The Angels have signed catcher Jose Godoy, right-hander Gerardo Reyes, left-hander Cam Vieaux to minor league contracts, according to MiLB.com’s official transactions page. All three players were assigned to Triple-A Salt Lake.
Reyes has the most big league experience of the trio, with 29 games and 28 innings pitched across two seasons. Twenty-six of those innings came with the Padres in 2019, and then Reyes was sidelined by the abbreviated 2020 season and Tommy John surgery early in 2021. Finally returning to game action last April with the Angels’ Triple-A affiliate, Reyes had a 3.74 ERA over 45 2/3 minor league innings, racking up a lot of whiffs (28% strikeout rate) and unfortunately also a lot of free passes (15.9% walk rate). The righty also got back to the majors for two appearances with Anaheim.
A hard-thrower with a live fastball, Reyes is still a work in progress as he enters his age-30 season. He has posted increasingly strong strikeout totals dating back to his time in the Padres’ farm system, though walks have also been a consistent issue, and his 2022 walk rate represented his highest over such an extended sample size of innings. There isn’t much risk for the Angels in continuing to carry Reyes on a minor league deal, just in case he gets fully on track after a normal offseason and can finally harness his velocity.
After joining the Angels, Godoy has now been part of five different organizations since March, starting with the Mariners and then bouncing to the Giants, Twins, and Pirates on waiver claims. All these travels resulted in only 10 MLB games for Godoy in 2022, suiting up twice for Minnesota and eight times with Pittsburgh. With two outright assignments, Godoy had the ability to become a free agent, and he took that option after the season.
Godoy has appeared in 26 total Major League games over two seasons, and the longtime Cardinals farmhand has some respectable numbers in the minors, including a .271/.323/.405 slash line over 605 career Triple-A plate appearances. The 28-year-old Godoy joins Matt Thaiss and Chad Wallach as catching depth for the Angels behind Logan O’Hoppe and Max Stassi, though there have been some rumblings that Los Angeles might be looking to further upgrade itself behind the plate. The Angels had some interest in Willson Contreras before he signed with St. Louis, so unless the Halos’ interest was limited to Contreras specifically, they could still aim to bring another catcher into the mix.
Vieaux made his Major League debut in 2022, posting a 10.38 ERA over 8 2/3 innings with the Pirates. Vieaux qualified for minor league free agency after the season, as Pittsburgh designated and outrighted him twice off its 40-man roster — by coincidence, the Bucs DFA’ed Godoy to create roster space when selecting Vieaux’s contract back in August.
A sixth-round pick for Pittsburgh in the 2016 draft, Vieaux will be changing organizations for the first time in his pro career. The lefty was a starter for much of his time in the minors but transitioned to relief pitching in 2021, and Vieaux seemed to hit a wall at the Triple-A level. Things started to click in 2022, as he posted a 3.06 ERA, 23.7% strikeout rate, and 7.6% walk rate over an even 50 innings for Triple-A Indianapolis. While not huge strikeout numbers for a reliever, Vieaux’s K-rate has ticked upwards since his move to the bullpen, so the 29-year-old might yet be able to reach another gear as he continues to acclimate to relief pitching.
Although these deals add depth to the Angles organization I do not see them significantly impacting the teams performance come this season.
I think that’s the point. Let’s hope these deals have no impact on the MLB club. If there’s an impact, that means more health issues.
Glad they’ll give Gerardo Reyes another shot.
Times must be pretty rough in Anaheim when you decide to go diving in the PNC Park dumpster.
Aren’t there basically 25 other teams picking one another’s basements at this point?
Angels: worst run organization in sports. Period.
Godoy natural old school handler. Future manager, wish dbacks would of picked him up.
The Angels have made depth moves that I like. Thrown mud on the wall at their forty man roster which I haven’t liked, and these minor league moves that I don’t see how they’ll have much impact, but I also couldn’t care about.
Always good to add to the organization.
Not at the expense of the 25 or 49 man roster. So these moves are fine.
Veteran minor leaguers = lottery tickets.
It’s rare, but sometimes you end up with Chone Figgins or Brendan Donnelly. To a lesser extent, even Jose Quijada. You never know.
You’re practically the only one who has understood this so far—these aren’t for the 26-man roster, they’re depth picks for MiLB. For crying out loud, the single biggest problem the Angels had in 2022 was lack of depth. If one of the players works though a roadblock and becomes simply a replacement player, that is cheap insurance.
Tell Clepto that.
So the Angels are no longer waiting for Godoy.
Did I say specifically Godoy, Vieux, or Reyes were bad depth acquisitions???
It was a simple statement. And its painfully accurate.
I wonder if some of these moves are also a byproduct of drafting so many pitchers a couple years ago. Sooner or later, an organization can become pitching heavy, and then they find themselves on a shopping spree for stop gaps at the minor league level.
I think what u have here holds some weight. Even thou the Minor leagues is always a bit of a revolving door. You sign or draft 20+ players every year, so 20+ have to go. But like u said, with the excessive amount of drafted pitchers of late. I can see them in a bit of a crunch to fill out some positional spots.
Godoy and Vieux had short stints with the Pirates last year,Godoy as one of the revolving doors at catcher and Vieux was up briefly.It is very difficult in my opinion to be able to tell a whole lot during both of these brief times in the ML’s.I thought Godoy was fairly bad.Vieux I think may be decent even though he does not have the power pitching that most teams crave.He had three decent to good games and one bad one where Shelton left him in to save other pitchers in a lost game.I did not like it when he was dfa’ed but they may not have had the room for him on the 40 man roster at this point anyway.
Sometimes these borderline guys can get caught up in a numbers game and have very little time to impress.
I think Sheldon ruined Vieux by letting him get shelled. Ruin his self-confidence and then DFA him. Great way to develop players. I have been unimpressed by Sheldon’s handling of pitchers in general. I think Vieux could be a decent reliever if he can rebuild his confidence.
I always thought that a reliever needs at least ten appearances to get a feel for what they can do.In my opinion the Pirates rely too much on how fast the pitcher can pitch and less on guile and accuracy.The problem at this point though is I think that they have a lot of relievers who could be good and I do not know whether Vieux would have been one of them.
I do not think that they should bring someone up unless they plan to give him a chance to show what he has.Once they bring him on the roster and have to dfa him they do not know what he can do if he has not been given an adequate chance.The yo-yo effect would leave any pitcher unsettled no matter how good they were.
Not sure he was ruined by what they did but he was a gamer and accepted the fact of being left in.The alternative would have been to bring Van Meter in and even Vieux said that that would have been more embarrassing.
The Pirates can do a better job at developing players.
It’s a Vieuax to the Future for the Angels