Give us your poor performers, your injured arms, your struggling pitchers in need of a new home where they can throw free.
The Los Angeles Angels will take them, and they’ll rehabilitate them.
Or at least that’s the plan, anyway. With the addition of relievers Jordan Romano and Drew Pomeranz, the Angels are clearly intent on building out their staff in a way that’s somewhat different.
The Angels don’t necessarily want healthy pitchers who cost a lot, although they’d love to get lucky in the free agent market if they can find a couple of desperate ones who will take less money. Right now the Angels are about reclamation projects who don’t cost much, with Romano and Pomeranz being the third and fourth ones they’ve added in the last month or so.
There’s nothing wrong with this on the surface. Given some of the pitching meltdowns the Halos had in August and September, any changes or additions would be welcome.
The problem here is more philosophical. Teams that do this the right way stay very focused when they choose their reclamation projects. They look for certain specifics in the medicals, and in whatever future performance indicators they value most. That increases their chances of success with pitchers who are basically walking lottery tickets.
Teams that do what the Angels are doing end up in a very different place. Most of their pitching lottery tickets don’t pay off, and when that happens they end up with next to no pitching at all.
One common thread between all the pitchers the Angels have traded for or signed is that they’re at least a year or two past their biggest successes. Pitcher Grayson Rodriguez was a stud who was supposed to be an ace for the Baltimore Orioles, while fellow starter Alek Manoah was slotted in to fill the same role for the Toronto Blue Jays.
New signee Jordan Romano is the reliever version of that kind of guy. He was an All-Star closer for the Blue Jays back in 2023, but Romano was plagued by elbow issues in 2024, after which the Philadelphia Phillies gave him a shot, then quickly punted on him.
Pomeranz, meanwhile, has morphed into the classic lefty specialist after dealing with injury issues for several years. He pitched effectively for the Chicago Cubs last year, but he’s at the point in his career where annual bounces from one team to another will be part of his routine now.
The point isn’t to trash these signings. They’re fine, to some extent. At the very least they’ll keep new pitching coach Mike Maddux hopping, and Maddux has a good track record with these kinds of pitchers. Without a couple of moves for healthy pitchers who have had recent success, though, this kind of approach to rebuilding a staff usually ends up being catastrophic.