The Angels announced that left-hander José Suarez has been sent outright to Triple-A Salt Lake. That indicates he was passed through waivers unclaimed after being designated for assignment a week ago.
Suarez, 26, has more than three years of major league service time. That gives him the right to reject this outright assignment and elect free agency. However, since he has less than five years of service, choosing the open market would mean forfeiting what remains of his salary.
He qualified for arbitration for the first time after last season and eventually lost a hearing against the club. He is making $925K instead of the $1.3MM that his side filed for. It seems fair to presume he will report to Salt Lake as opposed to walking away from the roughly half a million still coming his way.
That will give the Halos a bit of non-roster pitching depth with some past success. The lefty had good results working as a swingman for the Angels over the 2021 and 2022 seasons. Between the two campaigns, he made 45 appearances, including 34 starts. He tossed 207 1/3 innings in that time, allowing 3.86 earned runs per nine. His 21.5% strikeout rate, 7.9% walk rate and 44.5% ground ball rate were all around league average.
Since then, the results have taken a steep nosedive. He spent much of 2023 on the injured list due to a shoulder strain, posting an 8.29 ERA in 33 2/3 innings. This year, he was healthy and moved to the bullpen, but couldn’t get his numbers in better shape. He threw 35 1/3 innings with an 8.15 ERA before getting bumped off the roster last week. Since he’s out of options, the Angels had to remove him from the 40-man to get him off the active roster.
It’s unclear if the Angels want him to continue working out of the bullpen or get stretched out to start. There would be an argument for the latter, with the club likely to end up making rotation moves in the weeks to come. With a record of 30-46, they are one of the few clubs clearly in seller position as the trade deadline approaches.
Since Suarez was designated for assignment, the rotation already took two big hits with Patrick Sandoval hitting the injured list with a UCL injury and José Soriano due to an abdominal infection. Tyler Anderson and Griffin Canning are logical trade candidates since both are slated for free agency after 2025. Zach Plesac has been inserted into the rotation to cover for those two but has an 8.68 ERA through two starts.
Chase Silseth is currently on a rehab assignment and will be back in the mix soon enough. Reid Detmers could be recalled from his optional assignment, as could Davis Daniel or Kenny Rosenberg. But even with those guys potentially coming back, it’s possible that Suarez may have a role to play on the club down the stretch.
It’s a headscratcher why the Halos keep this guy and reassign him to AAA? He is an out of shape bum.
“That will give the Halos a bit of non-roster pitching depth with some past success.” – referring to Suarez at Salt Lake. That’s why the Angels have the worst farm in baseball. Because they consider guys like Suarez a depth piece.
As a lifetime Halos fan, I can honestly say the state of the franchise is the worst I have ever seen. It can’t get any worse. Trade every trade-able piece NOW and start over. Then clean house in the front office. Time for a complete teardown.
There have been worse teams, but I don’t think we’ve ever had a team this bad with such a rotten farm system.
Perry is in over his head, he has to go.
An incompetent owner AND an incompetent GM leads to this.
I made a similar comment beginning spring. The Angels have Logan O’Hoppe, Zach Neto and sometimes Mike Trout. Even when Gene Autry was changing directions every other year, the Angels had hope. I don’t see any direction to this franchise.
Arte Moreno is over his head, stubborn old man sell the damn team
You know, Moreno interferes hand, picking players that’s why he always hires a general manager with no experience, Moreno calls the shots you really can’t blame Perry Minasian, the pool that he has to pick from is like the $.99 store Arte Moreno wearing the Satan suit this year
Arte has only been known to hand pick players he can market.
You think he gives a flying leap about most of these guys?
Could not agree more. Perry is the king of sining middle relievers and bench players who cannot hit. Signed 14 relievers in the last 3 off seasons
Don’t worry
The halos are only three decent starters a closer a second baseman that can hit a third baseman that can actually play and a right fielder that will not strike out twice a game from being an 80 win team
Rengifo has rotten feet. But his hands are ok and his arm is good.
I’m all for Rendon and Rengifo splitting time at third. Let’s see how it goes.
you want to get rid of the front office but allow them to trade every trade-able piece? Seems to me you’d want to do it the other way first…
No. There is only one trade deadline. So trade pieces now. Then after the season, and after finding the right personnel for a rebuild, clean house in the front office. This is what I would do.
I don’t trust Perry to draft or make trades.
Guys you need to have players that teams will actually want to trade for. Honesty how many do the Angels truly have? That would actually bring a return better than a mid level prospect or two. Plus it blows mi mind how many teams trade for these elite prospects and they don’t pan out
At some point we just have to realize Arte is a bad owner who can’t spot talent. The top executives only qualifications are being Arte’s friends.
Those guys have hired bad GM’s and gutted the budgets for scouting and development. So we’ve drafted the wrong players and can’t even develop them.
Until Arte goes nothing will change.
It’s not Arte”s job to spot talent, it’s his job to give his baseball people the resources to do their job.
At that, he grades a D-.
It is his job to spot executive level talent and he’s failed miserably.
Not a single top level executive has been fired under Arte. And that crew keeps getting to pick GMs.
Arte’s job was to hire a President of Operations and competent GM.
He’s failed miserably at both
100% – Arte has cut so many corners and has ran this franchise into the ground. People have no idea how bad of an owner he is.
Unclaimed? Shocking.
As long as he’s off the 40-man roster.
Looked like big sexy for a second
Thank god
I think Perry has done a decent job with what he has been given to work with. The draft choices he has made as well as a few trades for young talent. The problem is that he took the reigns of a decimated farm system with very little to trade for talent and an owner that ties his hands on any moves that would make the team viable. If Arte had been willing let Perry spend money on a pitching staff that desperately needed help in the offseason the Angels would probably be in decent shape right now but instead he passed on nearly every available free agent pitcher that was productive and went with reclamation projects that have not panned out. I hope Perry can get a job with a real team and prove his value somewhere with an owner that lets him be gm and not just a puppet.