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Kelvin Caceres

Angels Outright Kelvin Cáceres

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The Angels announced that right-hander Kelvin Cáceres has been sent outright to Triple-A Salt Lake. That indicates he went unclaimed on waivers after being designated for assignment last week when the club claimed fellow righty Michael Petersen.

Cáceres, 25, has spent his entire career with the Angels. An international signing out of the Dominican Republic, he was added to the roster late in 2023 and got to make a very brief big league debut. He got into two games, recording four outs, with one strikeout, two walks, two hits and one earned run allowed.

Last year was a lost season for him. He was optioned to the minors during spring training and landed on the minor league injured list to start the year with a lat strain. The Angels recalled him in May and placed him on the big league 60-day IL, in order to open a roster spot to claim Niko Goodrum off waivers. Caceres stayed on the IL for the rest of the year.

Across several minor league levels in 2023, he tossed 54 2/3 relief innings with a 4.12 ERA. His 34.8% strikeout rate was massive but he also gave out walks at a 13.1% clip. Some clubs may have been intrigued by the strikeouts but those free passes were concerning and his health is a question mark after missing an entire season.

This is his first career outright and he has less than three years of service time. That means he doesn’t have the right to elect free agency. As such, he’ll stick with the Angels as some non-roster depth for their pitching staff. The Angels didn’t state whether or not Caceres has received a non-roster invite to big league camp, but it’s possible he pops up in a few spring games regardless, since even those without NRIs often get brought along to fill in.

Angels Claim Michael Petersen, Designate Kelvin Cáceres For Assignment

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The Angels announced that they have claimed right-hander Michael Petersen off waivers from the Blue Jays. The latter club had designated him for assignment last week. To open a roster spot, the Angels designated fellow righty Kelvin Cáceres for assignment.

Petersen, 30, made his big league debut with the Dodgers last year, pitching 14 innings with a 6.43 ERA. He went from Los Angeles to the Marlins via waivers late in the year and tossed another five innings for Miami. Overall, he finished with a 5.95 ERA, 15.6% strikeout rate and 12.2% walk rate in his first 19 2/3 innings in the majors.

The U.K.-born Petersen spent his career prior to last season with the Rockies and Brewers organizations. He’d joined the Dodgers on a minor league pact and posted lights-out numbers in Triple-A: 1.64 ERA, 35.2% strikeout rate, 6.4% walk rate in 33 innings. Petersen’s towering 6’7″ frame only makes his 97 mph heater and upper-80s cutter play up. That power arm, last year’s huge numbers in the minors and multiple minor league option years have combined to make a popular waiver target. The Angels will be his fourth organization since September.

Cáceres, 25, missed the entire 2024 season after undergoing surgery to repair a torn lat. He made his MLB debut with the 2023 Angels but pitched just 1 1/3 innings in that brief cup of coffee. He’s posted solid numbers in the minors with the Halos, most recently working to a combined 4.12 ERA with a 34.8% strikeout rate and 13.1% walk rate in 54 2/3 innings across three levels. That included a dominant 10-inning run in Triple-A, where he allowed just one run on five hits and five walks with 11 strikeouts.

Cáceres sits 95-96 mph with his heater and couples the pitch with a curveball and changeup. He still has multiple minor league options remaining, so perhaps another club will be intrigued by the optionable power arm and place a claim or work out a small trade. His health outlook remains murky for now, but an optionable 25-year-old with a power arm and a history of missing bats is the type of prospect teams love to speculate on if they have the roster space.

Angels Claim Niko Goodrum

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The Angels announced Thursday that they’ve claimed utilityman Niko Goodrum off waivers from the Rays, who’d designated him for assignment earlier in the week. In a corresponding move, the Halos recalled righty Kelvin Caceres from Triple-A and placed him on the major league 60-day injured list.

Goodrum appeared in nine games with Tampa Bay but tallied only 18 plate appearances, during which he collected a trio of singles, walked once and struck out three times. He hit .316/.422/.605 with three homers in 45 plate appearances down in Triple-A Durham.

A second-round pick by the Twins in 2010, the now-32-year-old Goodrum has played in parts of seven MLB seasons (this year included). The best stretch of that seven-year span came with the 2018-19 Tigers, who gave Goodrum regular playing time and saw him enjoy a .247/.318/.427 slash while playing quality defense at multiple positions. For a time, Goodrum served as the Tigers’ everyday shortstop. He logged 964 plate appearances over those two seasons and belted 28 homers in addition to swiping 24 bags.

Goodrum’s bat wilted in subsequent seasons. He split the 2023 campaign between the Red Sox’ Triple-A affiliate in Worcester, batting .280/.448/.440, and the Lotte Giants of the Korea Baseball Organization, for whom he turned in a .295/.373/.387 line.

The switch-hitting Goodrum has experience at all four infield positions and in the outfield corners. He’ll give the Halos some depth at a time when Anthony Rendon was just transferred to the 60-day IL and when each of Miguel Sano, Michael Stefanic and potentially Brandon Drury — who exited yesterday’s game with a hamstring issue — are unavailable. Sano and Stefanic are both on the injured list already, and Drury could soon join them. The Angels also acquired Luis Guillorme in a morning trade with the Braves. Goodrum and/or Guillorme could eventually push current bench players Cole Tucker and Ehire Adrianza off the roster; neither has hit much in his first eight games with the team.

Angels Select Kelvin Caceres

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The Angels have selected the contract of right-hander Kelvin Caceres, per a team announcement. In corresponding moves, left-hander Aaron Loup has been transferred to the 60-day IL while right-hander Jose Marte was optioned to Triple-A Salt Lake.

Caceres, 23, began the 2023 campaign at High-A before quickly advancing to Double-A and then Triple-A by the end of the season. Across all three levels, Caceres owns a 4.12 ERA in 54 2/3 innings of work. Since being promoted to Triple-A, however, Caceres has been nothing short of dominant with a 0.90 ERA and a 27.5% strikeout rate despite a 12.5% walk rate in ten innings of work. That small-sample success is particularly impressive given the extreme offensive environment of the Pacific Coast League, where the Angels’ Triple-A affiliate plays. Caceres will look to get into one of the last few games of the regular season for his major league debut as the Angels look to cover innings ahead of the offseason.

Making room for Caceres on the 40-man roster, is Loup, which is little more than a procedural move. After all, Loup’s 2023 campaign was already expected to come to a close after his placement on the injured list earlier this month with a shoulder strain. The 35-year-old veteran struggled through a difficult season in 2023 as he posted a 6.10 ERA across 55 appearances, albeit with a more palatable 4.37 FIP. The Angels hold a $7.5MM club option on Loup’s services in 2024, but given his downturn in performance it seems more likely the club will opt for a $2MM buyout on the option, allowing Loup to test the open market this offseason.

Meanwhile, the Angels optioned Marte to make room for Caceres on the active roster. The 27-year-old righty has consistently struggled at the big league level in brief cups of coffee over the past three seasons, with a combined 8.14 ERA and 7.62 FIP in 24 1/3 innings of work in the majors. His work at the Triple-A level, while certainly an improvement, also leaves something to be desired; he’s posted a 5.83 ERA in 46 1/3 innings of work at the highest level of the minor leagues during his career.

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