Angels Designate Niko Kavadas For Assignment In Series Of Moves

The Angels announced a series of moves prior to their game at T-Mobile Park this evening.  The club has designated infielder Niko Kavadas for assignment and transferred reliever Reid Detmers to the 60-day IL, allowing them to select the contracts of catcher Chad Wallach and reliever Connor Brogdon.  Additionally, veteran backstop Travis d’Arnaud is headed to the 7-day concussion IL, while southpaw reliever Andrew Chafin was placed on the 15-day IL retroactive to yesterday for triceps inflammation.

Kavadas, 27 next month, was drafted by the Red Sox in the 11th round out of Notre Dame back in 2021.  He was draft-eligible in 2020, but that one only went five rounds.  As Alex Speier of the Boston Globe put it when Kavadas signed with Boston the following year, “The Red Sox considered his power potential too great to ignore.”

Prior to the 2023 season, Kavadas cracked Baseball America’s top 30 prospects for the Red Sox, with a 45/high risk grade.  He was described as “unabashed about his desire to hit a homer every time he bats,” but BA noted he didn’t have much of a hit tool or a defensive home.  He reached Triple-A that year and conquered it in ’24 with 17 home runs and a 153 wRC+ in 335 plate appearances prior to being traded, but he also whiffed a third of a time.

At least year’s trade deadline, Kavadas was part of a four-player package of minor leaguers sent to the Halos by Boston for veteran reliever Luis Garcia.  The Angels selected Kavadas’ contract a few weeks later, giving the righty slugger some run as a DH/first baseman against right-handed pitching.

Kavadas wasn’t able to do much with his limited opportunity in late ’24, and failed to make the Angels out of Spring Training.  This year, he had a brief May call-up that lasted all of one pinch-hit plate appearance.  He got another brief bump to the bigs in early August and didn’t get any playing time at all.  Kavadas made it up once again on August 12th, failing to get into a game until the 20th.  He only managed seven starts before the Angels demoted him again on September 4th.

Now, the Angels have seven days to trade Kavadas or place him on outright or unconditional release waivers.  He spent most of this year in Triple-A, slumping to a 101 wRC+ with a strikeout rate near 31%.

Detmers, who has been throwing 96 out of the bullpen this year with a 30.1% strikeout rate, hit the 15-day IL yesterday with elbow inflammation.  He was out for the season regardless, according to the Orange County Register’s Jeff Fletcher, who notes that the Angels “still don’t have any news to report on the results of Detmers’ MRI.” Yesterday, Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com wrote that the Angels “remain optimistic it isn’t a major injury.”  Detmers’ comments indicated the same.

Detmers will receive a raise on this year’s $1.825MM salary for 2026 due to his second trip through the arbitration process.  He’s under team control through 2028.

Angels catcher Logan O’Hoppe hit the 7-day IL as a victim of a Jacob Wilson backswing earlier this week, and now d’Arnaud joins him after being struck by a Julio Rodriguez swing yesterday.  Those two swings have moved Sebastian Rivero and now Wallach into the Angels’ Major League catching slots.  O’Hoppe should be back Tuesday, according to Fletcher.

Wallach was a fifth round pick by the Marlins out of Cal State Fullerton back in 2013.  He hasn’t quite matched his dad Tim’s career, as the longtime Expo and Dodger smacked 260 home runs , made five All-Star teams, and snagged three Gold Gloves at the hot corner.

Remember when the Marlins were doing things like giving Giancarlo Stanton a record extension, locking up Christian Yelich, and adding Dee Gordon via trade?  In that same active winter, they shipped Wallach to the Reds along with Anthony DeSclafani for Mat Latos.  Latos was only 27 at the time, and most observers were unaware he was nearing the end of his career as a useful Major Leaguer.  Wallach was still a 45 grade/high risk catching prospect at the time of the trade.

Wallach failed to establish himself with the Reds, allowing Marlins GM Michael Hill to simply swipe him back off waivers three years later.  Wallach caught 72 games for the 2018-21 Marlins before being claimed off waivers by the Dodgers.  He never appeared with the club, as the Angels grabbed him a week later.  Wallach played in a career-high 65 games in 2023 as a 31-year-old.  He joined the Rangers on a minor league deal in January this year but found his way back home to the Angels organization in June.  If the 33-year-old gets into a game for the Angels, it’ll be his first time in the Show in nearly two years.

With the veteran lefty Chafin out with triceps inflammation, Brogdon joins the Angels’ bullpen.  The 30-year-old righty signed a minor league deal with the Angels in January, saw his contract selected in May, elected free agency after rejecting an outright assignment in August, re-signed with the club, and now has returned to the 40-man and active rosters.

Brodgon is hardly the best big league pitcher to ever come out of Idaho’s Lewis-Clark State College – that honor clearly goes to Keith Foulke – but he put himself in the top ten with some credible work out of the Phillies’ bullpen a few years ago.  Though Brogdon has struggled in his 37 1/3 scattered relief innings for the Angels this year, he did at least restore two miles per hour on his fastball to reach 95.5 miles per hour.  That’s still a bit shy of his Phillies’ heyday, but it’s a start.