigs. This guy is not the answer to improving run production. The people in charge seem lost and confused at this point. It’s time to make some meaningful trades that might be a little painful at first if we are going to compete. The team can’t do it as it is constructed right now.
It’s time for Perry to step up with better moves than dredging up Minor league players
Still waiting for Perry to trade for a 3B replacement for Rendon. And same at 2B as Fletcher has been out most of the season. I won’t hold my breath as he never signed a SS during the offseason. Let’s be honest, Arte has no intention to win.
Not winning this year anyway. This entire organization’s problem is short-sightedness. Look to next season and beyond if you wanna win. Or just keep signing and trading for short term goals and continue to flail in mediocrity.
The first priority of all owners is to make money. It’s a business first. But yeah, in their current state, if Arte really wants to win, he needs to bite the bullet and go the Dodgers route of skyrocketing the payroll while rebuilding underneath. When the Dodgers did that, they were still barely winning 90+ games a season, but when the Bellingers and the Seagers started coming up, mixed with that high payroll, that’s when they went over the top and became a perennial 100 win Workd Series contender. Angels need to do the same or just rebuild.
He should’ve probably made a trade for a reliever by now. And he has to solidify the middle IF somehow. That’s a big reason their offense has regressed. They can absorb losing Rendon for the season if they had better offense up the middle and at the bottom of their lineup.
Based on our current record of 5 under .500, this is the worst Angels team since 2016 when we were 12 games under .500 on June 24. And our strategy seems to be to demote a player to bring up another AA quality player. There needs to be a player shake-up now if we have any chance of the playoffs this year. Firing Perry or anyone else won’t make a difference if we don’t have the players to compete.
There is no chance of the playoffs for the Angels. A retool is needed. Team is just too fundamentally flawed.
The Angels lineup has holes at 2B, 3B, SS and LF. Fletch will fill one of them soon, but they need to fill two other holes by the deadline. I would recommend a couple of guys that play defense, make contact and have a better than average OBP – Benintendi and a comparable infielder, for example. Too much “swing and miss” and low OBP guys currently in the lineup.
Perry’s problem is finding a trade partner as there’s not much meaningful activity on the trade front for another couple of weeks, I’m guessing.