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Ramon Laureano Suspended Eighty Games After Positive PED Test

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Major League Baseball announced this afternoon that Athletics outfielder Ramón Laureano has been suspended for eighty games without pay after testing positive for Nandrolone, a banned performance-enhancing substance. He’ll miss the remainder of the season. The A’s have 53 games left in 2021, so Laureano’s suspension will carry over for the first 27 games of the 2022 campaign as well — minus any 2021 playoff games Oakland participates in, which are included as games served for suspension purposes.

Laureano released a statement via the MLB Players Association:

“I would never knowingly ingest any banned substance and put the game that I’ve loved all my life at risk. When I found out that I tested positive for Nandrolone, I was shocked. I take great care of my body and have an extremely regimented diet. Based on the minuscule amount that was briefly in my body, I’ve learned that it is likely that it was contamination of something I ingested. … I’d like to apologize for the distraction that this might cause my teammates, Billy Beane, David Forst, and the entire Oakland organization, community, and fan base. I am devastated. Anyone who truly knows me as a person knows how much I love the game and that I would never intentionally do something like this.”

It’s a devastating blow for the A’s, who trail the Astros by four games in the AL West. Oakland currently holds a 1.5 game lead over the Yankees for the American League’s final playoff spot, with the Blue Jays and Mariners also nipping at their heels. The A’s will need to hold onto their position in the standings (and make a potential postseason push) without one of their top players.

Laureano has been an average or better hitter in all four of his big league seasons. The 27-year-old has a quality .246/.317/.443 line (114 wRC+) across 378 plate appearances this season. Oakland’s starting center fielder all year, he’d recently kicked over to right field to accommodate trade deadline acquisition Starling Marte.

The A’s acquiring Marte from the Marlins looms particularly large now. (It’s not clear whether the Oakland front office was aware of Laureano’s positive test at the time, although today’s suspension announcement presumably comes after Laureano had exhausted the appeals process). Marte will continue to get everyday run in center, but the corner outfield is now a major question mark.

The A’s have given a decent amount of corner outfield playing time to each of Mark Canha, Seth Brown, Stephen Piscotty, Tony Kemp and Chad Pinder (currently on the injured list with a hamstring strain) this season. Canha will have one corner outfield spot locked down on a nightly basis, but it seems Oakland will have to mix and match in the other spot — as they had to do before acquiring Marte in the first place. Utilityman Josh Harrison is getting the start in left field (with Canha in right) this evening against the Rangers.

The timing of the suspension seems as if it could carry significant repercussions for Laureano as well. Players who violate the MLB – MLBPA Joint Drug Agreement are placed on the restricted list and do not receive MLB service time for the duration of their suspension. Laureano entered the season with 2.059 years of big league service. Before today’s suspension, he accrued an estimated 128 days of MLB service in 2021, pushing his career total to approximately 3.015 presently.

That’ll be more than enough for Laureano to reach arbitration as scheduled this winter, but he also won’t receive service time while he serves the remainder of the ban next season. Under the A’s 2022 schedule, Laureano would be eligible to return to the roster for Oakland’s April 30 game against the Guardians. Assuming he remains on the roster for the rest of the season (which runs through October 2), he’d tally 156 days of service.

By that estimate, he’d conclude the season at 3.171 years of MLB service, one day shy of the 3.172 threshold required to push him over four full seasons. In that scenario, Laureano’s path to free agency would be delayed by an entire year, as he’d be eligible for arbitration four times and wouldn’t reach the open market until after the 2025 season — instead of after the 2024 campaign as had been the expectation prior to today.

It’s worth noting that those estimates are unofficial, and there’s also the matter of the postseason to consider. If the A’s make a deep playoff run this year, that’d allow Laureano to return earlier than April 30, 2022. In that case, he’d be in position to accrue enough service time to surpass the four-year threshold next season, keeping him on pace for free agency during the 2024-25 offseason.

It’s a unique scenario that could have significant ramifications for Laureano and the A’s at some point down the road. In the nearer term, the bigger focus for the organization will be on continuing to hold onto a postseason spot without one of their best position players.

Dodgers Activate Trea Turner; Jimmy Nelson To Undergo Elbow Surgery

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The Dodgers announced they’ve reinstated Trea Turner from the COVID-19 injured list. He’s not in tonight’s starting lineup, but he could make his team debut off the bench this evening. Reliever Victor González has been placed on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to August 4, with right knee inflammation to open active roster space. To create 40-man roster space, the team has transferred righty Jimmy Nelson to the 60-day injured list. Nelson will undergo Tommy John surgery and a right flexor tendon repair procedure.

Whether tonight or tomorrow, Turner is soon to get into his first game as a Dodger. The All-Star shortstop came over alongside Max Scherzer last week as part of deadline season’s top blockbuster. The 28-year-old had tested positive for COVID-19 shortly before the trade, though, so he’s remained in isolation until today.

Turner adds another elite player to a lineup already chock-full of stars. He’s hitting .322/.369/.521 with eighteen home runs across 420 plate appearances, his second consecutive season of elite offensive output. One of the game’s best baserunners, Turner has also swiped 21 bags, all while playing average or better defense at shortstop. The whole package makes Turner one of the sport’s most valuable position players, although he seems likely to slide over to second base in deference to Corey Seager in L.A. Wherever he plays, Turner should be a massive boon to a Dodger club that trails the league-best Giants by four games in the NL West.

It’s not all positive news on the health front for the Dodgers with Nelson undergoing surgery. While the club didn’t provide a timetable for his return beyond ruling him out for the rest of this season, it seems likely he’ll miss the entire 2022 campaign rehabbing. It’s crushing news for a respected, high-quality pitcher who has been plagued by a series of long-term health issues in recent seasons.

Nelson looked like a potential top-of-the-rotation starter after a stellar 2017 season with the Brewers. A shoulder injury cost him the entire 2018 campaign, though. That kept him out for a good chunk of the 2019 season too, with an elbow injury costing him another month that year. Nelson was ineffective when he was healthy enough to pitch, and Milwaukee non-tendered him at the end of that season.

The Dodgers signed Nelson during the 2019-20 offseason, but a July back surgery prevented him from pitching all year. Los Angeles brought Nelson back on a minor league deal to work in relief, and he made good on his end of that agreement. The 32-year-old pitched to a sterling 1.86 ERA over 29 frames this year, emerging as a potential high-leverage option for manager Dave Roberts. Unfortunately, he landed on the IL with elbow inflammation on Wednesday. That issue apparently requires surgical repair.

Nelson will hit free agency at the end of this season. He could field some multi-year offers from teams with an eye toward the 2023 campaign. Alternatively, Nelson could rehab the injury on his own and look to market himself to clubs after he has returned to health. Either way, it’s a devastating turn of events for a player who has already overcome more than his fair share of health issues.

Gary Sanchez Tests Positive For COVID-19

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Yankees catcher Gary Sánchez has tested positive for COVID-19, manager Aaron Boone told reporters (including Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News). He woke up this morning not feeling well and a rapid test came back positive. Rob Brantly is being re-selected to the roster as his replacement.

Sánchez is yet another notable Yankees player to land on the COVID IL. Gerrit Cole and Jordan Montgomery hit the injured list earlier this week, and a few players (including star outfielder Aaron Judge) tested positive immediately after the All-Star Break. One of those players — reliever Wandy Peralta — just made his return from the IL this afternoon. Assuming follow-up testing confirms the positive result, Sánchez will miss at least ten days recuperating, leaving New York to rely upon Kyle Higashioka and Brantly behind the plate.

Brantly was selected as a COVID replacement, so he can be returned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre at a later date without being subjected to waivers. He’s already been up as a COVID replacement once this season, appearing in four games.

Athletics Sign Khris Davis

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It’s reunion season in Oakland. The A’s announced Wednesday that they’ve signed outfielder/designated hitter Khris Davis to a minor league contract and assigned him to their affiliate in the Arizona Complex League.

Davis, of course, was a mainstay in the Athletics’ lineup from 2016-20, logging a trio of 40-homer campaigns as the team’s primary designated hitter along the way. Davis rather remarkably posted a .247 batting average in four consecutive seasons with the A’s, complementing that with healthy walk rates and top-of-the-scale power. Davis led Major League Baseball in home runs from 2016-18. Add in the 2019 season, and only Nelson Cruz and Nolan Arenado surpassed him in total long balls.

The slugger had long made clear that he hoped to remain in Oakland, and the A’s took the rather rare (for them) step of extending Davis and buying out multiple free-agent seasons. Unfortunately, the two-year, $33MM contract proved to be a misstep, as Davis’ bat fell off not long after signing the deal. He hit just .200/.303/.329 through 99 plate appearances in 2020, the first season of that extension, and Oakland flipped him to the Rangers in an offseason deal that brought Elvis Andrus to the A’s and carried payroll benefits for both clubs. Things didn’t go well for “Khrush” in Texas, either, as he slashed just .157/.262/.333 in 61 plate appearances before being designated for assignment and released.

Of course, any mention of Davis’ decline needs to take his health — or lack thereof — into account. Davis played through hip, oblique and hand injuries in 2019 as his downturn at the plate began, and while he didn’t make excuses for his dwindling power numbers, he eventually acknowledged that his  injuries had impacted his swing when asked. Davis explained that he’d begun to choke up a bit to compensate for a lack of strength in his hand, which had conversely impacted his power game. Whether Davis was fully healthy in either of the two subsequent seasons can’t be certain, but he’s yet to regain the prodigious power or remarkable consistency at the plate that he displayed in his peak form.

It might be a long shot to see the now-33-year-old slugger return to those heights, at least in 2021, but the A’s will take a no-risk look and try to get one of their former lineup cornerstones back on track in the minor league ranks. Their openness to doing so should come as no surprise; Oakland designated hitters have combined to bat just .217/.292/.380 this season. The A’s were linked to Cruz in trade rumblings last month, but the AL East-leading Rays made the best offer for the now-former Twins slugger and acquired him about a week prior to the July 30 trade deadline.

Anthony Rendon To Undergo Season-Ending Hip Surgery

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The Angeles announced this afternoon that Anthony Rendon will undergo season-ending surgery to repair a right hip impingement. He is being placed on the 60-day injured list. Left-hander Packy Naughton has been selected to the big league roster in a corresponding move, with Chris Rodriguez optioned to Triple-A Salt Lake to clear space on the active roster. The club expects Rendon to be ready for Opening Day 2022, reports Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times.

Surgery is the culmination of what turned out to be a very trying season for the All-Star third baseman. Rendon landed on the injured list on three separate occasions, missing time due to groin, knee and hamstring problems. All of those injuries were related to Rendon’s left leg, though, with the right hip impingement a new issue that arose during his rehab from the hamstring injury, relays Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register.

The series of health woes limited Rendon to a total of 249 plate appearances. His typically stellar production was merely average over that time, as the 31-year-old hit .240/.329/.382 with six home runs. This was arguably the least productive season of Rendon’s career, a far cry from the elite .310/.397/.557 line he posted between 2018-20.

Long-term absences to Rendon and Mike Trout have contributed to another mediocre season for the Angels in spite of an MVP-caliber year from Shohei Ohtani. The 53-54 Halos sit 6.5 games back of the Athletics for the final playoff spot in the American League, with the Yankees, Mariners, Blue Jays and Indians all also ahead in the standings. Their playoff chances are down to a meager 1.1%, in FanGraphs’ estimation, and losing Rendon will only make a miracle second half run all the more improbable. In all likelihood, Anaheim is destined for a seventh consecutive year without postseason play.

A return to health and prior form at the plate from Rendon will be critical to the Angels’ hopes of competing in 2022. With Trout, Ohtani, Rendon and Jared Walsh in the fold, the club is no doubt hoping to take another crack at competing next season. Rendon signed a seven-year, $245MM free agent contract over the 2019-20 offseason, so he’ll remain in the fold for quite some time. Under the terms of his backloaded deal, Rendon will earn $36MM next season, followed by successive $38MM salaries from 2023-26.

While Naughton surely wouldn’t have liked for his promotion to come under these circumstances, he is in line to make his big league debut. The 25-year-old began his career as an ninth-round draftee of the Reds out of Virginia Tech in 2017. He was flipped to the Angels last summer as part of the return for outfielder Brian Goodwin. Naughton has spent the 2021 campaign with Salt Lake, working to a 5.23 ERA across 51 2/3 innings in an extremely hitter-friendly league. While he has struck out a below-average 21.5% of opponents, the southpaw has only walked a tiny 5.7% of batters faced, a common theme throughout his minor league career.

Tyler Glasnow Undergoes Tommy John Surgery

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AUGUST 4: Glasnow underwent a successful Tommy John procedure today, reports Robert Murray of FanSided (Twitter link). According to Murray, the expectation is that he indeed will miss the entirety of the 2022 season.

AUGUST 3: As expected, Glasnow will indeed have Tommy John surgery on Wednesday, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.

JULY 31: Rays right-hander Tyler Glasnow is expected to undergo Tommy John surgery next week, per ESPN’s Jeff Passan (via Twitter). That not only officially marks an end to his 2021 season, but perhaps his 2022 season as well. Passan adds that he may not return until 2023, though there remains a “small chance” that they’ll find an alternative way to rehab his partially torn UCL before a potential surgery date next week.

Glasnow last appeared in a game on June 14th, at which point the hope was that rehab might be enough for Glasnow to make a late-season return. His latest throwing session put that theory in doubt, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (via Twitter), who adds that the decision for Tommy John isn’t yet official, though it is expected.

Prior to the injury, Glasnow was a clear Cy Young candidate, having posted 2.4 rWAR through 14 starts with a 2.66 ERA/2.76 FIP. He tossed 88 innings with an absurd 36.2 percent strikeout rate and strong 7.9 percent walk rate to go with a 45.3 percent groundball rate. Now, it’s unclear if Glasnow will pitch again before 2023, his last year before free agency.

This is a truly devastating though not wholly unexpected development for the electric 27-year-old. Glasnow’s injury will remain a touchstone of debate, not only because of how his absence will affect the pennant race this season (and next) but because the timing of the injury coincided with MLB’s stricter policy on the use of foreign substances. The causal link there is tenuous, of course, but the connection will continue to be made because of its powers as an analog for the disconnect between MLB decision-makers and the players.

Rangers Place David Dahl On Release Waivers

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Aug. 4: Dahl has been placed on unconditional release waivers, the Rangers announced. Other clubs will have 48 hours to place a claim on him, although doing so would require assuming the remaining $871K on his salary. If he goes unclaimed, a team would only need to commit the prorated league minimum to Dahl for any time spent on the MLB roster. That’d be about $184K from now through season’s end.

Aug. 2: The Rangers announced Monday that they’ve designated outfielder David Dahl for assignment. Texas has also selected the contract of right-hander Jimmy Herget, optioned righty Demarcus Evans to Triple-A Round Rock, and added outfielder DJ Peters to the active roster. The Rangers announced earlier in the afternoon that they’d claimed him from the Dodgers.

Dahl, 27, is a former first-round pick and top prospect who looked like a building block for the Rockies early in his career. He debuted at just 21 years of age back in 2016 and immediately impressed with a .315/.359/.500 slash in 237 plate appearances, turning in seven homers, 12 doubles, four triples and five steals in that time as well.

Injuries have played a massive role in derailing that promising outlook, however. Most notably, Dahl suffered a lacerated spleen in an outfield collision before he ever reached the Majors — a frightening injury that ultimately led to an emergency splenectomy. He’s since had a stress reaction in his ribcage, a fractured foot, a high ankle sprain, a lower back injury and a right shoulder strain.

Dahl spent the 2017 season on the injured list but returned to enjoy productive 2018-19 campaigns. The 2020 season was a disaster, however, as he posted a .183/.222/.247 batting line in 99 plate appearances with the Rox and, somewhat surprisingly, was non-tendered in December. The Rangers swooped in to add Dahl on a one-year deal worth a guaranteed $2.7MM, but he’s looked nowhere near the 2016-19 version of himself; in 220 plate appearances this season, Dahl has batted only .210/.247/.322.

As impressive as Dahl was from 2016-19, slashing a combined .297/.346/.521 in more than 900 plate appearances, he’s only mustered a .201/.239/.299 output over his past 319 plate appearances. Given that downturn and the fact that he’s still owed $900K of that $2.7MM salary between now and season’s end, there’s a good chance Dahl simply goes unclaimed on outright waivers. While Dahl has the three years of service needed to reject an outright assignment, he has fewer than the five years necessary to retain his remaining salary in the event that he rejects that outright.

Dodgers Sign Cole Hamels

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11:00am: Hamels signed a Major League deal with a $1MM base salary, tweets ESPN’s Buster Olney. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale adds that Hamels will take home a $200K bonus for every start made.

10:32am: The Dodgers have a deal in place with Hamels, tweets Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times. He’ll first head to the team’s Spring Training complex in Arizona to continue building up arm strength.

9:00am: The Dodgers are nearing a deal with free-agent lefty Cole Hamels, reports MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (via Twitter). The 37-year-old Hamels recently held a widely attended showcase for clubs and will give the Dodgers another option in the rotation once he builds up to game readiness. Hamels is represented by JBA Sports.

Hamels’ 2020 season with the Braves was wiped out by a series of triceps and shoulder issues. Signed to a one-year, $18MM contract in December 2019, Hamels would only throw 3 1/3 innings during his time with Atlanta. A quiet offseason ensued, with Hamels waiting until his shoulder was back to 100 percent before auditioning for clubs. That might’ve taken longer than initially anticipated, but the lefty drew scouts from upwards of 20 teams last month once he felt ready to go.

It’s unlikely that Hamels will be an immediate option for the Dodgers. He’s pitched just 3 1/3 innings since the end of the 2019 season and hadn’t been throwing in game settings prior to his showcase. For some context, Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski discussed Hamels’ showcase with NBC Sports Philadelphia’s John Clark and laid out the reason that teams in need of immediate pitching help didn’t pounce on Hamels right away.

“The one thing in Cole’s case, and he’s the first to admit it, he’s not ready to pitch now,” said Dombrowski just a few days after Hamels’ showcase for teams. “He has to go through his own ’Spring Training,’ so you’re talking about somebody that’s maybe 30 to 40 days down the road helping you.”

Those comments came back on July 19, and Hamels has surely been working out in the interim — likely with more intensity as he geared up to sign with a team. Still, it stands to reason that the Dodgers would send him through at least a handful of minor league rehab starts, so Hamels seems like a late-August or early-September possibility more than someone who’ll be thrown right into the fire.

Whenever he does make his debut, Hamels will bring one of the more accomplished track records of the current generation of pitchers to the Dodgers’ staff. Hamels is a World Series champion and former World Series and NLCS MVP who has made four All-Star teams and has long been considered one of the game’s premier arms. His 2010-16 peak saw him pitch 1477 2/3 innings of 3.14 ERA ball. His work since that peak has dropped off a bit, but Hamels still tossed 480 1/3 innings of 3.92 ERA ball from 2017-19 before last year’s injury-ruined season.

Rotation help has become an unexpected need for the Dodgers, who lost Dustin May to Tommy John surgery early. Los Angeles also has both Clayton Kershaw (forearm inflammation) and Tony Gonsolin (shoulder inflammation) on the injured list at the moment. Trevor Bauer has been on administrative leave since early July following sexual assault allegations that were brought forth against him. Starter-turned-reliever David Price moved back into the rotation last month and built up to about 75 pitches, but his most recent outing was once again a single-inning relief appearance.

The Dodgers addressed their sudden lack of rotation depth at the trade deadline, first picking up the currently injured Danny Duffy before putting together a deadline-day blockbuster acquisition of Max Scherzer. That duo, plus the apparently impending addition of Hamels, ought to give the Dodgers some more firepower on the starting staff down the stretch in a tightly contested three-team race for the NL West crown. For now, the Dodgers will lean on Scherzer, Walker Buehler and Julio Urias as their top three options.

It’s not fully clear just when Hamels, Kershaw or Gonsolin could be cleared to pitch for the Dodgers. Hamels needs the aforementioned buildup, while the team’s last update on Kershaw was that he’d experienced some “residual soreness” following his latest throwing session. Gonsolin hit the 10-day IL on July 31, and there’s been no update since. Duffy landed on the injured list back on July 20, owing to a forearm strain. Royals GM Dayton Moore said on July 27 that the club felt Duffy was perhaps three to four weeks from a return.

The Dodgers themselves probably don’t know exactly how their rotation will shape up over the season’s final eight-plus weeks, but their recent pickups of Scherzer, Duffy and Hamels give the team an enviable stockpile of accomplished arms from which to draw as they look to chase down the first-place Giants and defend their 2020 World Series victory.

Gerrit Cole, Jordan Montgomery Test Positive For COVID-19

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AUGUST 3: Montgomery has also tested positive for the virus, general manager Brian Cashman said on WFAN Sports Radio (h/t to Erik Boland of Newsday). That’ll leave the Yankees quite shorthanded on the starting staff over the next week and a half.

AUGUST 2: Yankees ace Gerrit Cole had been scheduled to start tomorrow’s game against the Orioles but won’t take the mound after testing positive for Covid-19, manager Aaron Boone announced to reporters this evening (Twitter link via Tyler Kepner of the New York Times). Boone also revealed that third baseman Gio Urshela is headed to the 10-day injured list due to a hamstring strain.

Cole will presumably be placed on the Covid-19 injured list and, as a player who tested positive, be subject to a quarantine period of at least 10 days, as is stipulated in Major League Baseball’s health and safety protocols for the 2021 season. Boone added that “as of now,” Cole is the only new positive on the Yankees’ roster. Nestor Cortes Jr. is “likely” to get the start in Cole’s place, although the team has yet to make any firm determinations on how they’ll proceed with the rotation.

With Cole subtracted from the rotation mix for the foreseeable future, the Yankees will likely rely on a combination of Jameson Taillon, Jordan Montgomery, newly acquired Andrew Heaney and the aforementioned Cortes to start games. Domingo German recently went on the injured list due to some shoulder inflammation, and Michael King was recently moved to the 60-day IL because of a finger injury.

Meanwhile, the Yankees are still waiting on the likes of Corey Kluber, Luis Severino and Clarke Schmidt to mend from their own injuries. Severino was cleared last week to head out on a minor league rehab assignment, and Schmidt has already made one minor league rehab start. Both figure to need a couple weeks worth of rehab stints before they’re options, however.

As for Urshela, his absence will also prove costly. He’s enjoying another solid all-around year in the Bronx, batting .274/.315/.439 with 11 home runs in 330 plate appearances and his typical brand of plus defense at the hot corner. Tyler Wade and the versatile DJ LeMahieu can step in at the hot corner for now, and depending on the length of Urshela’s absence and the yet-unclear timeline of the also-injured Miguel Andujar, the it’s possible Andujar could eventually surface as another option. He’s been out since July 10 thanks to a sprained wrist, however, and it’s not yet clear just when he’ll head out on a rehab assignment.

Angels Promote Jo Adell, Chris Rodriguez

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The Angels have recalled outfield prospect Jo Adell and right-hander Chris Rodriguez from Triple-A Salt Lake, per a club announcement. Rodriguez, who was in the team’s bullpen earlier this season, will make his first MLB start tonight against the Rangers.

This will be the second call to the Majors for Adell, 22, who struggle mightily in his first go-around last summer. At the time, Adell had just 27 Triple-A games under his belt when making the jump to the big leagues. He’d have garnered more experience there if possible, but the cancellation of the 2020 minor league season deprived him of that opportunity.

So far in 2021, Adell has certainly looked like a player who’s benefited from the extra developmental opportunity in Salt Lake. After hitting just .161/.212/.266 in 132 Major League plate appearances last summer, Adell has returned to Salt Lake and posted a hearty .289/.342/.592 slash with 23 home runs in 339 plate appearances. By measure of wRC+, that’s “only” about 19 percent better than league-average in a supercharged Triple-A offensive environment, but Adell’s recent work has certainly been improving. Since the calendar flipped to July, Adell has absolutely mashed to the tune of a .339/.387/.615 line. He’s dropped his long-problematic strikeout rate to 24.4 percent in that time.

Adell entered the 2020 season as a consensus Top 10 prospect in all of baseball and still ranked No. 13 on Baseball America’s preseason list heading into the current campaign. He fell a bit shy of a full year of service time in 2020, so the timing of his 2021 promotion has no real impact on his path to free agency. Adell accrued 153 days of service in 2020, leaving him 19 days shy of a full year. He’d have finished the current season as a one-plus player whether he was called up on Opening Day or called up on Sept. 1. The later nature of his promotion does remove the possibility of him qualifying as a Super Two player — barring future demotions that further alter his service time — but he’d have been controllable through the 2026 season in virtually any scenario that saw him called to the Majors in 2021.

As for Rodriguez, the 23-year-old righty is a well-regarded farmhand himself. He hasn’t drawn Adell’s level of national fanfare, but he impressed with 19 2/3 frames of 3.66 ERA relief as a 22-year-old earlier this season and will now transition into the rotation — a role the Angels hope he can hold down over the long term.

A back injury that ultimately required surgery has limited Rodriguez’s innings count since he was selected in the fourth round of the 2016 draft. Accordingly, he’s pitched just 117 2/3 innings in total since that selection — including this year’s work both in the minors and in the big leagues. He’ll add a potential power arm to the team’s rotation mix, as he averaged just shy of 97 mph on his heater as a reliever earlier in the year. Given that lack of total innings, it’s not a surprise that the Angels started Rodriguez in the bullpen this year to limit his workload and build him up for future seasons.

Between Rodriguez and the recently promoted Reid Detmers, the Halos are hoping that some of their farm system’s most-promising arms can both help them claw back into the 2021 Wild Card hunt and also gain some vital experience for future seasons. Neither pitcher is guaranteed a spot in the 2022 rotation, but it stands to reason that the final two months could serve as an audition — as is the case with Adell in the corner outfield.

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