The Angels will promote top prospect Jaime Barria to make his Major League debut in a start against the Rangers on Wednesday, reports Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register (Twitter link).
Barria, 21, entered the season rated by ESPN’s Keith Law as the game’s No. 62 overall prospect (subscription link). The Panamanian-born righty is already on the Angels’ 40-man roster, so the team will only need to make a 25-man roster move to bring him up to the big leagues.
It’s been a quick rise through the minors for Barria, who opened the 2017 season in Class-A Advanced but ascended to Triple-A and finished out the year with a combined 2.80 ERA, 7.4 K/9 and 2.0 BB/9 through 141 2/3 innings. The 6’1″, 210-pound righty has been an extreme fly-ball pitcher in his minor league tenure, with last year’s fly-ball rates ranging from 48.1 percent in Class-A Advanced (65 1/3 innings) to 58.5 percent in Triple-A (14 2/3 innings). Law’s report describes Barria as a three-pitch, command-and-control oriented starter who lacks a true plus pitch but comes with a high floor as a fourth starter (with the potential to develop into more).
Barria’s promotion was largely necessitated by injuries to Angels starters Andrew Heaney, Matt Shoemaker and J.C. Ramirez. The start likely would’ve gone to Parker Bridwell, though he needs to spend at least 10 days in the minors after being optioned on the heels of his April 6 start for the Halos. As for Heaney (who is nearing a return) and Nick Tropeano, Fletcher tweets that that duo could be in line to start on Thursday and Friday for the Angels.
It’s not clear if he’ll remain in the big leagues beyond his initial start, though it seems likely that the Halos will option Barria back to the minors at some point. If Barria were to stick in the Majors for good beyond Wednesday’s promotion, he’d accrue just enough service time to qualify for free agency following the 2023 season. A bit more additional minor league time, however, would delay his path to free agency until the end of the 2024 campaign.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
eelektrik
I hope he does well and sticks around. Could be a better option than Bridwell or Tropeano.
redsfan48
They will call him up literally 2 days before the deadline to get an extra day of control. That would really sting if he turns out to be a good pitcher, sticks with the MLB club, and gets free agency a year earlier because of that 2 days
jbigz12
I’m sure he won’t stick this year. Ideally it’s just a spot start. He hasn’t faced a ton of upper competition yet either.
xabial
Class-A advanced, to finish out the year at Triple-A!
Yeah this guy deserves this. Best of luck to the Rook’
HalosHeavenJJ
One week in and 3 guys are down. Hopefully Heaney is back soon.
JC was solid as a long reliever. I hope the push to make him a starter wasn’t too much. Ideally I think he comes back in the bullpen but I have a bad feeling.
elcarim_23
Sounds like you have the Mets training staff from last year lol
angels fan 3
Heaney will be back either Friday or Saturday
yoyo137
It’s so beautiful seeing the words “top prospect” and “Angels” in the same sentence again. Eppler has done an amazing job with this team and they’ve drafted well of late too. Not to mention the hype and production Ohtani is bringing to the MLB team could push them over the top into championship contenders again, with a steady flow of good young prospects to supplement the team every year. I can’t say I felt anywhere near this happy with the overall state of the organization with any of our previous GMs.
sufferforsnakes
Have you seen how their High-A team has started out this season? Can’t hit for squat. I lost count how many of them have taken strike threes in the games I’ve been to.
angels fan 3
Wow a few games means a lot
GareBear
Should I use the sample size argument, or just make fun of your #ScoutsEye
halos101
Eppler the GOAT… Hope he’s around a longgggg time
davidcoonce74
I wonder if the Angels need to re-evaluate what they’re doing o keep their pitchers healthy. I mean, they seem to be one of the worst at it, and I know pitchers break all the time, but still. I wonder if they focus on a certain type of pitcher with injury risk or are failing at something once they get into the system. It worries me because I really want to see Ohtani thrive and, hopefully, they’re not doing too much to him.
cuscus85
I believe they have done that when Eppler came aboard. I read awhile back that their pitchers do a strength test/evaluations after the game to get ahead of any injures. I’m sure there’s other things they do as well, but a lot of the injuries started during the DiPoto era. And injuries have seems to follow him to Seattle. But who knows.
GeoKaplan
Strong rec for Jeff Passan’s book “The Arm”. The rise of kids playing travel ball year-round and not diversifying their sports across the year seems to have a huge impact on the spike in players needing arm procedures between ages 17-26.
Previously, TJ surgery was the sole domain of age 30-something pitchers.
The point is that this could well be unrelated to the training the players are getting, but instead related to the stress they endured as young teens while their bodies and bones were still developing.
davidcoonce74
Yes, that book is remarkable. The velo spike is a real thing that causes real problems, as well as kids playing 10 months a year. And college coaches are just terrible at pitch counts.
Long Duc Dong
Yeah they should all smoke and drink before games like the good ole days right mr Ryan’s no.1 fan
davidcoonce74
I’m not exactly sure why you think I’m a big fan of Nolan Ryan. I corrected an error you made about his career and I pointed out that he was unique in baseball history, which is true. I’m mostly ambivalent about Nolan Ryan’s career; most of it was before my time and while he was unique he was also kind of a stubborn jerk in some ways.
GareBear
Nice use of that Red Herring
xabial
Red Herring, or Strawman, GareBear?
Always get those 2 mixed up 😛
halos101
The talent evaluators such as pipeline and stuff see Barria as a potential mid rotation arm… Boy would that be nice. Low ceiling, but if he’s a durable—can’t stress that enough—mid rotation type starter it’ll be huge