The Angels are counting on a number of pitchers to bounce back from injuries, as they seemingly didn’t have interest in making any notable moves on the free agent front. Their bullpen consists of almost all reclamation types after the departure of Kenley Jansen and with Reid Detmers moving back to the rotation. They signed Kirby Yates, Drew Pomeranz, Jordan Romano and Brent Suter to one-year deals at $5MM or less.
Their highest-ceiling relievers are those coming back from injury. Ben Joyce throws as hard as any pitcher in MLB. It’s easy to envision him as a potential closer when he can run his fastball to a staggering 104 mph. Joyce was capped at five appearances last year before suffering a shoulder injury. He underwent season-ending surgery in May.
The flamethrowing righty threw a bullpen session on the team’s first day of camp workouts (link via Jeff Fletcher of The Orange County Register). It was his first work off a mound since the operation. Joyce and general manager Perry Minasian each said they’re uncertain whether he’ll be ready by Opening Day. It nevertheless seems he’s making good enough progress that if there is a season-opening injured list stint, it’s not an extended one. “I’d rather him miss two weeks than six months. We’re going to take our time with guys that need it and kind of see where it goes,” Minasian said.
If Joyce isn’t available, Robert Stephenson would be the presumptive favorite to close. Of course, that’s conditional on him being healthy — no small caveat given how much time he has missed over the past two seasons. Stephenson missed all of 2024 after undergoing Tommy John surgery out of Spring Training. He was out of action until last May. The veteran righty made one appearance but went back down with a nerve issue in his biceps. He missed another three months, was active for about a month, then was shut back down for the season’s final week by elbow inflammation.
Stephenson told Fletcher and other reporters on Wednesday that he learned over the offseason that he had experienced symptoms of thoracic outlet syndrome. It doesn’t appear he received a full-fledged TOS diagnosis, as he treated the issue with an injection plan but no surgery. Stephenson conceded he’s “a little bit behind everybody” coming into camp but expressed confidence he’ll be available for Opening Day.
Considering Joyce and Stephenson each have health questions, it comes as no surprise that first-year skipper Kurt Suzuki isn’t eager to name his closer. “I think the benefit for us is we have options and we can be flexible. But in that ninth inning, I wouldn’t put a name out there to be our closer right now,” Suzuki said this week (link via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com). Romano and Yates each have multiple 30-save seasons on their résumés. While the Angels aren’t lacking for ninth-inning experience, both pitchers were working with diminished stuff and had rough numbers in 2025.
In one other bullpen health update, Fletcher reports that non-roster invitee Nick Sandlin underwent arthroscopic elbow surgery last October. The righty had finished the season on the injured list with the Blue Jays but the surgery had not previously been reported. Toronto moved on from Sandlin after injuries limited him to 19 appearances. He has a 3.19 ERA in 211 2/3 career innings and has a decent chance to pitch his way onto the MLB roster with a good spring. Sandlin tells Fletcher that he’s scheduled to throw his first bullpen session this weekend, which presumably sets him up to get into Cactus League games if all goes smoothly.
I’d feel confident betting that Robert Stephenson doesn’t surpass his inning total from last year
Mike no betting on baseball please.
Mike & Oscar Gamble on all sports
It’s the least serious roster I’ve seen the Angels field in the past three decades. The combination of the Skaggs settlement, the collapse of their broadcast deal and diminishing ticket sales has resulted in an owner unwilling to spend nor commit to staff and management. This is a franchise desperately adrift.
Arte is pinching pennies due to the threat of a lockout as well
Thankfully the LAD are pinching as well.
It definitely explains in part the short contract terms. Less so the low salaries on those contracts. That’s just a concession that he’s chosen not to contend in ’26 as well. No long term plan, no short term plan either. But it’s certainly a factor in him taking Suzuki and others year to year.
That’s the problem though. They lost a franchise-record 99 games and their attendance went UP last season…. Arte has had no incentive to field a winning team.
So many of those sales are discounted in bulk though. My understanding is that net ticket revenue is down, as one would expect after a decade of non-contention.
When my kids played in the local leagues, they’d have trips to the Mets once a year. Maybe 40 kids would show up. The guy running the trip would have 300 tickets. The Mets would give out stacks of these to anyone that asked.
But the funny part is, these tickets were always in the last section upstairs. So there would be the huge chasm between the people that paid, and the kids tickets. So you could tell exactly where the last regular ticket sold was. It was ugly.
smdh
If the TOS Stephenson has is actually worse, this will probably be the worst pitcher contract ever signed by the Angels. Worse than the 1 year contact they gave Thor.
The Thor contract looks decent compared to the Matt Harvey deal.
At least Thor wasn’t passing Oxy around the clubhouse.
*Percocets
Oh yeah, forgot about Matt Harvey. Another atrocious deal.
@kellin. Yeah that’s a career ending injury. They said he caught it early, but also makes you wonder if thats why he’s been brittle his whole career. T.O.S. is from repetitive arm movement and he has alot shoulder, elbow, Tommy john’s. It slowly breaks down the body, and it makes sense why it seems like he’s good and gets stiffness and tightness in his arm and pitches a inning or sometimes 10 before being shutdown.
This team reminds me of one of the Angels early 90’s “throw s*** at the wall and see what sticks” teams
Yes, but maybe…just maybe, they could end up like the 1994 Angels team from Angels in the Outfield. That team looked awful too. “Hey, it could happen!”
’92 Angels brought in Alvin Davis, Von Hayes, Hubie Brooks and Gary Geatti all to decline at the exact same time. But hey we also brought in Julio Velera and he finally pitch one season after we all chased his Donruss Rated rookie card in a Mets uniform
You have a bad roster when Rene Gonzales and Spike Owen are anchoring the offense.
Spike Owen was no Tim Foli
And Gaetti’s decline immediately stopped upon leaving the Angels and joining the Royals
Indeed he did. Being he was already struggling to get on base for a few seasons before he was an angel,always wonder if he had a lil help to get back on track. 93 hs first season after leaving the Angels had players like Juan G. Raphie Fingers, Mickey T, Mike Stanley and Albert Belle crushin the ball.
Might witness the Angels first 100 loss season this year
Well, under Minasian they had their first season where they lost more than 95 games, can they get to their first 100 loss season? Sure.
The defense is horrible, the starting pitching and bullpen are intriguing, the offense is ok.
The heath of the pitching, Trout, Adell and Neto will determine how many games above 85 this team will lose. But right now, I’d say it’s an 85 loss team, and as soon as someone important gets hurt, it will become worse and worse and worse.
If Yates can shake off last season he could definitely close, but we’ll see. Joyce is the choice if he’s ready.
Joyce needs to gain command and miss bats. Major leaguer players can hit the fastball.
Remember the 02 angels. Big change can happen this year. Needing a rebound season from players. Watch Christian Moore come through.
The 2002 Angels were a good team. The 2001 team was mismanaged.
I made a ton of money on the 2002 team.
Do the Angels ever get tired of promoting young hitters with 200+ Ks written all over their resume?
Any team needing a shortstop ought to be dealing for Neto. There’s zero chance he’ll extend his sentence in Anaheim.
That’s what they said about Trout…
The Angels had a good team when Trout AND Arte Sept money.
A new owner needs to buy the team and totally gut the front office and minor league development apparatus.
Only then will the Angels stand a chance of resigning their young talent. .
The embarrassment continues
It’s not easy to do, but I believe the Angels actually got worse this offseason.
There are so many things that need to break the right way for this team to be even remotely competitive.
They won’t and the organization will blame injuries rather than hold themselves accountable.
All these reclamation projects are needed because the all pitcher draft and subsequent pitcher heavy drafts have produced no internal bullpen options.
And the position player talent on the farm is even more lacking.
@halosheavenjj. I like the 5 relievers for the price of Jansen move. I have a feeling father time is going to catch up with him. If they can hit on three they can probably do something like the garcia, and estevez trades. They won’t get quality prospects, but they can get quantity. Angels need that too so they dont have to sign thirty AAAA players every season.
Jansen is going to have another good season.
The Angels spent on Yates and Romano — woof.
They could have landed a pair good arms in the Rule 5 draft and paid Jansen.
The Rule 5 selections are as likely to prove good as Yates and Romano are to bounceback and if they hit, you get 6 years of team control on a good arm or two.
They could have cut Peraza and Teodisio too and added a pair of Rule 5 players on the offensive side of the ball. There were many players available who have posted far better numbers in MiLB.
That would have been exciting. The Angels needed the Rule 5 draft this season and passed for three over the hill relievers and a pair of prospects who have proven to be unsuccessful.
They had the roster space and in a year that should be about building up, they whiffed completely on the opportunuty to add some exciting players to their roster.
We could of havd both Rodgers and Mikolas for under 5 million. They would have filled the closer roll and been our #3 starter.
Let’s not forget we traded Canning last year for Solars 26 mill contract bc angels didn’t think he was worth the 5 mill in arb. With Trouts history and needing the DH spot and Solar being a DH and not playing more than a half season in the field in years.this is our angels.
The Soler deal was a great piece of thievery. Outside of playing with a juiced ball in 2019, Soler has a career bWAR of 3.0 in 11 seasons.
Great, between Stephenson’s lack of Heath and Joyce’s lack of command and inability to miss bats, are bullpen just got a lot worse.
Go Kirby Yates!!,”
Every team makes gambles on older players or players coming off an injury. But it’s the quantity of gambles the Angels are taking that is disappointing.
The bullpen for this team is irrelevant. Unless they are lights out. This team will have a huge problem scoring runs so it will not matter. This pitching staff will need to put up generational numbers to keep this team in games. There will be a absolutely no run support
Let’s see…
2021 – 77 wins
2022 – 73 wins
2023 – 73 wins
2024 – 63 wins
2025 – 72 wins
And this roster is exactly that again. Somewhere between 63-77 wins.
If everything goes wrong, 63 wins. And if everything goes right (which never happens to the Angels) 77 wins.
Everyone else in the AL West got better, so another last place finish.
My prediction is 70 wins on the dot. GM PM probably gone before the trade deadline and a new Manager and Gm by next Spring.
This is worse than the postseason drought from 87 to 2001. I don’t think this team will be in the postseason in the next 10 years. I wish I could place a bet on that in Vegas. I know I’d win on that one but I’m a die hard fan. I canceled my season tickets. Dodger fans are lucky, they’ll get the postseason for the next 10 years probably get another five rings at the least
This new pitcher they got for the Taylor Ward trade. I feel bad for him. He’s gotta be miserable coming into this mess and he’s under control the next several years if I’m him do I go down with an injury or do I suck it up and try to get myself a contract and get out?
@sammyD. Wouldn’t surprise me if the angels got him to flip him. Just don’t think perry will be around to execute it. If he has a injury free season he could get a crochet return. He had injury problems too.
Angels win 59 lose 103 in 2026. That’s a solid bet
Honestly, is there a worse franchise in the league? Angels stink
Rockies on line 1.
White Sox line 2.
Maybe the angels will win 89 games this year. Maybe not. I don’t seem to really care to much, even though I watch every game. It’s okay that the angels are a 4.3 team. Sure would be great to have a beyond season. Should be interesting.
89 wins might be good enough for the wild card. Maybe I’ll buy a lotto ticket for a dollar and win 10k today. Same odds