The Angels agreed to a minor league contract with lefty reliever Victor González last month (h/t to Baseball America’s Matt Eddy). The southpaw had been a free agent since the Yankees released him in September.
González is looking to rebound after a tough year in the Bronx. The Yankees acquired him from the Dodgers over the 2023-24 offseason. González got into 27 games and tossed 23 1/3 innings. While his 3.86 earned run average wasn’t bad, that belied an unimpressive strikeout and walk profile. The southpaw walked a career-high 13.4% of batters faced while carrying a meager 11.4% strikeout rate. González had fanned at least 22% of opponents in all three seasons with the Dodgers.
Among pitchers with 20+ innings, González was one of three — alongside Nick Nastrini and Dakota Hudson — who had more walks than strikeouts. New York ran him through outright waivers in June. While his Triple-A strikeout (20.6%) and walk (8.8%) profile was improved in the minors, the Yanks never brought him back up. That could be in part due to a velocity dip. González averaged 93.3 MPH on his sinker last season; that pitch sat in the 94-95 MPH range during his time with the Dodgers.
Before last season, González had been a solid middle innings arm for L.A. skipper Dave Roberts. The Mexican-born southpaw turned in 89 1/3 innings of 3.22 ERA ball over parts of three seasons. He posted roughly average strikeout and walk numbers while getting a ton of ground-balls. The grounders carried over to the Bronx, but the precipitous drop in strikeouts and career-worst command pushed him off the roster.
The Halos have a few left-handers ticketed for Opening Day bullpen spots. Brock Burke, José Quijada and José Suárez are each out of options. They’ve all been inconsistent in recent years, but the Angels tendered all three (relatively small) arbitration contracts. The Angels also took left-hander Garrett McDaniels out of the Dodgers system in the Rule 5 draft. If they plan to secure his long-term contractual rights, they’d need to keep him in the majors all season. González is also out of options, so if the Angels call him up at any point, they’d need to keep him in the MLB bullpen or send him back into DFA limbo.
Lefties falling off of the list today!
Throw stuff against wall. Hope some sticks.
All a rebuilding tr really needs to do.
“González is looking to rebound after a tough year in the Bronx.”
Remove the name Gonzalez and insert the name of any other Angels pitching acquisition because that’s all Moreno allows Minasian to sign. We’ve had a pitching staff made up of rebound hopefuls for over a decade and here we are.
Sounds like the Yankees wrecked him
How many lefties can they squeeze into spring training
Dodgers certainly unloaded Gonzales right on his best-by date.
Victor only allowed 13 hits in 23 innings last year. Small sample size makes it too soon to say he passed his expiration date. He has never been over a 1.0 WAR pitcher, but also never negative. For the Halos, he should get a call-up in 2025.
Nobody cares about WAR for middle relievers. Between 2023 and 2024 his K-rate dropped by half and his BB-rate doubled. The number of innings were enough in both seasons to easily see his huge decline in effectiveness. Will some other team take a chance on him? Sure, especially one going nowhere like the Angels, but that doesn’t refute the point that Dodgers dumped him in a timely fashion.
You think 23 innings is enough to define him in perpetuity and I disagree on that. In 2023, he had 30Ks in 33 innings. He has had a WHIP of 1.10 and 1.11 in 2023 and 2024. His WHIP was 1.44 in 2021. From 2021 to 2023, his FIP also went down from 4.27 and 3.40. More to pitching than strikeout rate in a small sample size. He had never been incredible, but he is likely still serviceable.
Look I get that if Ryan Brasier is a DFA, Victor had no role with the Dodgers, and he was already with Yankees in 2024 anyway. He is still 29. Decent pickup by Angels.
I can’t imagine where you got “in perpetuity” from anything I said.
This is the cherry on top of what will be a shutdown bullpen.
Such an Angels move. Their only real options are Guys just hoping to stay in the game and over paying vets who don’t care to win. Arte’s Angels baseball
Busy offseason of signing bench pieces and aging vets to a 99 loss team.
Sell the team