Caden Dana

The Angels announced that pitching prospect Caden Dana is scheduled to start Sunday’s game against the Mariners. The club will need to make corresponding moves to get him onto both the active and 40-man rosters. Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register reported the news on on X prior to the official announcement. The club will also promote left-hander Samuel Aldegheri, per Jeff Passan of ESPN on X, with Aldegheri expected to pitch Friday. Like Dana, Aldegheri is not on the 40-man roster and the club will have to make corresponding moves for him.

Dana, now 20, went to Don Bosco Preparatory High School in Ramsey, New Jersey. Baseball America ranked him as the #76 player available in the 2022 draft. Even though he had not yet turned 19 years old at the time, BA noted that his fastball was already hitting the mid-90s. They suggested he could be off the board in the first two rounds but he lingered unsigned far later than that due to signability concerns related to his commitment to Kentucky.

The Angels eventually took him in the 11th round, 328th overall. They gave him a signing bonus of $1,497,500, which was a record for a player taken after the 10th round, per MLB.com. They were able to do so by giving below-slot deals to other players they drafted, saving some of their allotted bonus pool.

Dana made a brief professional debut in the months following that draft selection but got a more proper debut in 2023. He made 14 starts last year between Single-A and High-A, tossing 68 1/3 innings while allowing 3.56 earned runs per nine. His 10.7% walk rate was a bit on the high side but he also struck out 31.7% of batters faced. Here in 2024, he has 23 Double-A starts, throwing 135 2/3 innings with a 2.52 ERA, 27.4% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate.

Those strong results have vaulted him onto top prospect lists. BA currently has him in the #92 spot overall while MLB Pipeline has him 74th. FanGraphs lists him just outside the top 100. All outlets lists his slider as his best secondary pitch, followed by his curveball and then his changeup. Now the Halos will launch him up to the big leagues, skipping over the Triple-A level entirely.

The Angels have arguably been the most aggressive club in terms of promoting prospects in recent years and this is yet another data point in favor of that assessment. The first-round and third-round picks in 2022 were shortstop Zach Neto and right-hander Ben Joyce, both of whom were promoted to the big leagues by May of 2023. Last year’s top pick was first baseman Nolan Schanuel, who was in the bigs just over a month later. Reid Detmers and Chase Silseth were also called up the year after their draft selection. The gap from draft to debut is slightly wider with Dana, but he was selected out of high school, whereas all those other were taken out of college.

It’s also an aggressive promotion with Aldegheri, a 22-year-old, though his path to the majors far been far less traditional. He was born and raised in Verona, Italy and Matt Gelb of The Athletic profiled his unusual path to the majors back in the spring.

The Phillies signed him as part of their 2019 international class, giving him a bonus of $210K. Since then, he has continued to put up strong numbers and put himself on the prospect map, and the Angels liked him enough to acquire him in the deadline trade that sent Carlos Estévez the other way.

Between the two clubs, Aldegheri has made 19 starts this year between High-A and Double-A. He has thrown 95 1/3 innings with a 3.59 ERA, 33.5% strikeout rate and 10.3% walk rate. He’s not as highly regarded as Dana but has raised his stock. BA currently lists him #6 in the Angels’ system, noting that his fastball sits in the low 90s but has cutting and riding action. He complements it with a slider, curveball and changeup. FanGraphs provided a similar profile in putting him at #5 in the system, while MLB Pipeline has him in the #8 slot.

The Angels are out of contention this year and will use the final few weeks of the season to get a look at a couple of pitchers they hope will be a part of their future pitching staffs, which could perhaps impact their offseason. Next year’s rotation projects to include Tyler Anderson and Griffin Canning, though both are slated for free agency after 2025. Youngsters like Detmers, Silseth, Jack Kochanowicz, José Soriano and others should be in the mix. Patrick Sandoval underwent UCL surgery this summer but could be a factor by late 2025.

Dana and Aldegheri will be able to get their feet wet at the major league level but neither will exhaust rookie status this year. There are less than 45 days remaining in the schedule and the club will surely not allow them to pitch 50 innings. By keeping them in the rookie bucket going into 2025, the club will be able to have prospect promotion incentives on the table.

To combat service time manipulation, the collective bargaining agreement provides incentives for clubs to promote their top prospects. If a player has less than 60 days of service time and is on two of three top 100 lists at BA, ESPN or MLB Pipeline, the are PPI-eligible if they are promoted early enough in a season to get a full service year. If the player goes on to win Rookie of the Year, or finish in the top three in MVP or Cy Young voting during their pre-arbitration years, the club gets an extra draft pick just after the first round.

That will be more of a factor with Dana, who is already on two of those three lists, though it’s at least theoretically possible for Aldegheri to sneak on, especially if he pitches well in the next few weeks. There’s also the theoretical possibility that he spends all of 2025 on optional assignment and is still a rookie going into 2026.

That will be a secondary concern. The main goal for the Angels is getting their pitchers acclimated to the big leagues and seeing how their stuff plays against major league hitters. The club’s lack of starting pitching has been an ongoing concern, partially due to a lack of development but also due to a lack of spending. Other than Anderson, the club hasn’t signed a free agent starting pitcher to a multi-year deal since Joe Blanton’s two-year pact in 2012. If Dana or Aldegheri, or both, can turn into viable big league starters, it could be a big boost to the club in the years to come.

As mentioned, it also continues a pattern of aggressive promotions. That made a lot of sense when the club had both Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani on the roster, as it appeared they were trying to explore all avenues to put a winning team around that duo when they had the chance. Ohtani is now gone but perhaps the club is still trying to make the most of the Trout era. He has missed significant time in recent years due to injuries and is now 33 years old, but he is under contract through 2030. Perhaps this is a sign the club still wants to take a shot at contending before Trout gets even older, though that may also depend on how the young players perform, how the offseason plays out, and other factors.