1:16PM: Walsh has been placed on the 60-day IL, the Angels announced. This officially ends the first baseman’s 2022 season.
10:06AM: The Angels announced a series of roster moves prior to today’s game with the Rays, including the news that Jared Walsh has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to thoracic outlet syndrome. Infielder Phil Gosselin was also designated for assignment. Filling the two roster spots are catcher Matt Thaiss (called up from Triple-A), and first baseman Mike Ford, whose contract was selected from Triple-A.
Thoracic outlet syndrome is a condition much more commonly seen in pitchers, making Walsh something of an outlier as a position player. While Walsh drew some attention as a two-way player early in his career and during his time in the Angels farm system, he has only 26 2/3 professional innings pitched, and none since 2019. Most pitchers who undergo surgery to correct TOS aren’t the same performance-wise after returning to the mound, but it remains to see if Walsh will indeed need surgery, or how such a procedure could impact his future production given that he isn’t pitching.
Even if Walsh opts for treatment without going under the knife, it would seem like the remainder of his 2022 season could be in jeopardy. With the Angels out of contention, they would seemingly not have any reason to rush Walsh back into action.
Walsh hit .280/.338/.531 over 693 PA with the Angels in 2020-21, earning a seventh-place finish in 2020’s Rookie of the Year balloting and a slot on the 2021 AL All-Star team. However, 2022 has been much more of a struggle, as the 29-year-old has contributed only 15 home runs and a .215/.269/.374 slash line. Despite some decent defense at first base, this poor offensive production has resulted in an overall sub-replacement level performance for Walsh, who has -0.5 fWAR and -0.6 bWAR.
Even in 2020-21, Walsh has below-average walk and strikeout rates, but those numbers have sunk further downward in 2022 — Walsh’s 30.4% strikeout rate puts him in only the sixth percentile of batters. He is also hitting with far less power, with an Isolated Power metric of only .158 (down from .354 in 2020 and .232 in 2021). This decline has robbed the Angels of a key bat in their lineup, as Los Angeles has gotten very little from any players besides Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, Taylor Ward, and the emerging Luis Rengifo.
Gosselin had enough MLB service time that he can reject an outright assignment to Triple-A, assuming that he clears waivers and the Angels don’t release him. The Angels claimed Gosselin off waivers from the Braves in mid-July, and the veteran utilityman ended up playing 22 games with Anaheim, mostly as a third baseman. Unfortunately, Gosselin provided very little offense, with only a .269 OPS over 51 plate appearances.
Gosselin has only sporadically delivered at the plate over his 10 Major League seasons, with a career .254/.305/.349 slash line over 1199 PA. The 33-year-old has suited up for seven different big league teams, and this is his second stint with the Angels, after playing 104 games with the Halos in 2021.
Ford is in today’s starting lineup as the cleanup hitter, putting Ford on pace to see action for a fourth different Major League team this season. The first baseman has appeared in 22 games combined with the Giants, Mariners, and Braves, with San Francisco and Seattle ping-ponging him back and forth between their rosters a few times earlier in the season and Atlanta releasing Ford earlier this month. He signed a new minor league contract with Los Angeles in mid-August, and might now in line for some consistent playing time if Walsh does miss most or all of the remainder of the season.
In 2019, Ford burst onto the scene with 12 home runs and a .909 OPS over 163 PA as a rookie with the Yankees. Since that initial breakout, however, he has scuffled to a .138/.267/.253 slash line in 206 PA since the start of the 2020 season, and the Yankees dealt him to the Rays in June 2021. Ford also ended up heading to the Nationals on a waiver claim later in the 2021 season, making it quite a whirlwind of organizational change for the Princeton product in just 14 months’ time.
This the Braves AAA team?
This week keeps getting better and better for the Angels! Walsh has been terrible all season. Now designate Velazquez and stassi and we have improved dramatically this week!
Tell him to go get his mandatory Tommy John Surgery while he’s out.
The Angels are just random names with Trout and Ohtani.
Outliers are unusual by definition.
You mean you’ve never heard of usual outliers?
Walsh had to have set an MLB record for most called third strikes looking.
Ford is getting to be like a used car that keeps popping up in different used-car lots all over town.
I feel like the Ford car joke has potential but this comment was not it, unfortunately.
Critics, generally speaking, are society’s most useless appendages.
Oh, I’m sorry, do you want me to laugh and congratulate you on your 2/10 funny? I know you can do better. I’m pushing you to be your best.
No, you’re trolling, as is your wont. Bye now.
F.O R.D. Found on Roster Dead
If you haven’t been following the Angels traveling circus this season, all you need to know is the following statement about a player who is on his 4th team – this season – and was just called up from AAA:
“Ford is in today’s starting lineup as the cleanup hitter…”
Aaaaand you’re pretty much caught up. Que the circus music…
Benny Hill comes to mind for these guys
Que the circus music…
===============================
That’s not circus music. It’s a dirge.
Imagine being a regular on the Angels,and they get a guy that’s been on 7 teams in 13 months, and being told he is your new cleanup hitter. You’d have to be thinking “why wasn’t I given a shot at cleanup?”.
For this season, Ford has a lower BA and OPS than Velazquez, and his OPS+ is one point higher.
That’s it. Adell might suck, but if I were him, I’d be a little annoyed that they gave the primo batting position away to an outsider, and someone that is mostly a minor leaguer for his career.
The Angels have very poorly managed Jo Adell. We knew the Angels would manage him poorly, and that’s why most of us wanted him traded when he still had value. He is slightly better than Brandon Wood and worse than Dallas McPherson in terms of busts. Hopefully the Ohtani trade will reload the system.
Updated power rankings
1. Mets
2. Astors
3. Dodgers
4. Braves
5. Cardinals
L power rankings
Astors? Didn’t know they owned a baseball tean!
Dodgers
Astros
Mets
Braves
Yankees
Feel free to call dodger fan bias
I think you guys are underestimating just how good the Phillies have been recently. They’re 20-9 in the last month, which gives them the same record as the Braves and Mets, and two fewer wins than LAD. They’re pitchers have the third best fWAR among all teams (1st best NL fWAR) and have the seventh most runs scored in the same time.
That may be true, I would’ve ranked them sixth to be fair tho.
Dodgers
Astros
Mets
Braves
Yankees
Phillies
Rays
Blue Jays
Mariners
Cardinals
Padres
Guardians
Orioles
Brewers
That is a pretty accurate ranking.
Oof, I don’t know if I’d put them over the Yankees right now. Yankees have been ice cold recently and trending in the wrong direction. Phillies are trending upward.
Now just praying for the brewers to pull ahead of the Padres
Would be wild to see the Padres miss the playoffs after all of this. Since 2020, they’ve given up so many prospects and young players, essentially depleting the farm system outside of Luis Campusano.
These are Fangraphs’ current projected standings for the full season:
Dodgers
Astros
Mets
Braves
Yankees
Cardinals
Phillies
Blue Jays
Rays
Padres
Its pretty bad when the Angles have to make this journeyman their cleanup hitter.
He was great before this season…
Ford was 2-4 today.
Jeremy Reed deserves some blame here, Walsh’s swing has a monster loop during-load up that directly coincides with his big regression. I genuinely don’t what this guys does as I haven’t seen a single angel make a swing tweak in what’s got to be the worst hitting season in franchise history
Ford is in rare company as a player playing for at least 4 teams in a single season.
Ford joins a list of
Oliver Drake
Jose Bautista
Dan Miceli
Dave Martinez
Dave Kingman
Mike Kilkenny
Wes Covington
Ted Gray
Paul Lehner
Willis Hudlin
Frank Huelsman
As for Walsh, it will be interesting as a position player to see how he recovers. Recovery from the surgery is typically 12 weeks so he may be ready for Spring Training if he needs the surgery as long as he doesn’t put it off for too long.
Has something changed with TOS surgery? D-backs Merrill Kelly had it a year or two ago and is doing a great job. I feel like there is another recent example, as well. Advancements in how the procedure is performed?
My limited understanding is that there are two types of TOS, with one being more problematic than the other.
Woof, Ford couldn’t even make it with the horrific 2022 Nationals. Good luck with all that!
Arte and his frat bros in the FO have screwed up this Angel Franchise so bad. They’re lucky this team is in the #2 market or else no one would want to buy it. And they’re rewarded by getting 10X’s what they paid for it.
Baseball teams make money, doesn’t matter what market they’re in. He won’t have a problem finding a buyer. Us Angels fans will rejoice, as well. Well, some of us have already been partying it up like its 1999.
I’ve mentioned this before, but the As sold off everything that wasn’t nailed down, while the Angels are at $207M. And while the As restocked their farm, they are still only 6.5 behind the Angels. The writers complain nonstop when teams rebuild, but imo, it is the teams like the Angels and Rockies that are the problem.
Imagine being a season ticket holder and being told that Mike Ford was going to be your cleanup hitter. There are probably plenty of real baseball fans out there who have no idea off who he is.
Can’t argue this. Arte has always been about big names and making money, not winning. I don’t know what the other owners did to make their m/billions before buying a team, but Arte started off owning freeway billboards. I think that says a lot right there.
The fact the Angels barely called up Matt thais proves how poorly ran the team has been. They can’t even fill out a 40 man roster and players like thaiss who they’d drafted and developed sit in AAA. They did the same to ward and renigfo last year. Meanwhile Adell is runnin circles in the outfield and needs to develop in AAA. Detmers called up water to early, then throws a no hitter, gets sent down, strikeout 16 in 1 one start. Called back up lol
Problem is that Thaiss sucks too
BMI = 28.5
Anything over 25 increases chances of injury with no increase in performance. Too many baseball players are “overweight” by BMI standards and that’s one of the biggest reasons there are so many injuries. It’s been studied and shown, but baseball stays in the dark ages.
And, since this is an Angels article, I can’t let it slide away without asking what they are doing with Adell. As I’ve been saying for three years, he can not hit ML pitching right now. His current months results are one HR with a 28/3 K/W.
He keeps getting worse and worse and worse. And management keeps insisting that he doesn’t need any more AAA experience. And while it is possible that no amount of AAA experience will make him a major league player, they need to face the facts that he cannot hit ML pitching right now, and keeping him up is counterproductive.
If he is going to be on the Major League team, he needs to be getting regular at bats. He needs to be starting every game, and he needs to not be pinch hit for with Kurt Suzuki late in the game. This season is lost, why are we replacing our prospects midgame who we want to see what they have to offer with major leaguers about to retire? Phil Nevin and Perry Minasian are not on the same page, and Maddon and Minasian were not on the same page either.
He’s not a prospect anymore. He’s had opportunities in three seasons.