The Angels announced several changes to their pitching staff Tuesday: They selected right-hander Noe Ramirez, outrighted righty Felix Pena, recalled righty Jaime Barria, optioned lefty Jose Suarez, and placed RHP Junior Guerra on the 10-day injured list with a right groin strain.
Ramirez appeared in the majors with the Angels from 2017-20, though they traded him last winter to the Reds in order to acquire fellow reliever Raisel Iglesias. The Reds later released Ramirez, who quickly rejoined the Angels on a minor league contract before the season began. The 31-year-old Ramirez was a useful part of the Angels’ bullpen during his prior stint with the team, as he recorded a 4.04 ERA with a 26.4 percent strikeout rate and an 8.4 percent walk rate across 180 1/3 innings.
Pena, 31, cleared waivers after a disastrous pair of outings to start his season. The Angels reinstated Pena from the IL on May 6 after he recovered from a hamstring injury, and he proceeded to allow seven earned runs on seven hits and four walks over 1 2/3 frames. Overall, since joining the Angels in 2018, the swingman has given the club 215 2/3 innings of 4.34 ERA ball with a 23.6 percent strikeout rate and a 7.7 percent walk rate.
The bullpen just went from bad to worse
Pena was horrible. But he was in great company. There are three dependable arms. Two, Iglesias and Mayers can only come in to pitch one inning max with no one on base. Watson can come in at any time. Rodriguez needs to get healthy.. everyone else ranges from mediocre to horrible.
Claudios Era + of 125 isn’t too shabby ….ofc it is knocking down his career era + of 134 but the Angels will take it I assume – O hrs …….14:2 k;bb for a hair above league min…. I liked the ink when they made it, he won that game vs the Dodgers the other night too when he got them outta the jam that ended with Mookie
Yes. Pujols OPS+ is hall of fame worthy, so what? What someone did 5 years ago is not relevant. He’s never gotten left handers out and he hasn’t had an ERA below 4 since 2017. But it’s worse than that. He use to be able to face few RH batters, with the three man minimum, he’s going to face more RH.
But when I wrote mediocre, he was the one I was thinking of. Everyone else is worse.
He is a fascinating case
He has some stats which are atrocious and point to the possibility he could be tipping his pitches, or at least lost so much off them that they are easy to hit.
But for as hard as he’s been hit, and how likely that looks as though it will probably continue, he’s not producing horrible lines either
I wouldn’t trust him that much moving forward, and think should just consider lucky it hasn’t been as bad as it could’ve been with him so far. Because until he shows he can induce weak contact again, you need hold your breath and hope this isn’t the inning the wheels fall off in every he pitches.
I’ll take an ERA around four and an inherited runner slightly worse than league average. But someone like that should toward the back end of your pen not in the middle.
He’s not the problem, but he’s not a solution. I’ve said it before, the Angels should have been looking for bullpen solutions this off season.
But they found Watson.
Mediocre and dependable is what the Angels need a lot more of Imo, the star powers there in spades
– He averaged over 70 appearances the last 3 full MLB years.
I know he was never a sexy pick, but a good one at the time for a team that needs a whole lot more dependable
Bullpen building is very tricky, for the price , he was a steal you had to ink at the time
He’s not dependable though, that is the point
He’s getting by because he isnt walking people. If he struggles with command one inning though, that inning can turn into squiggly numbers on the board in a flash with how solid of contact guys are making off him
It’s also possible he’s just benefiting from the stadium too. His home line against is just .192/.250/.269/.519, on the road it is .308/.308/.462/.769. Of course we are talking a very small SS on the season, so some things may appear off mostly because of that
As said, grateful for how he’s done so far, but not a comfort moving forward. Hitters are making too strong of contact for comfort.
The Angels didn’t even try to find solutions. That has been my complaint since day one.
Yes, building bullpens are tricky. The entire bullpen can cost you as much as a top position player. It’s more important than a top notch position player. You can spread the cost around and you don’t have to commit long term. It takes skill, which is why you have baseball people. Waiver wire, prayer and hope is a silly way to build a pen.
The Angels have tried that for the last dozen years. It doesn’t work.
Should also probably be noted we are here having a conversation whether a low leverage type has been one of the very few decent arms
He’s been used nearly exclusively in games the club was up by 4 or down by at least 2. 50 of his 54 PA have been low leverage. In 6 of his 14 appearances the team did not even let him get a full inming in.
Does it really matter if a guy like that is decent? Is that the type you want as one of your better BP arms?
The fact there is a conversation about whether he is one of the few decent kind of highlights just how bad the situation actually is.
I’d love to have decent. He’s mediocre. But other than the guys I’ve mentioned, mediocre is better than the other dregs in this pen.
In three batters, he went from mediocre to horrible. Two runs, two inherited runners scored. And he was our big free agent acquisition.
Ironic. Immediately after I highlight how low pressure his usage has been, they use him in a high leverage situation – to disastrous results. Assuming back to mop-up it will be haha
Have to repeat myself here though. He’s tipping, or at minimum his stuff is not close to what it once was. Which is possible, there is a 1+ mph drop on all his pitches. Guys just do not have any difficulty hitting him though, and hard.
Claudio has the final word on this thread.
Replacing Pena with Ramirez… it’s like a bullpen version of Russian Roulette.
I thought Minasian was cleaning house with the pitching staff? Pena, Barria, Saurez & Ramirez? All of our old retreads with the same results – 28th of the 30 teams in ERA. that is presently at 5.09 which is exactly same as 2020…Go figure.
Barria is still young enough to be successful in the majors, if given a real opportunity to do so. It doesn’t always click from the start.
Middleton, Andriese, even Robles all doing better than Halos bullpen. Only Andriese has a higher ERA than last year, barely
Washed up!
brad hand who was available for $10 mil has 1.59 era and 255 era+. he signed with the nats for $10500,000.
Angels should win the west this year.