The Angels announced they’ve selected veteran reliever AJ Ramos to the big league roster and recalled bullpen mate James Hoyt from Triple-A Salt Lake. José Marte and Sam Selman were optioned to clear active roster space. Los Angeles also reinstated rookie southpaw Reid Detmers from the COVID-19 injured list and optioned him to Salt Lake.
Selecting Ramos and activating Detmers required opening a pair of spots on the 40-man roster. To do so, the Angels transferred Justin Upton and Dylan Bundy from the 10-day to the 60-day injured list.
Ramos is in the majors for the first time this season. He’s best known for his early-career days with the Marlins, with whom he began his big league career in 2012. The right-hander was electric from essentially the outset of his career, ascending to the closer’s role within a couple seasons and earning an All-Star nod in 2016. Over his first four-plus MLB seasons, Ramos posted a 2.66 ERA/3.15 FIP across 287 2/3 innings of relief.
Halfway through the 2017 season, Miami traded Ramos to the division-rival Mets. He had a decent year but fell off a bit from his previous pace. Ramos struggled badly through the first couple months of 2018 before it was revealed he’d suffered a labrum tear in his shoulder that necessitated surgery.
That procedure kept Ramos out of action for more than two calendar years. He began a comeback attempt in 2020 and landed successive minor league deals with the Dodgers and Cubs. While neither of those stops resulted in a major league opportunity, Ramos did get back to the bigs late in the year with the Rockies. He made three appearances with Colorado last September, his first MLB action in 28 months, and signed a minor league deal with the Angels over the offseason.
Ramos has spent the entire season with Salt Lake. The 35-year-old has avoided the injured list and logged 53 innings over 42 outings, pitching to a 5.26 ERA in a very hitter-friendly environment. Ramos has been extremely fly ball prone and has issued a few too many walks, but he’s continued to miss plenty of bats. He’s punched out 31% of opposing hitters on the strength of a big 15.4% swinging strike rate, and the Angels will give him a late chance to demonstrate his form against big league opponents.
As with last season’s stint in Colorado, it’s possible Ramos’ stay with the Angels will be quite brief. He’s scheduled to hit free agency again at the end of the season. The late-season look will allow him to showcase his current caliber of stuff before he reaches the open market.
The IL transfers officially bring Upton’s and Bundy’s seasons to a close. It was a third consecutive down year for Upton, who hit .211/.296/.409 with seventeen homers over 362 plate appearances. His campaign ends prematurely because of a right lumbar strain.
Upton will return to Anaheim next season on a $28MM salary, the final year of his deal. The Angels have youngsters Jo Adell and Brandon Marsh at the big league level, and Mike Trout is expected back at full strength. It’s possible Upton’s role is curtailed a bit moving forward, although he still brings enough right-handed pop to contribute in a part-time capacity.
It’s an especially disappointing end for Bundy, who expressed confidence two weeks ago that he’d make it back to the mound before the end of the year. Instead, his final five weeks will be wiped out by a shoulder strain. It ends a season in which Bundy threw 90 2/3 innings of 6.08 ERA ball, a massive drop-off from a 2020 season in which he picked up some down-ballot Cy Young support.
The career-worst showing couldn’t have come at a worse time for Bundy, who’ll hit free agency for the first time this winter. It’s possible the 28-year-old will be limited to a one-year deal in an attempt to rebuild his value before re-testing the market during the 2022-23 offseason.
I realized they didn’t have the most productive and healthy seasons, but Cobb and Bundy will walk away at the seasons end with nothing in return. Two proven starters and Bundy is only 28. No doubt these guys will be signed into a starting rotation next season. Much like gettin zero for Iglesias who’s starting at second base for Boston now.
At least their giving Ramos a little reward for hanging in.
If I was forced to put down cash, Id bet the angels sign Cobb and Sherzer in the offseason. As for bundy, he seems like a really hardworking good guy, but he just struggles with repeating his delivery and its crushing him.
Cobb was fine. I’d bring him back for sure. Bundy though, he was awful. Doesn’t matter we got nothing for him, nobody wanted him.
If you are an Angel Fan, you seen Bundy going 6 INGS giving up 2 or less runs in his first 7 of 11 starts of the year. Giving up 3 runs or less in 12 of his 19 starts. Bundy has had 3 awful starts this year with Maddon trying to get the most out of him during those games. Should of just had Guerra out there to shelled since they kept him on the roster all year. 28 years old and had a 3.32 ERA in his 11 starts last year. Maybe he wears down. Seems like wasted talent. He was on the Orioles same time Gausman, Arrieta among others who found better success after departing.. and come on Bundy puked for us in NY and scored four touch downs in a single game.
And Cobbs numbers play. He has had a great year but that splitter will never let him start 32 games without some sort of problems.
The Angels have “plenty’ of Cobbs and Bundys (back end of the rotation starters), what they don’t have is a front end of the rotation starter who can start 30 times a year.
What they don’t have is anyone in the bullpen who can get the ball to Iglesias. Iglesias walking is a much bigger deal.
I have no confidence this organization can build a bullpen or a starting staff.
They had guys in the pen last year, Robles who rebounded to a decent season, especially when comparing whom the Halos have used. Middleton who was okay in the 1st half and getting back to form in the 2nd half. Even Noe Ramirez would be an improvement (scary, I know). Bottom line, these guys still have talent and much more than the current crop. I blame the evaluators and the coaching staff. Yeah the names I mentioned aren’t killers, but more serviceable than the guys on the roster. Even Bedrosian found some life in Philly.
Yes Omar, I’m not confident in the ability of anyone who felt adding Claudio and Guerra might solve the problem.
Agreed. They have issues evaluating . They kept Hunter Strickland for a short period and here are his stats with Brewers.
55 3-2 2.70 56.2 57 1.16
Should have been our set up man
Question for Angels fans….isn’t Adell’s natural position CF? Admittedly I don’t see the Halos a lot, but when I did, and Jo was playing, he was playing a corner outfield position. I thought I heard announcer say Adell had the strongest arm, and certainly has the speed. Is Marsh better suited for CF than he is? I know it would be temporary until Trout gets back though.
Adell reminds me of McCutchen who started in center, but I like how Marsh reads the ball which was a larger challenge for Adell last year. Marsh just seems a natural in center
HD, in AAA this season, Adell started 24 in LF, 26 in CF, and 18 in RF. I think the organization sees him as a corner OF. Marsh has somewhat of a defensive mixed bag in AAA, but served most of his time in CF.
It’s well known in the Angels circles that Adell’s weakest point is his defense. He’s definitely made some head scratcher plays already in MLB. I don’t think there’s any reason to think that the 3 of them (including Trout) cannot form a powerful punch in the OF. To your point, I think at some point in the future, Trout would move to LF, Marsh in CF, and Adell in RF.
Best defensive lineup would be Trout/Marsh/Adell in 2022
Adell was drafted as a CFer and has played CF in the minors. But the general belief is that Marsh is their best defensive CF (or possibly Jordan Adams). I don’t think it’s temporary, however, since I believe you’ll see Trout playing LF from here on out as it is a less physically demanding position and it’ll be better on his body. Hopefully it helps keep him healthy
and angels are losing which is great! if they stay in bottom 10, they may have a chance to draft an ace. if they stay bottom 13, they may be able to draft a future ss starter. hope the dumbos in f/o don’t mess this time up!
Don’t worry, they will!
Unless they can get him on a reasonably priced, 1 or 2 year ‘prove it’ contract, I can see the Red Sox letting E-Rod walk this offseason and singing Bundy to a cheap, one year deal provided he is healthy. That seems to be Chaim’s MO. It worked out quite well with Hunter Renfroe this season ($3M + 2 additional years of control via arbitration). The $10M Garrett Richards deal was looking like a complete miss until they moved him to the bullpen. He’s still not worth his salary, but they definitely got some positive value out of it. Provided that Bundy’s advanced metrics fit Blooms philosophy, it seems like a 1 year, $4M deal with incentives would work well for the team and for the player after such a down year.
Richards is worth his salary.
An outfield of Adell, Marsh and Trout is exciting to think of. But doesn’t one of the two youths has to be traded for top flight pitchers. Yikes that sucks.
Trade Trout and Rendon.
I still want to know more about the Marsh for Meyers trade with Miami. Was that straight up? How does an Angels fan feel about it? Because we are probably both very high on our own player. Personally I couldn’t believe the rumor is “the Angels said no” because I love Meyer. I know we don’t know the whole story but I would love to get some Angels takes.
(Would have asked around the deadline but this site is too crazy … Uh more crazy with nonsense around then)
Bundy cratered hard this season. Al Bundy has a better chance at a guaranteed contract than Dylan does
I don’t see the Angels bringing Upton back. He’ll be let go unceremoniously just as Pujols was. Pujols was a lot more productive and much better defensively– and yet they still let him go, so I’m not sure why Upton’s fate would be any different?