Angels manager Phil Nevin spoke to reporters (including Sam Blum from The Athletic) on the club’s pitching plans this afternoon. The Halos have run on a six-man rotation for the past few seasons, and while they could adopt that as a loose framework in 2023, Nevin indicated the team wants to focus on allowing pitchers at the top of the rotation — including double superstar Shhei Ohtani – to get more action on the hill. Rather than sticking to a rigid six-man team each round, Nevin suggested the club would be flexible in using their nominal sixth starter more as a swing option.
Heading into the 2022 season, the club had few surefire starting pitchers aside from Ohtani, as Patrick Sandoval had started just fourteen games in 2021 while the big pitching acquisition for the Halos was this offseason Noah Syndergardwho returned to the mound after just two innings since the end of the 2019 season.
Luckily, the 2022 season saw several impressive performances from Angels starters: In addition to Ohtani, who improved as a pitcher in his 2021 MVP campaign and finished fourth in the Cy Young award pick, Sandoval impressed with a 2.91 ERA and 3.09 FIP in a career-high 148 2/3 innings during Reid Detmers showed flashes of the talent that made him the 10th pick overall in the 2020 draft. Jose Suarez proved to be a capable back-of-the-rotation starter over twenty starts. The Halos also improved their external rotation by adding Tyler Andersona lasting starter who broke through in 2023 with the Crosstown Dodgers with a 2.57 ERA and 3.31 FIP over 178 2/3 innings.
With Sandoval proving his worth, with Anderson signed and both Detmers and Suarez poised for a bigger challenge, it makes sense for the Angels to try to lean more towards their top five in the rotation, especially if that means Bringing Ohtani up the hill more often. After years of carefully managing Ohtani’s workload to keep him healthy, the Angels have allowed him to gamble more and more in recent years, with less stringent restrictions. Considering a more traditional rotation seems like the next logical step in this process.
Each of these five starting options appears to be a significant improvement over the starts that Anaheim’s internal options for a sixth starter can offer. After his deal with the angels last summer as part of the deal that was getting closer Raisel Iglesias to the Braves, left-handers Tucker Davidson fought mightily in eight starts (36 2/3 innings): a terrible 6.87 ERA and a near-matching 6.30 FIP were good for an ERA+ of just 60, or 40% worse than the league average pitcher.
Blum notices this right turn Griffin canned food is perfectly healthy and has had a normal off-season after missing the entire 2022 season with a back injury, so he can certainly factor into the sixth starter mix as well. Despite roughly average league results in his major league career to this point (an ERA+ of 96 in 209 1/3 innings from 2019-2021), Canning has never reached 100 innings in the majors and is coming back long Layoff, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if the Angels planned to carefully manage his workload during his season aged 27.
Overall, Nevin’s plan to consider a more traditional rotation in 2023 makes sense given the relative strength of their starting XI, the emphasis on letting Ohtani play unrestricted in recent years and the lack of quality, reliable options for the sixth-place start. A reliable sixth starter would likely have to come from outside and those options are few and far between Michael Wachas signs with the Padres this morning.