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Jose Quijada

Angels Outright José Quijada

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The Angels have sent left-hander José Quijada outrighted to Triple-A Salt Lake, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. That indicates he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment last week.

Quijada, 29, has the right to elect free agency but it’s unlikely he will do so. Players with at least three years of service time have the right to reject outright assignments and head to the open market. But if they have less than five years, they have to forfeit any remaining salary commitments in order to exercise that right. Quijada is in that three-to-five-year window. He and the Angels avoided arbitration in the offseason by agreeing to a $1.075MM salary. There’s a little over $300K still to be paid out. Presumably, he’ll want to collect that money and will report to Salt Lake.

That sequence of events played out in March, leaving Quijada as non-roster depth for the Halos. He was selected back to the big league roster a week before the deadline. He made two scoreless appearances but was bumped back off the roster when the Angels acquired Andrew Chafin and Luis García from the Nationals.

Quijada now returns to the depth role he’s been in for most of this year. He had some good results for the Angels earlier in his career but missed most of the 2023 and 2024 seasons due to Tommy John surgery. This year, the Angels had him with the Double-A Trash Pandas prior to his promotion. He put up good numbers there, with a 2.73 earned run average in 26 1/3 innings. His 8.6% walk rate and 42.6% ground ball rate were both decent figures, while his 37.1% strikeout rate was quite strong.

He’ll now report to Salt Lake, which should be more of a challenge. In addition to simply being one level closer to the majors, the Bees play in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. He’ll try to put up some good numbers there and position himself to be called back up when the Angels next need a fresh arm in the big leagues.

Photo courtesy of Kirby Lee, Imagn Images

Angels Designate Jose Quijada For Assignment

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The Angels designated lefty reliever José Quijada for assignment. That’s a corresponding move for the now official acquisition of relievers Andrew Chafin and Luis García from the Nationals. Lefty Jake Eder, one of two players headed back to Washington, was already on the 40-man roster. The Angels only needed to create one opening as a result.

Quijada’s contract was just selected last week. He made two scoreless appearances, striking out three batters in an inning and a third. The 29-year-old southpaw had been designated for assignment at the end of Spring Training. He cleared outright waivers and has spent the majority of the season at Double-A Rocket City. Quijada turned in a 2.73 earned run average through 26 1/3 innings while striking out 37.1% of batters faced at that level. That earned him another brief stint in the big league bullpen, but he’s been pushed off by today’s pair of veterans.

The Angels can technically try to trade Quijada until tomorrow evening. The likelier outcome is that he’ll just go back on outright waivers. He’s playing on a $1.075MM arbitration salary that checks in a little above the MLB minimum. Quijada would need to forfeit that salary to elect free agency, so he’d likely accept another minor league assignment if he clears waivers.

Angels Acquire Andrew Chafin, Luis García

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The Angels have acquired left-hander Andrew Chafin and right-hander Luis García from the Nationals, per announcements from both clubs. The Nats receive left-hander Jake Eder and minor league first baseman Sam Brown in return. The Halos designated left-hander José Quijada for assignment to open a 40-man spot. Eder was on the 40-man, so his departure opened another.

Chafin, 35, started the year with the Tigers on a minor league deal. He opted out of that deal and signed a major league pact with the Nats at the start of May. He was been with the Nats since then, apart from a brief IL stint for a hamstring strain. He has thrown 20 big league innings this year, allowing 2.70 earned runs per nine, though with less impressive metrics under the hood. His 42.1% ground ball rate is around league average but his 20.5% strikeout rate and 13.6% walk rate are both subpar.

His longer track record is more impressive. He has 528 1/3 big league innings with a 3.39 ERA, 25.7% strikeout rate, 10.2% walk rate and 47.8% ground ball rate. As recently as last year with the Tigers and Rangers, he was able to post a 3.51 ERA with a 28.5% strikeout rate, though also a high walk rate of 12.6%.

García, 38, signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers in the offseason. He made that club’s Opening Day roster but was released in early July and landed with the Nats. Between the two clubs, he has a 4.10 ERA, 19.5% strikeout rate, 11.3% walk rate and 54.6% ground ball rate.

Like Chafin, he has a long major league track record. García has thrown 565 1/3 innings in his career with a 4.14 ERA, 21.3% strikeout rate, 10% walk rate and 54.5% ground ball rate. He’s been with the Angels before, having pitched for them in 2019 and the first half of 2024.

Neither pitcher is likely to be a huge difference maker. Both of them were available as free agents during the season. Still, it perhaps suggests the Angels are at least doing a soft buy. The Halos are four games out of a playoff spot, which is a tough spot to be in terms of making a buy/sell decision. But the club generally prefers to go for it when they are close and they haven’t made the playoffs since 2014. Franchise icon Mike Trout is about to turn 34 years old and increasingly injury prone. He’s hitting well this year but mostly limited to designated hitter duties.

It’s somewhat understandable that the club may want to do right by Trout and make an effort to get him back to the postseason for the first time in over a decade. The odds are against them, however. FanGraphs currently gives them just a 5.3% chance of making it in. Baseball Prospectus is even more pessimistic, putting the Halos at 2.4%.

Adding Chafin and García won’t increase those odds very much but the club does have a poor bullpen. Overall, the club’s relievers have a 4.96 ERA, which is better than just three other major league clubs.

It’s also theoretically possible that the Angels are going to flip other players, such as Kenley Jansen or Reid Detmers, with Chafin and García having been brought in to backfill the bullpen with veteran arms. Though the most straightforward read on the Angels right now is that they are looking to make some buy-side moves without really harming themselves in the long run.

Neither Eder nor Brown is a massive price to pay. Eder was once a notable prospect but his stock has fallen in recent years. He underwent Tommy John surgery in August of 2021 and hasn’t really been able to get on track since then. He has 20 1/3 big league innings with a 4.87 ERA, 18.4% strikeout rate and 11.5% walk rate. He has a 6.41 ERA in 229 minor league innings since the start of 2023. The Angels got him in a cash deal earlier this year after he had been designated for assignment by the White Sox.

Brown was a 12th-round pick in 2023, who is about to turn 24 years old. In 92 Double-A games this year, he has a .244/.350/.358 batting line and 117 wRC+. He’s not listed among the club’s top 30 prospects at Baseball America or MLB Pipeline.

It’s a perfectly sensible move for the Nats. Chafin and García were midseason pickups who are impending free agents. It makes sense to cash them in for whatever they can get. There’s no harm in taking fliers on Eder and Brown to see what happens.

For the Angels, they are apparently attempting to bolster the club. Perhaps more moves will follow before tomorrow’s deadline. For now, they haven’t given up anything of significance. In a sense, that won’t really hurt them if they fall short of the playoffs again. On the other hand, they could be passing up an opportunity to add talent to the system.

In the past, they turned down opportunities to sell notable players. Shohei Ohtani was the most notable example. Instead of trading him for a prospect haul in 2023, they held and also added players. They flipped Edgar Quero and Ky Bush for Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo López. The club then faded and put Giolito and López on waivers in August. This move doesn’t rise to that level but it’s possible the Angels are yet again betting on a team that’s not quite good enough. They have reportedly drawn trade interest in Taylor Ward and Jo Adell. They could have shopped Jansen, Detmers, Tyler Anderson, Yoán Moncada and others. It seems unlikely that they are taking that path. Time will tell what their full deadline approach is.

Jeff Passan of ESPN reported that García was going to the Angels and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first had Chafin. Passan added that Eder was one of the players going to the Nats in return. Rosenthal then added Brown’s inclusion.

Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images

Angels Select José Quijada

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The Angels announced that they have selected the contract of left-hander José Quijada. Fellow lefty Jake Eder has been optioned to Triple-A Salt Lake as the corresponding active roster move. Righty Robert Stephenson has been transferred to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man spot.

The Halos did a bullpen game yesterday, with Eder mopping up six innings, throwing 98 pitches in the process. They optioned Jack Kochanowicz prior to the All-Star break and haven’t found a permanent solution for that rotation hole yet. Eder wasn’t going to be available for a few days, so the club will bring in a fresh arm. They have Yusei Kikuchi, José Soriano, Tyler Anderson and Kyle Hendricks to start the next four games but will need to figure out something for Monday’s game. Perhaps some pre-deadline moves will shake up the roster or they will simply recall Kochanowicz. An optional assignment for a pitcher comes with a 15-day minimum. He was optioned on July 11th, so he’ll be eligible to be recalled in a few days.

Quijada, 29, designated for assignment just prior to Opening Day and outrighted to Triple-A Salt Lake. He didn’t pitch anywhere through the middle of May. He was added to the roster of the Double-A Rocket City Trash Pandas on May 10th. Per Chris Harris of MiLB.com, he had been on the development list prior to that. He told members of the media today, including Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com, that he changed his diet at the club’s Arizona complex and has lost 30 pounds since spring training.

He has been putting up good numbers in Double-A since joining the Trash Pandas. He has logged 26 1/3 innings, allowing 2.73 earned runs per nine. He struck out a huge 37.1% of batters faced, while his 8.6% walk rate and 42.6% ground ball rate were around average.

Those numbers and the improved conditioning are perhaps encouraging, though getting major league hitters out is obviously different than Double-A opponents. He had a decent run with the Angels in 2021 and 2022, tossing 66 1/3 innings over those two seasons with a 4.21 ERA. His 12.9% walk rate was high but he struck out 32.3% of batters faced. The two subsequent years were mostly wiped out by Tommy John surgery.

He will give the Halos a fresh arm for now but is out of options, so he can’t be easily sent back to the farm. That was part of the reason why he was designated for assignment earlier this year. His service clock is between three and five years, which means he has the right to reject outright assignments but has to forfeit his remaining salary commitments when exercising that right. Since he’s making $1.075MM this year, he naturally accepted. If he were bumped off the roster again, it’s possible the same sequence of events would play out.

As for Stephenson, this shouldn’t impact his timeline. The 60-day count is retroactive to his initial placement on the 15-day IL, which was on May 31st due to right biceps inflammation, though he later said it’s due to a stretched nerve. It’s been almost 60 days already, so he’ll eligible for reinstatement once he’s healthy.

Photo courtesy of Kirby Lee, Imagn Images

Athletics Claim Angel Perdomo, Designate Esteury Ruiz For Assignment

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The Athletics announced this afternoon that they’ve claimed left-hander Angel Perdomo off waivers from the Angels. In a corresponding move, center fielder Esteury Ruiz was designated for assignment. The Angels separately announced that left-hander Jose Quijada as cleared waivers and been assigned outright to the minor leagues.

Perdomo, 31 in May, signed with the Blue Jays out of the Dominican Republic and made his pro debut back in 2012. He didn’t end up cracking the big leagues until the shortened 2020 season, however, at which point he was a member of the Brewers. Perdomo struggled badly across parts of two seasons in Milwaukee, with an 8.24 ERA and a 6.43 FIP in 19 2/3 innings of work across 22 appearances. While his 33.7% strikeout rate was nothing short of excellent, Perdomo was held back by a massive 23.5% walk rate.

The southpaw went on to spend the 2022 season in the Rays farm system, where he pitched quite well at the Triple-A level, before signing a minor league deal with the Pirates for the 2023 season. He pitched solid for Pittsburgh that year, with a 3.72 ERA and 3.01 FIP in 29 innings of work as he struck out a sensational 37.6% of his opponents. Unfortunately, elbow issues cut Perdomo’s season short and he ultimately required Tommy John surgery during the offseason. That led the Pirates to designate the lefty for assignment, at which point he was claimed by Atlanta and signed to a split deal for the 2024 season.

Perdomo ultimately did not pitch in 2024, however, and though he stuck with the club over the offseason he was ultimately traded to the Angels earlier this month. He was DFA’d by Anaheim prior to Opening Day, and now finds himself headed north to West Sacramento where he’ll get the opportunity to join the A’s bullpen if he can prove he’s healthy and effective. The southpaw’s Spring Training was something of a mixed bag, as he impressed with a 1.80 ERA but walked (6) nearly as many batters as he struck out (8). If he pitches as well as he did for Pittsburgh, however, Perdomo could wind up being a solid complement to Mason Miller from the left hand side in the late innings.

Making room for Perdomo on the 40-man roster is Ruiz. The center fielder is most famous for being the centerpiece of the return the Athletics received in a controversial three-team trade that sent franchise catcher Sean Murphy to Atlanta and promising young backstop William Contreras to Milwaukee. While Contreras has gone on to put himself on the shortlist for the title of best catcher in baseball with the Brewers, the return the A’s received for Murphy has largely failed to produce in the majors. That includes Ruiz, who appeared in 132 games in 2023 as the club’s regular center fielder and swiped a league-leading 67 bases in 80 attempts. Impressive as his wheels were on the basepaths, however, he was a pedestrian defender in center field and failed to hit enough to justify his everyday job, slashing just .254/.309/.345 in 497 trips to the plate.

The 2024 season saw Ruiz open the season with the club but get optioned to the minor leagues in fairly short order. Overall, he hit just .200/.270/.382 with five steals in nine attempts across 29 games with the A’s during their final season in Oakland before missing the majority of the season with a wrist sprain and ultimately undergoing knee surgery in September. Ruiz came into camp with a chance at a job with the A’s this year, but hit just .121/.171/.152 in Spring Training, leaving the club to option him to the minor leagues. Evidently, the A’s feel he no longer has much of a future with the organization following the emergence of pieces like Lawrence Butler and JJ Bleday. Going forward, they’ll have one week to work out a trade involving Ruiz or else he’ll need to be placed on waivers. Should he pass through waivers unclaimed, the club will have the opportunity to outright him to Triple-A to serve as non-roster depth going forward.

Angels Select Tim Anderson

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The Angels announced that they’ve selected shortstop Tim Anderson onto the MLB roster. The Halos also confirmed a few previously reported moves: the promotion of reliever Ryan Johnson, the signing of Nicky Lopez to a one-year deal, and the DFAs of lefty relievers José Quijada and Angel Perdomo.

Anderson, a two-time All-Star, gets another rebound chance after a second straight poor season. He hit only .214/.237/.226 in 65 games for the Marlins last season. Miami had signed him to a $5MM deal in the hope that he’d become a midseason trade chip. Instead, they ended up releasing him before the All-Star Break. Anderson sat out the remainder of the season and signed an offseason minor league contract with the Halos.

The righty-hitting Anderson appeared in 21 games this spring. He hit .263 with one homer and three steals in as many attempts. It wasn’t a dominant showing, but he’ll provide speed and decent contact skills off Ron Washington’s bench. Zach Neto is opening the season on the injured list. Kevin Newman will probably get the starting shortstop job. Anderson, Lopez and Kyren Paris could all work off the bench. The Angels might be without Yoán Moncada to open the season, which could push Luis Rengifo to the hot corner. That’d leave second base open for one of the depth infielders.

Meanwhile, Michael Huntley of The Orange County Register notes that the Perdomo and Quijada designations all but officially secure Garrett McDaniels’ spot on the Opening Day roster. The Angeles took the lefty out of the Dodgers system in the Rule 5 draft. McDaniels got ground-balls at a massive 67.9% clip over nine innings this spring. He only managed four strikeouts and walks apiece, but the 25-year-old’s game is built around grounders.

Angels Sign Nicky Lopez

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The Angels have signed infielder Nicky Lopez to a major league deal, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Earlier, Sam Blum of The Athletic relayed that Lopez has a locker for tonight’s game against the Dodgers. Blum also relayed that left-hander José Quijada does not have a locker, so perhaps he has been removed from the club’s roster. Subsequently, Blum has added that left-hander Angel Perdomo is also without a locker. The 40-man roster count dropped to 39 earlier today with the release of Mickey Moniak. Adding Lopez would bump that back up to 40 but that would drop again if Quijada and/or Perdomo are removed.

Lopez, 30, was in camp with the Cubs on a minor league deal until recently. He was reassigned to minor league camp ahead of that club travelling to Japan for the Tokyo Series. It was reported at that time that he was expected to trigger an opt-out in his deal. He was officially granted his release a few days ago, freeing him up to sign this deal with the Halos.

Broadly speaking, Lopez is a glove-first infielder. He did have one especially strong season at the plate in 2021, though that was largely fuelled by a .347 batting average on balls in play. He has 2,346 big league plate appearances overall with a .248/.312/.314 line and 77 wRC+.

But the defensive profile is strong, with over 2,000 innings at the shortstop position. Defensive Runs Saved has considered him to be roughly average at that spot, before giving him a rough -9 mark last year. Outs Above Average, however, has Lopez at +33 at short in his career. He has also received strong marks for his work at second and third base, with brief showings at first and left field as well.

He was with the White Sox last year and could have been retained for 2025 via arbitration, with MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projecting him for a $5.1MM salary. Given his light hitting, the Sox weren’t willing to pay that. He was passed through waivers in November and elected free agency. He later signed a minor league deal with the Cubs, with that pact coming with a modest $1.5MM salary if he made the majors. Presumably, this deal with the Angels comes with a fairly modest salary.

The Angels have plenty of uncertainty throughout their infield. Shortstop Zach Neto is going to start the season on the injured list as he is still recovering from offseason shoulder surgery. Third baseman Anthony Rendon underwent hip surgery last month and has been moved to the 60-day injured list. The Angels signed Yoán Moncada to replace Rendon at third but he’s been battling some thumb soreness in camp and hasn’t played in an official spring game since March 12. Second baseman Luis Rengifo has been dealing with a nagging hamstring injury. He’s been back in the lineup for over a week but is hitting .150/.261/.150 in Cactus League action.

As of now, Kevin Newman seems likely to be the club’s shortstop. Rengifo seems to be healthy enough to play either second or third base. Lopez gives them a glove-first guy who can bounce around. Non-roster invitees like Tim Anderson or J.D. Davis could also factor into the mix if added to the roster.

Perdomo and Quijada are both out-of-options lefty relievers. That means they need to be on the active roster or else removed from the 40-man. Nothing official has been announced but their absences from the clubhouse seem to suggest they won’t be making the club.

Quijada, 29, has generally been able to rack up lots of strikeouts but also plenty of walks in his career. To this point, he has 128 innings under his belt with a 4.64 earned run average. He has punched out 30.3% of opponents but given out free passes at a 14.8% clip. He underwent Tommy John surgery in May of 2023, meaning he didn’t pitch much in the past two years.

He qualified for arbitration for the first time after that 2023 season. But due to the surgery, he was only able to bump his salary to $840K, barely above league minimum. He and the Angels agreed to a deal in January that will see him make $1.075MM this year, with a $3.75MM club option for 2026.

Hypothetically, if he were to be passed through waivers unclaimed, he would have the right to elect free agency as a player with at least three years of service time. However, he has less than five years of service, meaning he would have to give up that money to head to the open market. In that scenario, he would likely stick with the Angels as non-roster depth in order to keep his 2025 salary in place.

Perdomo, 31 in May, was acquired from the Braves in a cash deal about a week ago. He has a 5.55 ERA, 35.8% strikeout rate and 15.8% walk rate in his career. He only has 48 2/3 innings pitched but has almost three years of service time thanks to many injured list stints. He has a previous career outright and would therefore have the right to elect free agency if passed through waivers.

Angels, Jose Quijada Avoid Arbitration

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The Angels announced Tuesday that they’ve signed left-handed reliever Jose Quijada to a one-year contract with a club option for the 2026 season, avoiding arbitration in the process. Quijada, a client of the Beverly Hills Sports Council, will be paid $1.075MM this coming season, per the team. (The Angels are one of just a few major league teams that publicly announce financial details of their transactions.) The 2026 option is valued at $3.75MM.

Quijada had filed for a $1.14MM salary in his second trip through the arb process. He was recovering from Tommy John surgery during his first trip through arbitration and thus landed on an $840K salary that wasn’t too far north of last year’s $740K minimum. The Halos countered with a $975K proposal.

Today’s agreement checks in north of the midpoint between those two sums. Because it includes a club option, it won’t be considered a true “one-year deal” for the Angels or other clubs leaguewide; that’s important with regard to arbitration specifically, as arb negotiations are based on comps for prior one-year deals for players in the same service class. Even if the Angels decline the club option, Quijada would remain under their control for 2026 and would simply be arbitration-eligible once again.

The 29-year-old Quijada finished up his recovery from that 2023 Tommy John procedure in late July. He returned to the Halos and appeared in 22 games in the season’s final nine weeks, logging 19 1/3 innings with a tidy 3.26 ERA. He set down a hearty 28.6% of his opponents on strikes but also issued walks at an alarming 20.2% clip. Command has been a long-running issue for Quijada but not to that extent; in 108 2/3 prior big league innings, he’d walked 13.8% of batters faced.

Even with that problematic command, Quijada comes at an affordable rate and brings some clearly tantalizing traits to the table. He logged a big 14% swinging-strike rate this past season, in part due to an uncanny knack for missing bats within the strike zone. Opponents made contact at just a 78.8% clip on in-zone pitches offered by Quijada — well shy of the 85.2% league average. The lefty’s velocity also strengthened over the course of his return; he averaged 93.5 mph on his heater through his first two weeks off the injured list but sat 94 mph on average thereafter. With a bit more time to continue building up, he may well have returned to the 94.5 mph average he posted in his last full, healthy season in 2022.

With Quijada’s case now resolved, the Angels have cleared up one of three pending cases. Infielder Luis Rengifo filed for a $5.95MM salary. The team countered at $5.8MM. Outfielder Mickey Moniak filed at $2MM to the team’s $1.5MM. You can read more about the reasons for teams and players go to battle over ostensibly trivial sums like this in this 2015 piece I wrote after chatting with several general managers and assistant GMs around the league.

Angels Designate Adam Cimber For Assignment

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The Angels announced that left-hander Jose Quijada has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list. Right-hander Jack Kochanowicz was optioned to Double-A Rocket City to make room for him on the active roster. Right-hander Adam Cimber, who was on the 15-day injured list, has been designated for assignment to open up a 40-man roster spot.

Quijada, now 28, underwent Tommy John surgery in May of last year and is now back. He has generally been a high-strikeout but also high-walk guy in his major league career so far. In 108 2/3 innings, he has a 4.89 earned run average, 30.6% strikeout rate but 13.8% walk rate.

That career was put on hold by his surgery, though his results have been fairly similar since he started a rehab assignment about a month ago. In 7 2/3 innings in the minors, he has struck out 41.9% of batters faced but also walked 12.9% of them. He’s out of options so the Angels have installed him back into their bullpen. He’s making a salary of $840K this year and can be retained via arbitration for two more seasons.

Cimber, 33, was signed to a one-year deal in the offseason with a $1.65MM guarantee. He has had some good years but struggled in 2023 and was non-tendered by the Blue Jays. The Halos were undoubtedly hoping for a rebound but didn’t get it. The submariner currently has a 7.03 ERA in 24 1/3 innings this year. He landed on the 15-day IL just over a month ago due to right shoulder inflammation.

It’s possible the shoulder has been an issue for some time. He posted a 7.40 ERA with the Jays last year and then missed the second half of the season due to a right shoulder impingement, but had been quite effective prior to that.

From 2018 through 2022, Cimber posted a 3.20 ERA in 301 appearances between San Diego, Cleveland, Miami and Toronto. He only struck out 18.4% of batters faced in that time but walked just 5.8% of them and got 52% of balls in play pounded into the ground. But he’s now had ERAs above 7.00 in two straight years while going to the IL for shoulder issues in both of them.

Injured players can’t be placed on outright waivers, but that’s a fairly moot point. Cimber has more than five years of service time, meaning he has the right to reject an outright assignment while keeping what’s left of his salary. The DFA limbo period can technically last as long as a week but given Cimber’s injury and recent performance, he seems bound to be released in the coming days as the only other alternative would be a trade.

Assuming he is indeed released, the Halos will remain on the hook for the majority of what’s left of his salary while another club could sign him and only pay him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the active roster, with that amount subtracted from what the Angels pay. Whether he can find another deal will likely depend on the state of his shoulder in the weeks to come.

Angels Claim Livan Soto Off Waivers From Orioles

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The Angels have claimed infield Livan Soto off waivers from the Orioles, per an announcement from both teams. Anaheim placed left-hander Jose Quijada on the 60-day injured list to make room for Soto on the club’s 40-man roster. The Orioles had designated Soto for assignment earlier this week to make room for infielder Diego Castillo (who was coincidentally DFA’d himself earlier today) on the 40-man roster.

Soto’s sojourn to Baltimore was a brief one, as he returns to the Angels just over two weeks after the club designated him for assignment to make room for right-hander Jose Cisnero on the club’s 40-man roster. The 23-year-old infielder is considered a quality defender at not only shortstop but also second and third base, having spent time considerable time at each position during his professional career. He also boasts solid contact skills, as indicated by a strikeout rate of just 19.3% across six seasons in the minor leagues, though he sports minimal power with just 24 career home runs between the majors and minors.

Soto’s big league experience has been minimal to this point in his career. Though he appeared in majors with the Angels in each of the past two seasons, slashing a strong .375/.414/.531 along the way, that production has come in just 71 trips to the plate spread across 22 games in the majors. That incredible slash line has been bolstered by an unsustainable .469 BABIP throughout his big league career, making his career slash line of just .245/.339/.332 in the minor leagues likely closer to Soto’s true talent level.

Even if Soto can’t maintain his small-sample production in the majors, he still offers plenty of value to the Angels as a left-handed bat with quality defense all around the infield. It’s possible to imagine Soto competing for a bench role on the big league club this spring with the likes of Michael Stefanic and Kyren Paris. If Soto doesn’t secure a role on the Opening Day roster, the Angels will have the ability to option him to the minors and stash him as depth to protect against future injuries.

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