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Max Stassi

Giants, Max Stassi Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Giants agreed to a minor league contract with Max Stassi, as first reported by Just Baseball’s Aram Leighton (on X) and subsequently reflected on the catcher’s MLB.com transaction log. It’s likely the Wasserman client will get a non-roster invite to big league camp.

Stassi hasn’t appeared in the majors since 2022. He started the ’23 season on the injured list with a left hip problem and was eventually transferred to the restricted list as he attended to a family matter. (The Stassis later announced that their son was born prematurely and spent weeks in intensive care.) He was traded twice last offseason, going from the Angels to the Braves to the White Sox in a chain of salary-driven moves.

The Sox intended to give Stassi a look as their backup catcher, but he reaggravated his hip injury and underwent season-ending surgery in June. Chicago paid a $500K buyout in lieu of a $7.5MM option, ending his White Sox tenure without any games. The consecutive lost seasons made it apparent he’d need to accept a minor league contract.

Stassi’s most recent healthy season was a disappointment. He hit .180/.267/.303 across 375 plate appearances in 2022. The two preceding years were far more impressive. Stassi combined for a .250/.333/.452 slash between 2020-21. He rated as an above-average receiver and looked like a late-blooming #1 catcher. The Halos signed Stassi to a $17.5MM extension in Spring Training 2022, though his numbers fell off almost immediately thereafter.

Patrick Bailey is locked in as San Francisco’s starting catcher. The backup job could be up for grabs. Tom Murphy had an injury-ruined season in year one of a two-year free agent deal. Blake Sabol is also on the 40-man roster but carries a questionable defensive profile.

White Sox Decline Option On Max Stassi

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The White Sox announced Friday that they’ve declined their $7.5MM club option on catcher Max Stassi. He’ll receive a $500K buyout and become a free agent. Chicago also formally announced that infielder Yoan Moncada’s $25MM club option was declined in favor of a $5MM buyout, as was reported yesterday. Both decisions were obvious long before the season ended.

Stassi, 33, never played a game for the White Sox and hasn’t appeared in the majors since 2022. He was acquired last offseason as part of a convoluted series of trades made by the Braves in their pursuit of effectively purchasing Jarred Kelenic from the Mariners. Atlanta acquired Kelenic, Evan White and Marco Gonzales from the Mariners, then flipped White’s contract to the Angels in exchange for Stassi and David Fletcher. Gonzales was traded to Pittsburgh, with the Braves footing most of the bill. Stassi was subsequently traded to Chicago for cash or a player to be named later, with Atlanta taking on nearly all of Stassi’s salary as well.

The ChiSox hoped Stassi would come to camp and pair with free-agent pickup Martin Maldonado, but he landed on the injured list during spring training due to inflammation in his hip. It was the second season in which Stassi had dealt with an injury in his left hip, and this time around it required season-ending surgery.

Stassi last appeared in a big league game in October 2022 with the Angels. He missed all of the 2023 season due to that hip injury and, far more importantly, to tend to a dire family matter. Stassi was absent from the Angels due to what was at the time an unknown personal matter and later shared that his son, Jackson, had been born more than three months premature. He understandably took the entire season to be with his wife and son, spending the bulk of the time in the NICU with his wife, Gaby. The couple opened up about their harrowing experience earlier this year in an interview with The Athletic’s Sam Blum. Thankfully, Jackson defied the odds and was eventually able to head home with his family after more than six months in the hospital.

Stassi’s story is one that puts any baseball angle into proper perspective. The game is a distant second to such a traumatizing family ordeal, but Stassi did speak optimistically to Blum about the possibility of his son someday seeing him take the field at a big league game. He reported to spring training with the White Sox this past season intent on playing before his hip injury intervened. There’s no indication he’s planning anything other than a return to his playing career, though any such opportunity will likely come on a minor league deal.

Such a pact should be there for Stassi, health permitting. He’s still just 33 years old, and from 2020-21 he gave the Halos 118 games and 424 plate appearances with a .250/.333/.452 batting line. Stassi ripped 20 homers in that time and provided standout defense behind the plate, as has long been his calling card. Teams in need of a veteran backup or a depth option to push a younger, inexperienced backstop could give him a look this winter.

Max Stassi Undergoes Season-Ending Surgery

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The White Sox announced that catcher Max Stassi underwent a season-ending left hip surfacing procedure last week. He is already on the 60-day injured list and will stay there for the remainder of the year.

It’s always a tough blow when a player has to miss an entire season like this, but it’s especially unfortunate for Stassi as this will be the second straight lost campaign for him. With the Angels last year, he began the season on the injured list with a left hip strain. He was eventually able to heal up but remained away from the team due to an undisclosed personal matter. In October, his wife Gabrielle revealed in an Instagram post that their son had been born three months premature and was in NICU due to various medical complications.

While Stassi was not with the Halos, they proceeded with Logan O’Hoppe and Matt Thaiss as their catching duo. Stassi was planning to play in 2024 but was traded to Atlanta alongside David Fletcher in December in a move mostly about moving contracts around. Atlanta ate all of Stassi’s salary in flipping him to the White Sox a few days later.

It seemed the Sox planned to have Stassi and Martín Maldonado behind the plate this year, as they optioned Korey Lee during the spring. But Stassi then needed to start the season on the IL, which brought Lee back up to make the Opening Day squad. Stassi was transferred to the 60-day IL in mid-April and will now be stuck there for the rest of the campaign.

For the Sox, Lee has performed well enough this year, hitting .245/.280/.378 with some decent defensive work as well. Maldonado is hitting a dismal .071/.124/.111 but is mostly on the club for his veteran presence and work with the pitching staff. If the club decides to move on from him at some point, they have Carlos Pérez as a non-roster depth option while prospect Edgar Quero is demolishing Double-A pitching.

Stassi has long been a solid defensive catcher but seemed to take a step forward at the plate a few years ago. He had a batting line of .204/.285/.326 through the end of the 2019 season but then slashed .250/.333/.452 over 2020 and 2021. Going into 2022, the Angels signed him to a three-year, $17.5MM extension, though the deal hasn’t worked out. His bat collapsed in the first year, as he hit .180/.267/.303 in 102 games in 2022. Since he missed all of last year and is now set to miss 2024 as well, that rough season will go down as the totality of his work on the contract. There is a $7.5MM club option for the 2025 campaign that comes with a $500K buyout but the Sox will certainly turn that down based on how the past three years have gone.

White Sox Promote Nick Nastrini

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3:40pm: The Sox have now made Nastrini’s promotion official and also activated outfielder Eloy Jimenez from the injured list. To open active roster spots for those two, they optioned right-hander Justin Anderson and infielder/outfielder Zach Remillard. To open a 40-man spot for Nastrini, they transferred catcher Max Stassi to the 60-day injured list. The backstop opened the season on the 10-day IL due to hip inflammation but was hit on the hand by a backswing while rehabbing recently, per Scott Merkin of MLB.com. His exact timeline isn’t clear but he’s now ineligible to be activated until late May.

9:27am: The White Sox will call up right-hander Nick Nastrini to start today’s game in what will be his MLB debut, manager Pedro Grifol announced (link via Kyle Williams of the Chicago Sun-Times). He’s not on the 40-man roster, so the Sox will need to open a spot for his contract to be formally selected.

Nastrini, 24, is widely regarded as one of the White Sox’ top pitching prospects. Acquired from the Dodgers in the trade sending Lance Lynn to Los Angeles last summer, the 2021 fourth-round pick has routinely posted massive strikeout numbers throughout his minor league tenure but has also battled sub-par command for much of his professional career.

Scouting reports at Baseball America, MLB.com, FanGraphs, The Athletic and ESPN all rank Nastrini eighth or better among ChiSox farmhands, with BA listing him third in the system. The Athletic’s Keith Law ranked Nastrini 76th on his 2024 top 100 list, touting him as a possible No. 4 starter and with the ceiling to become quite a bit more than that, given the strength of his secondary pitches.

There’s little doubting the quality of Nastrini’s stuff; he runs his fastball up as high as 98 mph and complements it with a slider, curveball and changeup that all project as potentially average to plus offerings. Nastrini features high-end spin rates on his heater and breaking pitches, and his changeup helped him limit lefties to a .226 average with a 29.7% strikeout rate between Double-A and Triple-A last season. (Righties hit .216 and punched out at a 26.1% clip.) Law touts the changeup, in particular, as a potential plus-plus pitch (70-grade on the 20-80 scale).

If Nastrini had better control of his electric arsenal, he’d undoubtedly grade as one of the game’s elite prospects. At 6’3″, 215-pound righty has the size and deep repertoire to profile as a starter, but he’s walked 11.1% of his career opponents. His penchant for missing the zone leads to plenty of deep counts as well; in 2023 he averaged about 4 2/3 innings per start. There’s still some refinement to be made, though he’s improved his command since college ball at UCLA and has also seen further gains in that field since being traded from L.A. to Chicago (9.5% walk rate in the Sox’ system).

The state of the White Sox’ roster amid their current rebuild gives Nastrini ample opportunity to show he can stick. The Sox are out to their worst start in franchise history, sitting at 2-13 on the season. The woeful state of their rotation has played a significant role in those struggles. Even with Garrett Crochet pitching like a borderline No. 1 starter through his first four turns, White Sox starters rank 26th in the big leagues with 72 1/3 innings pitched, 28th with a 5.60 ERA and dead last with a 5.20 FIP. Despite totaling MLB’s fifth-fewest innings, the rotation is tied for the MLB lead with 14 home runs allowed.

Nastrini will join Crochet, Erick Fedde, Michael Soroka and Chris Flexen in the rotation for the time being. Recently re-signed Mike Clevinger will join that group in a few weeks as well, once he’s sufficiently built up, and other prospects like Jake Eder, Jairo Iriarte and Jared Shuster (currently working as a long reliever in the big league ’pen) could eventually garner looks over the course of the season.

Even if Nastrini is in the big leagues to stay, he won’t accrue enough service time to reach a full year in 2024. Were it not for an illness that rendered Nastrini unavailable the first time Chicago needed a fifth starter, that may not have been the case, but he wasn’t healthy enough in the season’s first week to step onto the staff at the time. He’s still made just two starts in the minors this season, in part due to that illness. Further optional assignments could always alter his timeline anyhow, but for now, Nastrini will be controllable all the way through 2030.

Max Stassi To Open Season On IL Due To Hip Inflammation

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The White Sox placed catcher Max Stassi on the 10-day injured list this afternoon due to hip inflammation, per a club announcement. The club also recalled catcher Korey Lee from Triple-A Charlotte. Lee had previously been optioned to the minor leagues last week as Chicago settled on Stassi and Martin Maldonado as their catching tandem to open the season, but Stassi’s injury will instead create an opportunity for Lee to break camp with the club.

That Stassi is dealing with a hip issue is particularly concerning given the fact that he missed considerable time last season due to a hip strain that prevented him from taking the field with the Angels to open the year. While Stassi missed the entire 2023 campaign, only the first half of that absence was due to his hip injury; Stassi recovered from that issue midseason, but he and his wife revealed back in November that the three-months premature birth of their son necessitated Stassi to step away from the game and attend to his family for the remainder of the 2023 campaign. While it’s concerning to see him once again hit the IL due to hip problems, White Sox manager Pedro Grifol told reporters (as relayed by ESPN) today that Stassi is just “a little sore” after the long layoff from major league play and is still “getting his work done” despite the fact that he’ll open the season on the shelf.

Stassi, 33, was a fourth-round pick by the A’s in the 2009 draft. Upon making his big league debut with the Astros back in 2013, he spent several years as a reserve catcher shuttling between Triple-A and the majors; he appeared in just 44 games in the big leagues across his first five major league seasons. He took on a larger role with Houston in 2018, however, and made the most of the opportunity by hitting a respectable .226/.316/.394 (100 wRC+) in 88 games with the club that year while posting elite defensive numbers behind the plate.

Despite that solid performance, Stassi’s playing time with the Astros was once again limited by the arrival of Robinson Chirinos, and the club ended up dealing Stassi to their division rival in Anaheim. He took his game to another level with the Angels during the 2020 and 2021 seasons, maintaining that strong defense while slashing .250/.333/.452 with a 113 wRC+. Unfortunately, Stassi took a major step back in 2022, posting just a .180/.267/.303 (63 wRC+) slash line while his defensive metrics slipped from excellent to merely average behind the plate.

Between Stassi’s struggles in 2022 and his lost season last year, it’s hard to say what can be expected from the veteran in 2024. That uncertainty may have played a role in Stassi being dealt twice this offseason; once to the Braves alongside longtime Angels utilityman David Fletcher, an again to the White Sox the very next day. That said, Stassi has clearly shown himself to have the potential to be an average-or-better catcher both at the plate and behind it throughout his time in the majors, and it’s easy to imagine him contributing significantly to the club’s catching corps alongside Maldonado and Lee if he can get healthy.

As for Lee, the 25-year-old once received top-100 prospect buzz as a member of the Astros farm system, but has struggled badly in his first 36 games of big league action with a slash line of just .100/.156/.167 in 96 trips to the plate across the past two seasons. He was acquired by the White Sox at the trade deadline last year in exchange for veteran right-hander Kendall Graveman. Upon the club’s acquisitions of Stassi and Maldonado this winter it appeared that Lee was ticked for additional reps at the Triple-A level, where he’s a career .255/.313/.435 hitter in 841 plate appearances. He’ll instead return to the majors for at least the beginning of the 2024 season, where he’ll likely serve as the backup to Maldonado.

White Sox Acquire Max Stassi From Braves

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December 11: Atlanta is paying Stassi’s deal down to the league minimum, according to the Associated Press; they’ll send $6.26MM in cash. That amount also counts against the Braves luxury tax number, which sits at an estimated $263MM according to Roster Resource. As second-time payors in the second tier of penalization, they’ll pay a 42% tax on that money. Stassi will cost the Braves around $8.89MM overall.

December 9: The White Sox have acquired Max Stassi and cash considerations from the Braves in exchange for a player to be named later. Both teams have announced the deal. Per Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun Times, the Braves are expected to pay for the majority of Stassi’s $7MM salary next season.

Stassi, 33 in March, spent just one day in the Braves organization after being acquired from the Angels yesterday in a multi-played deal with the Angels alongside infielder David Fletcher. Now, the veteran catcher is off to his third organization in two days, where he figures to have the opportunity to step into a regular role on the south side of Chicago. The White Sox lost Yasmani Grandal to free agency earlier this offseason and were in need of a veteran backstop to pair with youngster Korey Lee behind the plate in 2024.

It’s a need Stassi is more than capable of fulfilling. While the veteran missed the entire 2023 season, only the first half of his absence was due to the left hip strain that prevented him from being on the Opening Day roster in Anaheim last season. Stassi recovered from that issue midseason, but he and his wife revealed last month that the three-months premature birth of their son necessitated Stassi to step away from the game and attend to his family for the remainder of the 2023 campaign.

That said, Stassi is expected to return to the field in 2024 and has shown himself to be a quality big league catcher over the past few seasons. Initially drafted by the A’s in the fourth round of the 2009 draft, Stassi made his big league debut back in 2013 with the Astros but did not find a regular role in the majors until the 2018 season when he split time behind the plate in Houston with Brian McCann and Martin Maldonado. Stassi did well for himself in a backup role that season, slashing a respectable .226/.316/.394 in 250 plate appearances. While Stassi struggled through 51 games in 2019, prompting the Astros to trade him to the Angels at that year’s trade deadline, Stassi was given a more prominent role upon his arrival in Anaheim.

In 118 games between the shortened 2020 campaign and his first full season as an Angel in 2021, Stassi combined above-average offense at the plate (113 wRC+) with strong defense behind it to be the ninth most valuable catcher in the league according to fWAR. That strong performance led the Angels to sign Stassi to an extension, though that decision would prove ill-fated. As effective as Stassi was during those two seasons, he took a step back in 2022, slashing a meager .180/.267/.363 (63 wRC+) at the plate while posting framing numbers that were closer to average than the elite figures he had posted earlier in his career.

While the struggles Stassi faced in 2022 and his time away from the game in 2023 make it an understandable decision for the Angels and Braves to go in another direction behind the plate in 2024, it’s easy to see why the addition of Stassi would be intriguing for the White Sox. After all, Lee has less than 100 plate appearances of experience in the big leagues and, even if the club believes the former top-100 prospect to be their catcher of the future, will surely need time and assistant as he looks to transition into a new role as a full-time big leaguer. The addition of a veteran catcher such as Stassi should help with that transition, while also creating a substantial bit of upside for Chicago. Stassi’s contract includes a $7MM 2025 club option that features a $500K buyout; if the veteran is able to regain the form he flashed in 2020 and 2021, that $6.5MM decision would be a no-brainer to pick up and make for an attractive trade chip as the White Sox retool their roster with an eye toward the future.

For the Braves, the deal clears a portion of Stassi’s salary from their books while clearing an unnecessary piece from their roster. Atlanta already had one of the best catching tandems in the game with Sean Murphy and Travis d’Arnaud behind the plate, rendering Stassi as largely superfluous. In conjunction with the trade that brought Stassi and Fletcher to Atlanta in exchange for Evan White and the deal that shipped Marco Gonzales to the Pirates, the Braves have shaved roughly $5MM off their payroll since acquiring Gonzales and White as part of the Jarred Kelenic trade during the Winter Meetings while adding a bench piece in Fletcher who better fits the club’s roster than any of Gonzales, White, or Stassi.

Braves Acquire Max Stassi, David Fletcher

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The Braves and Angels have lined up a swap of change-of-scenery candidates. Atlanta announced the acquisition of infielder David Fletcher and catcher Max Stassi for minor league first baseman Evan White and reliever Tyler Thomas. The Braves’ 40-man roster count is up to 36; the Halos will be at 39 once they finalize one-year free agent deals for Luis García and Adam Cimber.

It’s an odd fit for the Braves, who aren’t in need of catching help. Atlanta has Sean Murphy as their starter and re-signed Travis d’Arnaud to an $8MM deal to work as the backup. Stassi gives them a third experienced, fairly highly-priced catcher. Since it’s unlikely they’d want to carry all three — none of whom can be sent to the minor leagues — Mark Bowman of MLB.com tweets that they plan to flip Stassi elsewhere.

Atlanta has already moved a trio of players whom they’d acquired in previous offseason trades. Right-hander Jackson Kowar, added from the Royals for Kyle Wright, went to the Mariners in the deal that brought in Jarred Kelenic. As part of the Kelenic trade, the Braves agreed to take on salary on the underwater contracts for left-hander Marco Gonzales and White. Gonzales was dealt to the Pirates for a minimal return on Tuesday, while White is now himself shipped away in this swap with the Angels.

Now they’ll try to move Stassi, who is under contract for $7MM next season. He’s also guaranteed a $500K buyout on a $7.5MM team option for the 2025 campaign. The Halos had signed him to an extension on the heels of a combined .250/.333/.452 showing between 2020-21. That contract didn’t work as the organization envisioned. Stassi slumped to a .180/.267/.303 line over a personal-high 375 plate appearances in 2022.

The 32-year-old didn’t appear at all in 2023. Stassi began the season on the injured list with a left hip strain. While he recovered from the hip issue midseason, he remained away from the team to attend to a family issue. After the season, Stassi and his wife Gabrielle revealed their son had been born three months prematurely in mid-April and had spent the past few months in NICU. In November, Angels GM Perry Minasian told reporters that Stassi was planning to play in 2024 (link via Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register).

In the season’s final month, the Angels had placed Stassi on the restricted list. That ensured he wouldn’t be paid for the last few weeks as part of the organization’s ultimately successful effort to limbo below the luxury tax line. There’s no public indication that affected the franchise’s relationship with Stassi, but he also seemed an arguably superfluous part of the roster. Logan O’Hoppe has emerged as the top option behind the plate with Matt Thaiss backing him up.

Fletcher likewise signed an extension that hasn’t panned out. The glove-first infielder inked a $26MM guarantee in April 2021. At the time, the Angels envisioned him as a long-term starter at second base thanks to a strong showing in the shortened 2020 season. That looks like an anomaly, as Fletcher’s offense has evaporated in the three years since then. Going back to the start of the ’21 campaign, he’s a .259/.296/.327 hitter.

The Angels twice ran Fletcher through waivers this year. He played in only 33 MLB games while getting into 85 contests at Triple-A Salt Lake. Fletcher made a ton of contact with minimal power impact at the top minor league level, hitting .330/.382/.428 with a microscopic 6.3% strikeout rate across 380 plate appearances.

Fletcher will make $6MM next season, is guaranteed $6.5MM in 2025 and will take home at least a $1.5MM buyout on a ’26 club option. That’s well above what he’d have received were he a free agent this offseason. He’s a plus defender at each of second base, shortstop and third base. For the Braves, he’ll serve as utility infield depth behind Ozzie Albies, Orlando Arcia and Austin Riley. It’s a role that had been played by Nicky Lopez in the second half of last season, but Atlanta packaged him in the Aaron Bummer trade with the White Sox.

It’s strictly a financial move for the Angels, who also clear two spots on their 40-man roster. White had been a highly-regarded prospect during his time with the Mariners. Seattle signed him to an extension before his MLB debut. That didn’t work, as the righty-hitting first baseman turned in a .165/.235/.308 line in 84 big league games between 2020-21. White hasn’t played in the majors in two years and has barely played in Triple-A because of various injuries, including multiple surgeries on his left hip.

Atlanta passed White through waivers just yesterday. The Angels will take on the remainder of his contract: $7MM next season, $8MM in 2025 and a $2MM buyout on a ’26 club option. He’ll likely start next season in Salt Lake.

Thomas is a left-handed pitcher who turns 28 in a few weeks. The Braves had just selected him in the minor league phase of the Rule 5 draft out of the Mets organization. The Fresno State product has appeared in parts of six minor league seasons. He has a 4.30 ERA over 130 2/3 career innings at Double-A with scant experience at the Triple-A level.

The Braves agree to take on an extra $6MM next season, while the Halos are assuming an additional $1.5MM between 2025-26. Atlanta is also assuming $6MM in luxury tax obligations for the upcoming season. A traded player’s luxury tax number is recalculated as the average annual value of what remains on their contract at the time of the trade (including option buyouts). Stassi is guaranteed $7.5MM for one season, while the remaining $14MM over two years on Fletcher’s deal is a $7MM average value. White is due $17MM over two seasons, an $8.5MM annual hit. There’s a $6MM gap between the $14.5MM which Atlanta is assuming versus the $8.5MM they’re shipping out.

Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported the terms of the trade.

Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Angels Place Max Stassi On Restricted List

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2:22PM: It isn’t yet known if the Angels have ducked under the tax line, as Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register notes that putting Stassi on the restricted list will save the team roughly $300K off the tax bill (due to how the luxury tax figure is calculated by average annual value, not by pure dollars).  It might not be revealed until after the season whether or not the Angels have gotten under the tax threshold.

1:31PM: The Angels announced that catcher Max Stassi has been placed on the team’s restricted list (retroactive to September 2).  Stassi hasn’t played at all this season due to both a hip strain that required a 60-day IL placement, and a personal situation involving his family.

That latter reason has led to the restricted list placement, since as per the club’s announcement, Stassi “informed the Angels that while he is in a position to resume activities to return to MLB, he has voluntarily chosen not to do so for the remainder of the 2023 season as a result of a serious family medical issue.  Out of respect for Max and his family, the Angels will not have any further comment.  The Angels wish Max and his family all the best.”

A veteran of 10 Major League seasons with the Astros and Angels, Stassi was dealt to Los Angeles at the 2019 trade deadline and hit quite well in part-time catching action for the Angels in 2020-21.  That prompted the Halos to sign him to a three-year, $14.5MM contract extension that runs through the 2024 season with a club option (worth $7.5MM with a $500K buyout) for 2025.  Unfortunately, Stassi then struggled through the 2022 campaign, and entered this past Spring Training competing for playing time with Logan O’Hoppe and Matt Thaiss.

Stassi’s hip injury removed him from the catching picture, and it appears as though he has been healthy for some time, but has instead been spending time with his family.  We at MLBTR express our support for Stassi and his family during this difficult period.

When on a Major League restricted list, players can’t amass any big league service time or salary.  As a result, the Angels won’t have to pay the $1.16MM still owed to Stassi over the course of the 2023 campaign, which has some bigger-picture implications for the team.  The Athletic’s Sam Blum (X link) writes that with Stassi’s remaining salary off the books, the Angels will be able to duck under the $233MM luxury tax threshold.

This desire to avoid a tax payment was part of the reason for the Angels’ recent flurry of waiver wire placements, as Lucas Giolito, Hunter Renfroe, Dominic Leone, Matt Moore, and Reynaldo Lopez were all claimed away from the team prior to September 1.  However, because Randal Grichuk wasn’t claimed, the Halos remained slightly above the $233MM tax line, but today’s move with Stassi has now apparently cleared the last financial hurdle.

The Angels hadn’t been tax payors since 2004, but were prepared to surpass the threshold this season in a push to contend in what might be Shohei Ohtani’s final season in Anaheim.  The Halos were aggressive in adding to their roster last winter and during the season, including a busy trade deadline push that saw them land Giolito, Lopez, Leone, Grichuk, C.J. Cron in three separate trades.  However, Los Angeles’ 8-19 record in August and Ohtani’s UCL injury led the club to effectively throw in the towel, and put six players on the waiver wire in the hopes of recouping some money to at least avoid any tax penalty.

In staying under the $233MM threshold, the Angels will avoid the (fairly minimal) tax payment itself, but will gain bigger rewards in terms of free agent compensation rules.  The Halos will be able to sign qualifying offer-rejecting free agents without having to pay a bigger penalty in terms of draft picks, while L.A. will receive a compensatory pick prior to the third round of the draft for any free agents (i.e Ohtani) who might reject a QO and sign elsewhere.  Had the Angels been tax payors, that compensatory pick would’ve fallen beyond the fourth round.

The Silver Lining Of The Angels’ Catching Injuries

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The Angels came into 2023 with an apparent logjam behind the plate, something that MLBTR’s Anthony Franco examined back in February. Prospect Logan O’Hoppe had just been acquired from the Phillies at last year’s deadline and seemed ready for an extended big league audition. Max Stassi was coming off a rough 2022 season but the club committed to him with a $17.5MM extension at the start of that year. With those two seeming to be likeliest candidates for jobs on the major league roster, it looked like Matt Thaiss might get squeezed out.

Thaiss, now 28, had already been through some ups and downs prior to the 2023 season. He was considered a bat-first catcher when the Angels selected him in the first round of the 2016 draft, using the 16th overall pick to nab him. Since his bat was considered his standout tool, they decided to focus on that, moving him to first base and seemingly abandoning the idea of him catching.

He always hit well in the minors, with an overall batting line of .278/.367/.454 in 582 games down on the farm. However, he wasn’t able to hit the ground running in the big leagues. He first reached the majors in July of 2019 but hit just .211/.293/.422 in the second half of that season for a wRC+ of 86. Over the next three years, he would spend the vast majority of his time on optional assignment, only getting into 40 major league games over those campaigns. He struggled in his sporadic chances, hitting .196/.307/.299 for a 74 wRC+.

Coming into 2023, he was out of options on account of languishing in the minors for most of the previous three years, but he was on the catching depth chart again. Although the Angels had initially moved him to first base and had also tried him at third, they moved him back behind the plate in 2021. He got into 54 games as a catcher for Triple-A Salt Lake that year. In 2022, he was behind the plate for 45 more Triple-A games and 14 in the big leagues.

It seemed like a fork in the road was coming at the start of 2023. He was out of options and was blocked by one player with a longer major league track record as well as a younger and shinier prospect. Although Thaiss was a former first-round pick and had plenty of minor league success, it seemed like he was destined to be cut from the roster.

But a couple of plot twists have happened since then. Stassi opened the season on the injured list due to a hip strain and has stayed there due to an undisclosed family situation. That opened a door for Thaiss to stick on the Opening Day roster as O’Hoppe’s backup, but then O’Hoppe landed on the injured list himself just three weeks later. He was diagnosed with a torn labrum in his shoulder that required surgery, putting him out of action for four to six months.

In less than a month, Thaiss went from the roster bubble to the club’s top catching option. No club wants to lose its top two catchers, of course, but at least this finally created some runway for them to see what Thaiss could do in the big leagues.

Thankfully for both him and the Angels, it has been working out well so far. In 51 games, he’s received 155 plate appearances. His 27.1% strikeout rate is on the high side, but he’s paired that with an excellent 13.5% walk rate. Among catchers with at least 150 trips to the plate, only Will Smith and Adley Rutschman have walked at a higher clip. Thaiss has just three home runs, but his .267/.374/.382 batting line amounts to a 116 wRC+. That places him in the top five in the league among backstops over that threshold of 150 plate appearances.

Of course, it’s not a total shock that he’s performing well at the plate, since that’s always been considered his best skill and he’s always hit on the farm. But he’s also holding his own defensively. By each of Statcast’s Blocks Above Average and their Caught Stealing Above Average metrics, Thaiss is graded with a zero or exactly league average. That’s not going to blow anyone’s socks off, but it’s a nice outcome for a guy who’s always been considered bat-first and wasn’t even catching as of a few years ago. Thaiss is still considered slightly below league average by Defensive Runs Saved and FanGraphs’ framing metric, but he’s not killing the club back there.

It’s also worth mentioning that veteran Chad Wallach is holding up his end of the deal as well. Those Statcast metrics consider him a bit below average, but he’s hit six home runs and is slashing .247/.304/.482 for a wRC+ of 114. For a guy who signed a minor league deal and was fourth on the depth chart coming into the year, that’s excellent production.

Turning back to Thaiss, he may not be a superstar but he’s inflated his own stock significantly in a few months. The roster squeeze won’t be coming back anytime soon, since O’Hoppe probably won’t be back until rosters expand in September — if he returns at all this season. Stassi’s timeline is completely unknown. He still has one guaranteed year left on his extension at $7MM, plus a $500K buyout on a 2025 club option, but after a dismal campaign in 2022 and this year potentially being entirely lost, he’s won’t be guaranteed any roster spots going forward.

Thaiss came into this year with one year and 38 days of service time, meaning he will finish this season at 2.038. That will leave him shy of Super Two status, allowing the Angels to potentially retain him cheaply for next year and three more arbitration campaigns beyond that. His defense still seems like a work in progress, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect continued improvements there given his relatively short amount of time getting reacquainted with the position.

The Angels have often had star power from Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani and others, but failed to succeed as a team due to injuries and a lack of depth. This year, they lost both of their primary catchers by the end of April, but it hasn’t been a disaster, with Thaiss and Wallach deserving credit for picking up the slack.

Angels Select Gerardo Reyes

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The Angels announced that they have selected the contract of right-hander Gerardo Reyes and reinstated outfielder Hunter Renfroe from the paternity list. In corresponding moves, outfielder Jo Adell was optioned to Triple-A Salt Lake while right-hander Ben Joyce was placed on the 15-day injured list due to ulnar neuritis. To open a spot for Reyes on the 40-man roster, catcher Max Stassi was transferred to the 60-day injured list.

Reyes, 30, was signed to a minor league deal in the offseason and has been pitching for Triple-A Salt Lake so far this year. He has a 4.64 ERA through 21 1/3 innings in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, striking out 32% of batters faced but walking 11%.

He has a bit of major league experience, including two games with the Angels last year as well as 27 with the 2019 Padres, undergoing Tommy John surgery in between those campaigns. He has a 7.39 career ERA at the moment, though a .329 batting average on balls in play and 54.7% strand rate point to a bit of bad luck. His 29.5% strikeout rate and 10.9% walk rate have led to more palatable advanced metrics like a 4.17 FIP and 3.86 SIERA.

Now back on the 40-man roster, Reyes still has an option year and could provide a depth arm with some roster flexibility going forward. He also has less than a year of service time and can be cheaply retained for future seasons if he can continue to hang onto his roster spot.

Joyce was removed from last night’s game due to right hand irritation and will now sit out at least two weeks. He underwent an MRI today, per J.P. Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group, and more information on his status should be forthcoming in the near future. Joyce was just added to the club’s roster a couple of weeks ago and is known for his elite velocity. His fastball has averaged an incredible 101.5 mph so far in his short big league career. He has a 4.50 ERA through his first four innings, striking out 23.8% of opponents but walking 19%.

As for Stassi, this move is little more than a formality to open a roster spot since he has already been on the injured list for more than 60 days. He began the season on the IL due to a hip strain and has also been dealing with an undisclosed family situation. Since 60 days have already passed since his initial IL placement, he’s eligible to be reinstated at anytime. However, he hasn’t begun a rehab assignment and there hasn’t been any reporting that suggests he’s close to starting one.

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