The Angels announced today that right-hander Ben Joyce underwent surgery on his right shoulder this morning and is expected to miss the remainder of the season. Joyce is already on the 60-day injured list and will stay there for the rest of the campaign.
It’s a tough break for the Halos and one of baseball’s fastest throwers. Joyce, 24, has thrown 49 innings with the Halos to this point in his career. His fastball has averaged 101.6 miles per hour, while he’s also mixed in a cutter, sinker, slider and changeup. Despite that huge velocity, he’s more of a ground-ball pitcher, with a 53.7% rate in that department. His 21% strikeout rate and 11.4% walk rate are subpar, but he’s still managed to post a 3.12 earned run average.
He landed on the 15-day IL about two weeks into the season due to inflammation in his throwing shoulder. Joyce and the Angels seemed to initially think it was a minor issue. He framed the IL stint as precautionary at the time, saying that he “just kind of thought it was normal soreness, and ended up getting reevaluated and just a little more inflamed than we wanted it to be. So [we’re] just trying to get ahead of it.”
But last week, the Halos transferred him to the 60-day IL, indicating that the prognosis had changed. Now it seems to have gotten far worse, with Joyce going under the knife. The announcement was lacking in specifics about the procedure but the main takeaway is that 2025 will essentially be a lost season for Joyce.
The Halos have one of the worst bullpens in the league this year. Their relievers have a collective ERA of 7.07, tied with the Nationals for worst in the majors. Both clubs are almost two runs clear of their competition, as the Diamondbacks are the next-worst bullpen with a 5.18 ERA. That’s part of the reason the Angels are 17-24 so far. Getting Joyce back could have helped but that won’t happen now.
Joyce came into this year with one year and 75 days of big league service time. He’ll continue adding to that while on the IL and will therefore finish this year at 2.075. He’s slated to qualify for arbitration after 2026 and free agency after 2029.
Photo courtesy of David Banks, Imagn Images
Hope his recovery is as fast as his fastball
Smooth bro
Angels fans can’t catch a break. Granted, his few outings this season weren’t great, but he looked solid last season.
His last outing was when he was hurt. What was wrong before that? One run in 3 innings?
Humans are incapable of throwing consistently 101+ mph. When are we going to learn this..
Was anybody else confident that doctors knew he was out for the season before the Ben Joyce bobblehead night?
Let the parade of ” I told you so” or I knew he wasn’t going to last” begin.
Best of luck Ben. I hope you are back better than ever next year!
It doesn’t matter how hard you throw ball 4.
Best of luck. There was obvious risk when he was drafted.
Hopefully he’s fixed for the next several years after this.
You. Just. Can’t. Throw. That. Hard.
Arms are not designed for it.
That’s why most flamethrowers always get injured
Degrom, strasburg, even verlander once he got old
Paul skenes so far is the only flame thrower that hasn’t gotten major surgery yet so I’d keep an eye on him
baseball-reference.com/players/r/ryanno01.shtml
baseball-reference.com/players/c/chapmar01.shtml
baseball-reference.com/players/v/verlaju01.shtml
baseball-reference.com/players/f/fellebo01.shtml
Absolutely impossible to do it for long. Certainly not for 15 or more years.
He’ll come back with a beard and long hair
How is it possible the Angel pen gets worse every year. I didn’t think that was possible.
Under Minasian, it started out poor, and gets worse and worse and worse?
I can’t wait until Moreno is gone so everything in this organization can be torn down and rebuilt.
I suggested to Mr Perry a few times to sign estevez.
We can never have nice things. I blame you Arte. Even though this is not your fault, I still blame you.
he keeps the regime that drafted this guy who can’t stay healthy around. no?
Will be part of the Driveline and/or Tennessee PED’s documentary. Shoulder injury? No bueno
Next update from Angels in the next week or two. Mike Trout has undergone surgery and is expected to miss the season. Could Mike Trout and Rendon both do like Derek Carr and retire. As much I liked Mike over the years he probably won’t hit over .250 again in his career or play more than half the games at best.
I guess this is what tends to happen when you throw 105 mph…
Hoping for a speedy recovery.
As long as the freak Aroldis is pushing 40 and still throwing 104 w/o consistent injuries, teams are never going to throttle their guys who can consistently hit 100.