Angels manager Phil Nevin told reporters (including Sam Blum of The Athletic) today that catcher Logan O’Hoppe has a torn labrum on his left (non-throwing) shoulder that will require surgery. The 23-year-old catcher, who was placed on the 10-day injured list yesterday, is expected to miss four to six months, potentially putting his season in jeopardy.
O’Hoppe was acquired by the Angels at the trade deadline last season in the deal that sent outfielder Brandon Marsh to the Phillies. A consensus top-50 prospect in the sport entering the 2023 season, O’Hoppe earned the Angels’ starting catching job out of camp this season despite having just five games of big league experience under his belt as Max Stassi began the season on the injured list. The youngster was off to an impressive start this season, with a .283/.339/.547 slash line across 16 games that was good for a wRC+ of 142.
Losing such a productive bat for most, if not all, of the remainder of the season is a massive blow to the Angels, who have largely seen their offense struggle outside of superstars Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, with only O’Hoppe and outfielder Hunter Renfroe posting an above average wRC+ so far this season among the rest of the club’s offense.
In addition to losing O’Hoppe’s bat, the Angels now find themselves without either half of their usual starting tandem, as Stassi does not appear to be close to a return from the hip ailment that sidelined him at the start of the season. Until Stassi returns, the Angels figure to use Matt Thaiss, who opened the season as the club’s third catcher, and journeyman Chad Wallach behind the plate. Neither of those options inspire the same confidence that O’Hoppe would, as Wallach sports just a 59 wRC+ in 274 career plate appearances since his MLB debut with the Reds in 2017, while Thaiss only began catching in 2021 and has a career wRC+ of 81 in 298 plate appearances.
Given the worrying situation behind the plate for Anaheim, it wouldn’t be a shock to see the club explore external catching options to supplement their current group. Robinson Chirinos and Austin Romine are available on the free agent market, while Gary Sanchez and Jorge Alfaro are among the catchers with significant big league experience who are on minor league deals in other organizations.
Theres no Hoppe for this Angels team
This kind of crap is becoming all too normal with the Angels. Let’s bring Bachman up now so we can get his Tommy John out of the way while he’s still young.
He can’t get anyone out at AA. Which means the Angels should put him in the pen. He’ll fit right in.
I liked this but to be fair the bullpen is 7th in the AL in ERA. But I too am concerned. Although there’s time for improvements, promotions and acquisitions. Ben Joyce will be up at some point
To be fair, the Angels pen has blown 7 or 8 games, and there is nothing fair about bullpen ERA. Case in point, Wantz ERA is zero, and has allowed 6 of 8 inherited runners to score.
Just because runs are listed as unearned, doesn’t mean they are.
@Halo11Fan same thing with the Mets bullpen. In particular, Drew Smith and Steven Nogosek. They always blow games or make them interesting, yet their ERA’s are low
You can really only know if you watch the games.
There is a stat that I’m getting into called WPA. It seems to create a fair picture. The Angels are 25th.
@Halo11Fan as you predicted, Wantz blew last nights game vs the As, and as I predicted, Drew Smith blew the game vs the Giants for the Mets
Wrong LFG, but Halo11 and u would pin that loss on Wantz for his 1 run blown save. If u want to place blame, blame Suarez and his 7 runs allowed if anything. But I’ll go ahead and put that loss once again on Nevin, in not using 1 of our best 3 relievers in the 9th or 10. Not all of them pitched the day before.
O’Snappe
I wonder who Ohtani will be playing for next year.
Horrible.
Meanwhile, Brandon Marsh is currently leading the NL in OPS.
With a .500 BABIP. He’ll come back down, and O’Hoppe will return. Not making any analysis of this trade at this juncture. Long term they’re both good young talents.
I think that trade was the epitome of a win-win deal.
Can’t predict injuries. O’Hoppe was doing great before the injury. Win-win trade
Awww c’mon… It’s been hard enough for the Phils to draft MLB talent and even harder for them to become serious MLB players.
Almost everyone who leaves their system, I follow and root for. O’Hoppe was slayin’ it. Now I’ll root for a solid recovery and no setbacks…..
Brandon Marsh has been nice.
O’Hoppe first injured his shoulder during the series at Boston. Were any scans done at that point? Considering how the injury occurred (also on a swing) and level of pain he appeared to show, I was a bit surprised he didn’t sit out games after.
That’s what I was thinking as well. I wonder if this could have been avoided if he had sat out a few games after the original injury
Brutal….just sad how this goes for the team. Hope he heals quickly and comes back strong.
O’Hoppe has around 275 million reasons to test free agency if Anaheim doesn’t give him a new contract.
Eh… a 275 MM deal based on 21 games???
Ace is a buffoon who either comments just for reactions or kust to troll. Yesterday he was commenting that Kris Bryant “would b cut so he could test free agency”. Clearly clueless to how MLB contracts work or just trying to make blatantly asinine false comments.
Yup-duly noted. Time for troll boy to go bye bye
Clearly, this is the only trope you know. How many millions of reasons (dollars) a team or player has to do one thing or another. All neural highways in your cortex lead to the same cluster. It is a hard wiring problem to overcome. But it can be done if you work at it.
Ohtani has around 3/4 of a billion reasons to test the free agent market if he doesn’t reach a deal with Anaheim before then.
Dang!!! I needed to Mute this guy a week ago! Utterly useless and asinine.
ooohhh – now I get your new schtick. Your post on Kris Bryant thread now makes total sense. You’re gonna just pick random players and go ” player xx has 250 million reasons to test free agency”… kind of annoying but not your best work.. go back to the ” at least they will get rid of vottos sorry ass” on reds threads. I was going to say I wish I could follow you to see what new stupid gimmick you’re gonna try next but I realized you post on most every thread so I’ll find it
don’t know why that quadruple posted – not intentional
If the Angels are out of it at the deadline and trade Ohtani, should they target catching, shortstop, pitching or all 3?
Angels just don’t catch any breaks when it comes to key injuries.
Paranormal activity continues.
Welcome to the Angels kid…
Losing O’Hoppe, while a huge bummer, should not make or break a team’s season. It shows how thin we are still. We have a top five payroll spent on a couple of stars who are surrounded by a mediocre team. I believe Moreno hung onto the team to squeeze the last dollar he can out of Ohtani. Once Ohtani signs elsewhere, Moreno will sell the team for real.
Last night’s loss to the Royals shows how bad this team really is. I did an unscientific analysis of our schedule this year and came up with a season record of 78-84. The fact that we are early in the season is an empty consolation because the first game is as important as the last game. Moreno has never been focused on building a winning team.
How about tyler oneill and Andrew kizner. Give you a hitter for the lineup and a catcher with decent experience. Probably wouldn’t cost a whole lot in return.
Saw someone say something about relief pitching too, cards could throw in genesis cabrera and hicks who both have good stuff but might need a change of scenery
The three guys you mentioned outside of Tyler have negative trade value. Why would anyone want them
@Bighiggy
For Whom? Who do you expect back in return?
Well that stinks. O’Hoppe for Marsh was a solid win/win trade for both teams. Hopefully they are able to fix the problem (and it’s his non-throwing arm) and he can be back to 100% for next season.
O’Hoppe has played in around 20 career games. It’s too early to be calling him a win in anything. That being said, he does look like he has the real potential to be a very good big league catcher.
Injury or not, thou a little set back. I still have O’Hoppe’s career ceiling higher than Marshes. Since it’s the non throwing side, he should be fine.
Great start for Marsh thou, maybe he can be an all around above average CF. We’ll see.
The problem with the O’Hoppe injury that no one is talking about, is that it takes their biggest trade piece off the table.
As a trade piece, Quero is likely off the table.
I dunno if it does for Quero for a couple reasons. Quero is not going to be ready this year. 2nd, I wouldn’t write off O’Hoppe with having any problems with this injury.
Hate to see this for the kid, but he should remain rookie eligible for next year.
What a bummer!!! Love what I’ve seen of this kid so far. Hope you are back soon and even better.
Not good news. And Max Stassi is still AWOL.
I would have to think Jorge Alfaro makes the most sense, if they can figure out what the Red Sox want for him.
The Red Sox only have two catchers on the 40 man, and Alfaro is the only reasonable call-up option in the organization at the moment, so I doubt they’d let him go before his June 1 opt out for anything that would feasibly be offered
It does raise the question about his forward mobility clause if that is still in effect. If so, he has the right to opt out if the Angels offer a Major League deal.
You just listed the reason the Red Sox would listen. Alfaro can walk on June 1st so they get nothing if they wait.
They’d get nothing for trading him either lol. No team is going to give up anything noteworthy for Alfaro at this point. Whatever scrub Boston could get back would not be worth weakening their catcher depth like that. Angels should definitely take a look when Alfaro’s opt out comes, but unless Boston gets some ridiculous offer he’s not going anywhere before that
O Hoppe on pop
Angels losing. Again.
Yeah this hurts a tic, but it’s not close to the end all for this team.
You guys really want to know what’s leading to this mediocre start? It’s simple, it’s ALL 4 parts of the game. Simple pitch then don’t hit and vise versa. Then throw in some errors and a few blown saves, and they all contributed.
Look on the bright side, this team is finding every way to lose early on and is still around .500
You have to think they’ll start playing better sooner or later, and they’ll be right where they need to be.
The pitching staff is 12th in the AL in strikeouts so they aren’t missing many bats. Anderson has regressed severely in the early going, Suarez has looked bad so far too. Trying to play bullpen by committee never really works either.
Defensively starting the season without an actual SS on the roster was a bad decision and Nevin’s man crush on Rengifo is another problem
For the most part Rsox, but I don’t think K’s are the end all for starters. I prefer the soft contact rate stat more. There’s something to be said about Early outs and going deeper in games. Thus keeping the pen fresh.
I don’t know about Suarez, but Anderson should be fine, soft contact is what Anderson is all about. He should get back to that. But for sure, you can’t have 2 guys pitching poorly thru the rotation. The only saving grace early on for the Angels is, that they have 3 long relief guys that are pitching good in Moore, Berria, and Davidson.
Unfortunately when you are not a good defensive team the strikeouts matter more than you think. If the ball is in play and your fielders struggle with it, it doesn’t matter how hard or how soft the ball was hit
Each is there own, but if u can’t have both, k’s and soft contact, I’ll take the latter, for a starter that is. I guess if u had both qualities, you probably are a staff Ace.
Torn labrum is gonna cost him more than 4-6 months
It’s all good, he can take his time and make it back in 10 months by next spring training.
It’s still early enough of course and the Angels are off to a good start.
No shortage of good defensive catchers.
Just balance the offence out in the lineup. I noticed all last year it was like a bad mix tape in highschool when you put all the top songs up first.
Back to back to back jacks!
Angels should acquire the Royals’ Salvatore Perez. The Royals are going nowhere. Maybe the worst team in baseball. He would be a great fit for the Angels, a solid veteran. Wonder what KC’s asking price would be.
You don’t think his shelf life is a little long? Mad respect for Sal, but…
Exactly, Chapman is wasting his talents there too. Not sure who we would have to give up my Jo Adell would be a start the way he has started off the season in AAA.
That wouldn’t be a bad idea Red. I know he’s getting paid a lot for a few more years, so the return shouldn’t be off the charts.
The only reason why this might work is, knock on wood! The Angels might have a DH spot available next year 🙁
Kind of a bummer.
I wonder if the Angels even talk to Ohtani’s reps or if it’s all been shut off during the season.
Don’t read about torn labrums like u used2, pitchers especially, was kiss of death 4awhile 4ever bein the same pitcher u were, now it’s all TJ injuries, but@same time velo league wide has nvr been so high, just like torn Achilles, used2 nvr hear bout that injury n now it’s everywhere guys shredding em left n right, fortunately it’s his non throwing shoulder, good luck w/surgery n rehab, nxt man up
That’s okay. The Angels will have a new hot shot catching prospect (or two) to go along with several new blue chip pitchers very soon……… after they trade Ohtani,
I have to disagree on Ohtani, I believe there’s a super low chance Ohtani gets traded. A couple big injuries aside, this team won’t be out of the wild card race. With the added playoff teams, you could be a few games under .500 and still be in it come late July.
The Angels/Moreno aren’t trading Ohtani unless they receive an offer they can’t refuse (i.e., someone severely overpays) which won’t happen. The Angels will be hovering around .500 and that will be enough of an excuse to hold onto Ohtani.
Besides, I’m not so convinced that he’s an absolute goner at the end of the season. I still think the Angels will be in the mix to resign him, unless they completely miss the postseason…
If it were up to me, I’d ask Ohtani to extend before the trade deadline. If he refuses, which is more than likely IMHO, then you get what you can for him. Maybe the Dodgers or Yanks will overpay for a rental in hopes that will give them a leg up on signing him.
Sealbeach – from my understanding, Ohtani’s agent has refused to engage in any extension talks until the offseason. If the Angels make him an ultimatum during the season, then not only will it be a distraction but it will likely backfire—Ohtani is in the driver seat. And if they trade him for a few top prospects, then you pretty much have lost any hope of resigning him.
They should’ve already done this in the off-season. You need to have enough insight to determine whether extending him can be done. If he wants $450M, and you think that’s okay, sign the check. If he wants $600M, and you aren’t going to go past $400M, then you have to make the best long-term move.
Top o’ the order to ya! Bummer he was good. Who they gonna find to replace him
And he was doing so well. I just watched him against the Yankees. Too bad.
Oy, brutal. I hate it for the kid. Get well soon.
How did that happen? The only thing that I can speculate is free weights…
Time to trade for Eric Haase or Jake Rogers 😉
FIRE Nevin!!!
Quero could be an option in a couple months. The dude can hit, with good speed for a catcher to. He’s killing it at AA early on. But He’s still pretty raw behind the plate thou.
They’ll have to get him on the fast track, learning him up back behind the dish thou.