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Angels Outright José Suarez

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The Angels announced that left-hander José Suarez has been sent outright to Triple-A Salt Lake. That indicates he was passed through waivers unclaimed after being designated for assignment a week ago.

Suarez, 26, has more than three years of major league service time. That gives him the right to reject this outright assignment and elect free agency. However, since he has less than five years of service, choosing the open market would mean forfeiting what remains of his salary.

He qualified for arbitration for the first time after last season and eventually lost a hearing against the club. He is making $925K instead of the $1.3MM that his side filed for. It seems fair to presume he will report to Salt Lake as opposed to walking away from the roughly half a million still coming his way.

That will give the Halos a bit of non-roster pitching depth with some past success. The lefty had good results working as a swingman for the Angels over the 2021 and 2022 seasons. Between the two campaigns, he made 45 appearances, including 34 starts. He tossed 207 1/3 innings in that time, allowing 3.86 earned runs per nine. His 21.5% strikeout rate, 7.9% walk rate and 44.5% ground ball rate were all around league average.

Since then, the results have taken a steep nosedive. He spent much of 2023 on the injured list due to a shoulder strain, posting an 8.29 ERA in 33 2/3 innings. This year, he was healthy and moved to the bullpen, but couldn’t get his numbers in better shape. He threw 35 1/3 innings with an 8.15 ERA before getting bumped off the roster last week. Since he’s out of options, the Angels had to remove him from the 40-man to get him off the active roster.

It’s unclear if the Angels want him to continue working out of the bullpen or get stretched out to start. There would be an argument for the latter, with the club likely to end up making rotation moves in the weeks to come. With a record of 30-46, they are one of the few clubs clearly in seller position as the trade deadline approaches.

Since Suarez was designated for assignment, the rotation already took two big hits with Patrick Sandoval hitting the injured list with a UCL injury and José Soriano due to an abdominal infection. Tyler Anderson and Griffin Canning are logical trade candidates since both are slated for free agency after 2025. Zach Plesac has been inserted into the rotation to cover for those two but has an 8.68 ERA through two starts.

Chase Silseth is currently on a rehab assignment and will be back in the mix soon enough. Reid Detmers could be recalled from his optional assignment, as could Davis Daniel or Kenny Rosenberg. But even with those guys potentially coming back, it’s possible that Suarez may have a role to play on the club down the stretch.

Angels Place Patrick Sandoval On 15-Day IL With Elbow Strain

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TODAY: The Angels announced this evening that Sandoval has been placed on the 15-day injured list with an elbow strain. Right-hander Guillo Zuniga was recalled from Triple-A to take Sandoval’s spot on the active roster. The severity of Sandoval’s injury is not yet clear, though he’s now set to miss at least the next two weeks of action.

June 21: Angels left-hander Patrick Sandoval left tonight’s start against the Dodgers in the third inning. After walking former teammate Shohei Ohtani, Sandoval began shaking his arm and called for a trainer. The Halos announced the initial diagnosis as forearm tightness.

It seems fair to presume Sandoval will head for imaging in the next couple days. While it’s too early to know whether he’s facing a significant absence, the southpaw’s reaction on the mound and the diagnosis are clearly cause for concern.

Sandoval worked 2 1/3 scoreless innings tonight. He still has an uninspiring 5.08 earned run average over 79 2/3 frames on the season. The 27-year-old’s underlying indicators are quite a bit more promising. Sandoval has punched out a solid 23% of batters faced while keeping the ball on the ground 45% of the time. He has issued a few too many walks (9.9% rate), but he looks like a mid-rotation arm at his best. Sandoval carried an above-average 11.7% swinging strike rate into tonight’s start.

Between 2022-23, Sandoval was somewhat quietly one of the better starters in the league. He topped 140 innings in both seasons, combining for a 3.50 ERA over 55 starts. While Sandoval was more effective in ’22 than he was a year ago, he has generally been a bright spot amidst a tough few years in Orange County.

As MLBTR’s Steve Adams explored in a piece for Front Office subscribers just this week, Sandoval looked like a very appealing trade candidate. Steve noted the parallels between the Angels hurler and Miami’s Jesús Luzardo, who is regarded as one of the best (if not the top) controllable starting pitcher who is likely to move this summer. The Angels haven’t shown the same willingness to deal key players as the Marlins’ new front office has, yet Los Angeles GM Perry Minasian would get no shortage of calls on a healthy Sandoval.

Tonight’s injury at least complicates that possibility. An extended absence would take a deadline deal off the table entirely. The Angels control Sandoval via arbitration for two seasons beyond this one. He’s making $5.025MM this season in his second of four arbitration years after qualifying as a Super Two player in 2022.

Angels Select Hans Crouse

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The Angels announced they’ve selected righty reliever Hans Crouse onto the MLB roster. Los Angeles opened an active roster spot last night by placing José Soriano on the 15-day injured list. They already had an opening on the 40-man roster, so no further move was necessary.

Crouse, who signed a minor league deal with the Halos in February, reaches the big leagues for the first time in three years. The 6’4″ hurler was a second-round pick of the Rangers back in 2017. Crouse was initially a well-regarded prospect whom the Rangers sent to the Phillies at the 2021 trade deadline. He started two games for the Phils late in the season, allowing four runs in seven innings.

That’s the entirety of his MLB experience. Crouse lost most of the following year to injury and the Phils waived him at the end of the ’22 campaign. He went unclaimed and spent last season in the minors. Philadelphia moved Crouse to the bullpen, but he didn’t find much immediate success. He surrendered a 6.75 ERA while walking more than 20% of opposing hitters over 16 Triple-A appearances.

Crouse has flipped the script with a huge performance this season. He carries a 2.70 earned run average through 23 1/3 frames with Triple-A Salt Lake. He has cut his walk rate all the way to 7.4% while striking out 44.7% of batters faced. No pitcher with at least 20 innings at the top minor league level has fanned opponents at a higher rate. That earns the 25-year-old another shot against MLB hitters. Crouse still has two options remaining and could bounce between Angel Stadium and Salt Lake without going on waivers.

Latest On Mike Trout

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Angels outfielder Mike Trout’s recovery timeline seems to be growing. Earlier this week, Sam Blum of The Athletic relayed on X that the superstar says he still hasn’t started running and doesn’t have a target for his return date.

At the end of April, the Angels announced that Trout would require surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his left knee. They didn’t provide a recovery timeline but some reporters suggested a timeline of four to six weeks based on previous surgeries of this nature.

Trout’s surgery took place on May 3, seven weeks ago today. The fact that he’s still not running suggests that he’s nowhere close to a return. Even once he crosses that bridge, he will have to gradually ramp up activities and will likely need some kind of rehab assignment after such a long layoff.

It’s the latest frustrating setback as the recent period of Trout’s career has unfortunately come to be defined by injury absences. From 2012 to 2019, there was only one season in which Trout played less than 134 games. He also played 53 out of the 60 games in the shortened 2020 season. But he hasn’t hit the 120-game mark in any season since then and only got into more than 82 contests once.

The 2021 season saw Trout hit the injured list with a right calf strain that lingered and lingered, limiting him to just 36 games that year. The following year, Trout was healthy enough for 119 games but did deal with some back problems. Last year, a left hamate fracture capped him at 82 games. This year, he was only able to get into 29 contests before the meniscus surgery and it’s anybody’s guess how much he’ll be able to add to that number later in the year.

Those injuries have reduced the quantity of his playing but the quality has still been good. He has slashed .276/.376/.575 since the start of 2021 and has a line of .220/.325/.541 this year despite a .194 batting average on balls in play. But the mounting injuries are a significant problem for the organization.

The Angels had two of the best players in the world on the same team for six years with Trout and Shohei Ohtani both on the roster. But their attempts to build a winner around those two continually fell short, as the Halos haven’t even finished above .500 since 2015.

Now Ohtani is gone, having reached free agency and signed with the Dodgers, while Trout has become an ongoing question mark. The Angels are one of the worst clubs in baseball this year, with a 29-45 record that is ahead of just four clubs.

All in all, very little about the franchise is in good shape. In addition to the struggles at the major league level, most prospect evaluators rank their farm system as one of the worst. Owner Arte Moreno pared back the payroll this winter and it’s unclear when it will ramp up again. A lot of the money they are spending is tied up in Trout and Anthony Rendon, with each of them making more than $35MM annually while frequently injured. Rendon’s deal goes through 2026 and Trout’s through 2030. Trout will reach his 33rd birthday in August of this year.

Angels Place Jose Soriano On Injured List, Outright Cole Tucker

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The Angels placed starter José Soriano on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to June 17, with an abdominal infection. Los Angeles is off tonight, so they didn’t immediately reveal the corresponding move. The Halos also announced that Cole Tucker went unclaimed on waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Salt Lake after being designated for assignment on Monday.

Soriano has been a rare bright spot in a rough season. Los Angeles transitioned the hard-throwing righty to the rotation this year. It was a gamble, as Soriano had been one of the club’s better relievers as a rookie. The second-year hurler has taken well to the starting role. In 72 1/3 innings, he carries a 3.48 earned run average. While Soriano’s strikeout rate has plummeted from last year’s 30.3% clip to a modest 20.3% mark, he has offset that with a drastic uptick in grounders.

Among pitchers with 50+ innings, only Framber Valdez has run a higher ground-ball rate than Soriano’s 60.2% clip. The Angel hurler has also trimmed his walk rate by almost three percentage points. This year’s 9.5% walk percentage still isn’t great, but it has been sufficient for Soriano to work to mid-rotation results. He has held huge velocity in extended stints, averaging 97.8 MPH on his sinker.

Tucker, 27, signed a minor league deal in April. He hit well in 10 games for Salt Lake to earn an MLB look a couple weeks later. Tucker didn’t carry that success over in 25 contests for the Halos. Over 57 trips to the plate, he hit .180/.263/.300 while striking out nearly 30% of the time. A former first-round draftee of the Pirates, Tucker has played in the majors in six consecutive seasons. He owns a .213/.266/.316 batting line over 536 plate appearances between Pittsburgh, Colorado and Los Angeles.

This is the fourth career outright for Tucker. He has the right to test free agency each time he clears waivers. The Angels didn’t announce whether he’ll rejoin Salt Lake or head back to the open market in search of a minor league opportunity elsewhere.

The Jesus Luzardo Alternative Who *Should* Be Available Next Month

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Find virtually any primer for the 2024 trade deadline and you'll see Jesus Luzardo's name at or near the top of the discussion. He's probably even the feature image on many of those pieces. It's not hard to see why. A hard-throwing 26-year-old lefty with two seasons of club control beyond the current campaign and big strikeout abilities is always going to be in demand. And the Marlins, sitting at 23-48 on the season, have effectively been out of postseason contention since the second week of the season. A 1-12 start to the year will do that to you.

Luzardo might be the most talked-about name on the trade market this summer and has a far better chance to move than your standard prime-aged starting pitcher with two-plus seasons of club control. The Marlins already traded Luis Arraez in early May, after all. They're clearly open for business.

Nearly everything I just said about Luzardo applies to another lefty on the opposite coast. And yet for all the Luzardo chatter we've already heard and will continue to hear, the trade buzz between the two southpaws doesn't align.

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Angels Designate José Suarez, Cole Tucker For Assignment

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The Angels announced that they have reinstated infielder Brandon Drury from the injured list and selected the contract of right-hander Zach Plesac. In corresponding moves, left-hander José Suarez and infielder Cole Tucker have been designated for assignment.

Suarez, 26, had a solid two-year run as a swingman for the Angels. Over the 2021 and 2022 seasons, he made 45 appearances for the club, with 34 of those being starts. He logged 207 1/3 innings, allowing 3.86 earned runs per nine. His 21.5% strikeout rate, 7.9% walk rate and 44.5% ground ball rate were all around league average in that time.

But things have been dire since then. He spent about four months on the injured list last year with a shoulder strain and had an ERA of 8.29 in the 33 2/3 innings he was able to pitch. The Halos clearly hoped for a bounceback, tendering Suarez a contract. The two sides eventually went to a hearing, with the club winning and paying Suarez $925K instead of his requested figure of $1.35MM. He’s avoided the IL this year but the results haven’t improved, as he has an 8.15 ERA in 35 1/3 innings pitched so far this season.

It’s likely not as bad as that seems, as his .375 batting average on balls in play and 57.1% strand rate are both on the unlucky side. But his walk rate has been over 12% this year and last year, which hasn’t helped him. Since he’s out of options, the only way for the Angels to get him off the active roster was to remove him from the 40-man completely.

They will now have one week to try to trade him or pass him through waivers. Perhaps some pitching-needy club with a plan to get him back on track will be intrigued, though his recent struggles will obviously tamp down interest. If he were to pass through waivers unclaimed, he would be able to elect free agency since he has more than three years of service time. But since he has less than five years of service, he would forfeit the remainder of his salary by doing so. Given those circumstances, he’s likely to end up sticking with the Angels as non-roster depth.

Tucker, 27, was once a highly-touted prospect with the Pirates but has continually struggled in the major leagues. He signed a minor league deal with the Angels in mid-April and was added to their roster a couple of weeks later. He has since received 57 plate appearances in 25 games but has struck out at a 29.8% rate and produced a meager line of .180/.263/.300. That brings his career output to .213/.266/.316.

The Halos will have a week to figure things out with Tucker as well, but interest is likely to be very low based on his limited production. He has a previous career outright and would be able to elect free agency in the event he’s outrighted again.

When the Angels added him to their roster, Tucker told reporters that he was offered a coaching position by the Mariners but wanted to keep playing. Perhaps he will continue pursuing playing opportunities but it sounds like he will have some fallback plans for whenever he decides to hang up his spikes.

Plesac signed with the Halos in the offseason, a deal with a $1MM guarantee, but later ran him through waivers. He had the right to reject an outright assignment by virtue of having more than three years of service time, but since his service clock is below five, doing so would have meant forfeiting the rest of that money.

He reported to Triple-A and has made 13 starts at that level with a 5.42 ERA, 15.8% strikeout rate and 8.1% walk rate. The Angels announced that José Soriano was scratched from tonight’s start with lower abdominal pain and that Plesac will take the mound instead. Plesac could stick in the rotation but also has a couple of options and can be sent back down to Salt Lake without being exposed to waivers again.

Angels Place Adam Cimber On 15-Day IL, Select Jose Marte, Release Ehire Adrianza

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The Angels made a trio of roster moves this afternoon, including the placement of right-hander Adam Cimber on the 15-day injured list due to right shoulder inflammation.  Right-hander Jose Marte’s contract was selected from Triple-A to take Cimber’s spot on the active roster, and infielder Ehire Adrianza was released to create space on the 40-man.

One of several relievers signed last offseason to bolster the Los Angeles bullpen, Cimber’s first year with the Angels has been difficult.  The veteran righty has a 7.03 ERA over 24 1/3 innings and 28 appearances, with a garish 13.1% walk rate that is more than double the career average (5.9%) he posted over his first six Major League seasons.  Cimber’s 4.77 SIERA is still not particularly impressive, but it does reflect some of the misfortune of his very low 54.5% strand rate.

Cimber also had a 7.40 ERA over 20 2/3 innings with the Blue Jays last year, and his last appearance of 2023 came on June 18 after a shoulder impingement brought a premature end to his season.  The fact that Cimber has again been shelved with a shoulder problem isn’t a good sign, though it isn’t known if his later injury is anything some general soreness.

Speaking of season-shortening injuries, Marte threw only 21 total innings in the majors and minors in 2023 due to a stress reaction in his right elbow.  The Angels chose to non-tender him in the wake of that lost year, but then re-signed the righty to a minor league contract.

Marte is now set to receive his first Major League action of 2024, after receiving sporadic big league looks in each of the last three seasons with the Angels.  Marte has an 8.14 ERA over the small sample size of his 24 1/3 career innings in the Show, but he has looked quite sharp at Triple-A this season, with a 2.61 ERA in 20 2/3 frames for Salt Lake even in the hitter-friendly environs of the Pacific Coast League.

Adrianza has been on the 10-day injured list for over five weeks while dealing with back spasms, so either the Angels released him while off the IL, so his activation wasn’t made public.  Adrianza joined L.A. on a minors deal in February, and that contract was then selected to the active roster in April, leading to eight games and a .596 OPS in 28 plate appearances prior to his trip to the injured list.  Never much of a hitter over his 12 Major League seasons, Adrianza has carved out a lengthy pro career as a bench piece who can play all over the diamond, and he figures to catch on with another team (or a new minors deal with Anaheim) in need of a depth piece.

Angels Reinstate, Option Sam Bachman

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The Angels announced that right-hander Sam Bachman has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list and optioned to Double-A Rocket City. The 40-man roster already had a vacancy with infielder Niko Goodrum being claimed off waivers by the Pirates earlier this week, but the roster is now full with this move.

Bachman, 24, underwent arthroscopic shoulder surgery in the fall and wasn’t fully healed by Opening Day. He was placed on the 60-day injured list when the club selected Miguel Sanó in late March. Bachman began a rehab assignment at the end of May and has been getting stretched out, throwing three innings in each of his last two outings.

The Angels currently have a rotation mix consisting of Tyler Anderson, Patrick Sandoval, Griffin Canning, José Soriano and José Suarez. For now, Bachman will continue getting stretched out but could be a candidate for some major league starts later in the year. The Halos are 26-42 and one of the few clubs firmly in the seller camp ahead of the trade deadline. If any of those starters get traded or suffer an injury, Bachman could perhaps get a look in the majors, though Reid Detmers will also be in the mix after being optioned a few weeks ago.

Bachman made his major league debut last year with a 3.18 earned run average in 17 innings. He was placed on the injured list in July due to right shoulder inflammation and stayed there the rest of the year, eventually undergoing the aforementioned surgery. He was able to get 129 days of service time last season, mostly on the IL, leaving him 43 days shy of the one-year mark. He was able to get over that line here in 2024 by spending over two months on the injured list but his clock will stop ticking forward now that he has been optioned.

MLBTR Podcast: Injured Astros, The Chances Of Bad Teams Rebounding In 2025 And More

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

  • The Astros have lost several players to injury but general manager Dana Brown insists they will be deadline buyers (0:45)
  • With so few teams clearly out of contention, signs are pointing towards a seller’s market at the deadline (7:20)

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • Out of the five worst teams right now (Athletics, Angels, White Sox, Marlins and Rockies), who most needs to replenish their farm system and who could possibly turn things around by 2025? (11:20)
  • The Guardians need a right-handed right fielder with power. Who is a viable target? (20:40)
  • Will the Marlins to try trade Jesús Luzardo and Jazz Chisholm Jr.? (24:30)
  • Could you see Alex Anthopoulos of the Braves trying to get Kevin Gausman from the Blue Jays? (28:35)
  • How active will the Reds be at the deadline? (32:15)
  • Should the Dodgers acquire Javier Báez from the Tigers and move Mookie Betts back to the outfield and/or option Gavin Lux? (35:40)

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

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