AngelsWin.com

By Ryan Falla, AngelsWin.com Columnist 
The Angels have given fans very little to look forward to at the big league level, yet if you look deeper into the organization you will find the beginnings of some truly special stuff within this organization. One of the many bright spots in the Angels near future is pitcher Walbert Ureña, the 19 year flamethrower recently entering the organization as part of the 2020-2021 international free agent class. Despite being just 19 years of age Ureña has already has arguably the best pure fastball in the organization (aside from Ben Joyce) with scouts grading his go to pitch at a 70 on the 20-80 scale. His fastball is already developed to the point of devastation, and with a solid secondary to back it up Ureña has serious potential to make waves across the league as a big league pitcher with the Los Angeles Angels. There is little that stands in the way of success for Ureña, all that is left is a little bit of patience as he puts together the final touches on what will be a special Major League career.

As mentioned before, Ureña came into the organization out of the 2020-2021 international free agent class and made his debut with the Angels organization out of Rookie Ball in 2022. Through his debut Rookie Ball season Ureña flashed serious potential as he cobbled together 45 strikeouts off of his 37.1 innings of work at 18 years of age. The right hander throws a combination of fastball/sinker/changeup/slider with the changeup being his go-to on the secondary, the pitch itself having enough life to generate actual swings and misses. The sinker is something Ureña and the Angels have been developing this past season as he furthers his ability to generate outs by way of contact. Stamina is also a big focus for the right hander as he’s made multiple appearances that have seen him pitch at least 7 innings three separate times with 10 of his appearances on the year going for 5+ IP. His biggest workload on the year was a 7 IP start against Visalia (Aug.26th) which saw him throw 96 pitches in a no runs, two hit affair ultimately culminating in a win. Ureña was one of the most used pitchers in the Cal League with the 19 year old ranking top 10 in the Cal League across total pitches thrown (1,695 pitches) with the highest total being 2,170 by Seattle’s Shaddon Peavyhouse. 
The Angels current philosophy sees their prospect pitchers undertaking big league workloads while still developing in the minors as multiple Low A pitchers ranked at the top of the Cal League regarding pitch usages. Teammates Leonard Garcia and Jorge Marcheco each saw similar workloads with all three seeing over 90 IP on the season, a mark tallied by just 15 pitchers throughout the entire Cal League. Impressively enough, the trio combined to throw less than 60 pitches in an outing six times across the 61 total outings between the three of them with Ureña himself throwing less than 60 pitches in a start just once on the year. Out of all pitchers who threw more than 90 IP in the Cal League Ureña had the third best HR allowed rate as he’d given up just five on the year. He was Top 5 in Ground Ball percentage (50.4%) while ranking third in Line Drive rate (15.4%). To see the 19 year old Ureña consistently limit the hard hits while managing a big league workload offers plenty of excitement regarding his future development.
Ureña will head into the winter with a focus on physical development as his body grows into maturity. The young star currently sits at 170lbs whilst standing at six foot even. Despite still having strength to grow into Ureña still comfortably tops out in the high 90’s with touches of 100+ and has shown an ability to maintain his velocity as he goes deep into games. As things stand Ureña’s raw pitch mix is so good that even a moderate step forward in command consistency and physical development will take him leaps and bounds beyond the rest of his class. While you don’t want to rush anyone’s development there is a strong chance Ureña could break into the big leagues very young. There are some who believe he could end up relieving for the Angels rather than start when all development is said and done, regardless Ureña projects as an impact arm no matter what role he pitches in. Should the Angels 2023 track record of devastating league injury woes continue into 2024 Ureña could see an early big league debut as a reliever late next year, otherwise you can expect to see the young starter break through come 2025/2026. There are many special things happen in the lower rungs of the Angels organization, Ureña himself being a big part, and should the big league squad tire out your passions for baseball look no further than the kids down in the Minor Leagues who are truly doing something special. There is a lot to love about baseball, and there still is a lot to love about the Angels, perhaps it’s difficult to see now, but in time the fruits of these prospects labor will blossom into something truly magical.
Check out my fellow colleague Taylor Blake Ward's interview with Walbert last week. 
 

By Ryan Falla, AngelsWin.com Columnist 
The Angels have given fans very little to look forward to at the big league level, yet if you look deeper into the organization you will find the beginnings of some truly special stuff within this organization. One of the many bright spots in the Angels near future is pitcher Walbert Ureña, the 19 year flamethrower recently entering the organization as part of the 2020-2021 international free agent class. Despite being just 19 years of age Ureña has already has arguably the best pure fastball in the organization (aside from Ben Joyce) with scouts grading his go to pitch at a 70 on the 20-80 scale. His fastball is already developed to the point of devastation, and with a solid secondary to back it up Ureña has serious potential to make waves across the league as a big league pitcher with the Los Angeles Angels. There is little that stands in the way of success for Ureña, all that is left is a little bit of patience as he puts together the final touches on what will be a special Major League career.

As mentioned before, Ureña came into the organization out of the 2020-2021 international free agent class and made his debut with the Angels organization out of Rookie Ball in 2022. Through his debut Rookie Ball season Ureña flashed serious potential as he cobbled together 45 strikeouts off of his 37.1 innings of work at 18 years of age. The right hander throws a combination of fastball/sinker/changeup/slider with the changeup being his go-to on the secondary, the pitch itself having enough life to generate actual swings and misses. The sinker is something Ureña and the Angels have been developing this past season as he furthers his ability to generate outs by way of contact. Stamina is also a big focus for the right hander as he’s made multiple appearances that have seen him pitch at least 7 innings three separate times with 10 of his appearances on the year going for 5+ IP. His biggest workload on the year was a 7 IP start against Visalia (Aug.26th) which saw him throw 96 pitches in a no runs, two hit affair ultimately culminating in a win. Ureña was one of the most used pitchers in the Cal League with the 19 year old ranking top 10 in the Cal League across total pitches thrown (1,695 pitches) with the highest total being 2,170 by Seattle’s Shaddon Peavyhouse. 
The Angels current philosophy sees their prospect pitchers undertaking big league workloads while still developing in the minors as multiple Low A pitchers ranked at the top of the Cal League regarding pitch usages. Teammates Leonard Garcia and Jorge Marcheco each saw similar workloads with all three seeing over 90 IP on the season, a mark tallied by just 15 pitchers throughout the entire Cal League. Impressively enough, the trio combined to throw less than 60 pitches in an outing six times across the 61 total outings between the three of them with Ureña himself throwing less than 60 pitches in a start just once on the year. Out of all pitchers who threw more than 90 IP in the Cal League Ureña had the third best HR allowed rate as he’d given up just five on the year. He was Top 5 in Ground Ball percentage (50.4%) while ranking third in Line Drive rate (15.4%). To see the 19 year old Ureña consistently limit the hard hits while managing a big league workload offers plenty of excitement regarding his future development.
Ureña will head into the winter with a focus on physical development as his body grows into maturity. The young star currently sits at 170lbs whilst standing at six foot even. Despite still having strength to grow into Ureña still comfortably tops out in the high 90’s with touches of 100+ and has shown an ability to maintain his velocity as he goes deep into games. As things stand Ureña’s raw pitch mix is so good that even a moderate step forward in command consistency and physical development will take him leaps and bounds beyond the rest of his class. While you don’t want to rush anyone’s development there is a strong chance Ureña could break into the big leagues very young. There are some who believe he could end up relieving for the Angels rather than start when all development is said and done, regardless Ureña projects as an impact arm no matter what role he pitches in. Should the Angels 2023 track record of devastating league injury woes continue into 2024 Ureña could see an early big league debut as a reliever late next year, otherwise you can expect to see the young starter break through come 2025/2026. There are many special things happen in the lower rungs of the Angels organization, Ureña himself being a big part, and should the big league squad tire out your passions for baseball look no further than the kids down in the Minor Leagues who are truly doing something special. There is a lot to love about baseball, and there still is a lot to love about the Angels, perhaps it’s difficult to see now, but in time the fruits of these prospects labor will blossom into something truly magical.
Check out my fellow colleague Taylor Blake Ward's interview with Walbert last week. 
 

By Ryan Falla, AngelsWin.com Columnist
There is no more difficult job in baseball than heading the Angels organization as the General Manager. Short on staff necessary to encompass the responsibilities of an entire organization, Perry Minasian tirelessly carries the responsibilities of success on his shoulders as he guides the Angels through a disastrous season, the few bright spots in this Shakespearean tragedy coming through the effectiveness of Minasian’s drafting strategies and ability to spot elevated talent in young ballplayers. We’ve spent an entire season harping on the various failures of ownership, the shortcomings on the behalf of medical and training, and the general failure of player performance, and rightfully so. Many of these failures can be attributed to a neglected, decaying organizational infrastructure that does little promote player excellency, yet despite these internal failures that existed long before Perry Minasian our GM has gone above and beyond to bring in young athletes with the grit and gumption to rise above these mediocrities and create within themselves a bright future for Angel fans. 
“There's common traits you look for, abilities are obviously one of them. There's got to be a little bit of actual self-motivation to get the most out of your ability. Internal makeup and what makes you tick, we talk about all the time. We want players that wake up thinking about it, go to bed, thinking about it, obsess about it. We have a great group here of talented young players that have come from all different places and are different ages. When you watch this particular club play [Inland Empire 66ers] the effort levels are outstanding. That's something we've talked about and implemented. We created an expectation that to play here there has to be that type of effort.”
Key word: self-motivation. From a fan perspective it seems as if the Angels have been populated with athletes lacking motivation, without naming names you can easily recount certain veteran players that bring this effect to mind. On the other hand, however, we've witnessed the excellence of future stars such as Logan O’Hoppe/Zach Neto/Ben Joyce/Nolan Schanuel etc., all by way of Perry Minasian. Going beyond what we've seen at the Majors, seeping all the way down to the Minor League Levels, is a brand new system for success implemented piece by piece through the wunderkind of Minasian’s carefully crafted youth-movement. Perry brings a wealth of experience to the ballclub, himself having come from celebrated systems whose successes were built almost entirely on the quality of youth nurtured in the lowest levels of those organizations. This is not just some throwaway experiment by a GM grasping at straws, this is a level headed, deliberate process enacted by an experienced auteur whose executive habits have been molded by winning organizations.
“Building a young core is really, really important. That's something we've talked about and harped on since I've walked in the door. I've been a part of some pretty good organizations. I was in Texas; we had Teixeira, Blaylock, Young and Kinsler. Being in Atlanta with Austin Riley, Ronald Acuna Jr., Ozzie Albies, Max Fried, I can go on and on. That’s something we're trying to establish here. We've had some significant breakthroughs this season that we're excited about. It's the makeup of each guy, they've committed to being as good as they can be. They have high expectations, they enjoy winning, they hate losing, which is really, really important.”
It is not enough to just love winning, you have to hate losing. Sometimes it doesn't feel as all of the Angels big league crop hates losing enough to make a difference. You can look into the Angels dugout after games to see who truly hates these losing ways, and I can tell you right now it isn't as many of them as it should be. Coincidentally enough, the few players on this team that speak out against the losing culture that has permeated this club happen to be the young Minasian acquisitions.  The success of the Low A Inland Empire 66ers on the 2023 season speaks for itself, what was before a bottom of the barrel MiLB team has just recently come into form as a perennial playoff contender. That may not mean much to those who would dismiss this as “minor league baseball”, but the fact is winning organizations are built from the bottom up, not the top down. There is nothing more important to developing a winning culture than to instill it in the lower prospect classes as they rise through the organization together, the key word being together.  A core that learns how to win together and carries that all the way to the Majors will breed big league success. With the work Perry has done crafting an incredibly talented prospect core you can be positive the Angels will cultivate a winning culture at the big league level soon, current free agent signings be damned. All it requires is a little more patience, though it appears as if owner Arte Moreno, and a select few Angel fans, are dangerously short on this ever important virtue.
“Not every player is the same. There's certain guys that can handle certain things and there's certain guys that need a little more time. Nelson [Rada] was somebody we just felt like was up for the challenge being one of the younger players in this league. We felt like mentally he was able to handle it and physically, he was gifted enough to play here and compete day in and day out. He's gone beyond our expectations this season and put together a pretty good year”
Perhaps the show at the big league level is as ugly as it gets, but the very core foundations of this organization are evolving into a form that is better than it has ever been. What was once before an organization that whiffed on draft after draft and carried virtually no presence on the international market is now loaded with talent procured through both avenues. International signings such as Nelson Rada and Denzer Guzman look to offer the future Angels a Braves-esque core with the two young prospects (18 and 19 respectively) capable of carrying playoff caliber clubs off the quality of their expansive athletic talent. Reinforcements are coming from every faucet of possibility in which a GM could derive reinforcements from, and to suggest the Angels should move on from Perry would be to suggest cutting off the greatest talent stream the Angels have seen since their World Series days. Trout and Ohtani may be the greatest talents the Angels, and all of baseball by extension, have ever seen, but they on their own cannot equal the quality of an entire talent stream spanning the whole diamond. 
“There's just certain injuries you can't prevent. Whatever it may be, call it luck, whatever, but there are some that maybe you can and those are the ones that we really take a look at to study. The injuries this year have given a lot of opportunity to players that maybe would have not have that opportunity to come out and play,  I think that will show up in the years to come with their development. Maybe I've never seen a team go through what we've gone through from an injury sample, but I've seen teams with injuries and you try to do the best you can to learn from it. Try to establish where we are as far as how do we keep our players on the field.”
Judging Perry entirely based on the failures of veteran athletes such as Tyler Anderson or Hunter Renfroe is a disservice to the work he’s done building this club from the ground up. Of course this is not to dismiss the shortcomings of current free agent signings or veteran trades, but to overlook the damage Arte’s neglectful attitude has done to the success bearing pillars holding up the big league club is a disservice to the work Perry has done in reversing Artes failures as an owner. Winning culture is not built on the free agency market, it is cultivated internally, and I don’t need to remind Angel fans the immense breath of fresh air that Zach Neto and Logan O’Hoppe have brought to the growing culture of this club. They are only the first of many winning attitudes coming to reinforce the Angels, and while we may be a season or two away from fully seeing the rewards of Perry's hard work to boot him now before his plan enters fruition would truly set this franchise back. Many have harped on the point that not trading Ohtani has set this club back a decade, and while there may be a nugget of truth in that statement the biggest blow to this clubs future chance at success would be booting the one man who has successfully implemented the process of singlehandedly reversing the Angels losing culture. A single player can be replaced, no matter how good they are, if you give attention to the talent across the entire diamond, something that Perry Minasian excels at. What has gone wrong this season has been far out of Perry's hands; whether it's by underperforming athletes toiling under a less than stellar coaching staff or ownership forcing trades to deplete the farm system, and what has gone right this season can be solely accredited to his efforts as a General Manager. It has been a long and tiring season, and fans are bound to lash out at whatever source they feel may ail their injuries, but to point a finger at the one man who has single handedly constructed a new path towards success for the Angels is to play in Arte Moreno's inability to accept responsibility for his failures. The last thing we as fans need to do is feed in Moreno's belief that the problem exists outside of himself. 
Here is the full interview transcript of the interview with Perry Minasian. 
PERRY 
A lot of it depends on where the player is, right? How old they are, what level of competition they played against and all those things. I think there's common traits that you look for, abilities is obviously one of them. You need to have a certain level of ability to play here and compete on a daily basis. There's got to be a little bit of actual self-motivation to get the most out of your ability.
So just like the internal makeup and what makes you tick, we talk about that all the time. We want players that wake up thinking about it, go to bed thinking about it, obsess about it, and make it as important to them as it is to us. We have a great group here of talented young players that have come from all different places and are different ages, but when you watch this particular club play the effort levels are outstanding. That's something we've talked about and implemented and created an expectation, that, to play here there has to be that type of effort.
R.FALLA
Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's really interesting because Angel fans have had a tough time with GMs that don't really draft young talent that can break through the majors. But you really have an eye for that with your drafting strategies.
I'm curious, how are you able to tell that a player is closer to the major league level than not? 
PERRY
A lot of it comes down to what's inside, right? There's depending on where you're picking and it's understanding what that player can handle mentally more so than physically. There's a lot of gifted players, especially in this past draft, when you look at the first five players taken, seven players taken, really all the way through the first round, a lot of talented players that have a chance to have significant ceilings and help their clubs. But the thing for us, it goes back to makeup and the mentality, we're looking for baseball players that play a winning brand of baseball that are really intelligent. Everybody makes mistakes, right? So we want the guys that, they make the mistake, they learn from it and move on, they don't let it fester and you don't continue to see the same mistake over and over.
So I think that's a really huge attribute we look for day in and day out, our scouting staff has done an outstanding job; Tim McIlvaine, Matt Swanson, Derek Watson on the pro side, you know. You're only as good as your people to a certain extent. Internationally, Brian Parker and what his staff has done, when you look at a Nelson Rada and Joel Hurtado, who is pitching today, there's some exciting players here that that have bright futures.
R.FALLA
Yeah, exactly. I know you mentioned Nelson Rada and you also got Denzer Guzman, they come in really young and you know, it's one thing to draft a guy like Nolan Shanuel who's 21 and advanced, but how are you able to see the advancedness in a seventeen-year-old?
PERRY
It's certain people, not everybody is the same right? Not every player is the same. There's certain guys that can handle certain things and there's certain guys that need a little more time. Nelson was somebody we just felt was up for the challenge, being one of the younger players in this league, and we felt mentally he was able to handle it and physically he was gifted enough to play here and compete day in and day out. He's gone beyond our expectations this season and put together a pretty good year.
R.FALLA
Just a couple more quick questions. So the Angels this year have been bringing up a lot of players really young and they've been hitting the mark. you got Zach Neto, Shanuel and Ben Joyce. So how are you able to tell when a player is able to make that jump from the minors to the majors?
PERRY
That's probably the most difficult thing to decide, most times than not the player will tell you, whether it's a certain series over the course of the year or a certain event or a certain conversation that they're ready for the challenge, and sometimes it doesn't always work, right?
You bring somebody up, they don't necessarily perform great, you go back down and then the second chance they get they take off. So that's really, really important to identify and you know, for us building a young core is really, really important and that's something we've talked about and harped on since I've walked in the door. I've been a part of some pretty good organizations. I was in Texas; we had Mark [Teixeira], Hank Blaylock, Michael Young, and Ian Kinsler, a really good group of young players. Being in Atlanta; Austin Riley, Ronald Acuna Jr, Ozzie Albies, Max Fried, I can go on and on. We had some really good players in Toronto too. Something we're trying to establish here and we've had some significant breakthroughs this season we're excited about. I think the most exciting thing about our young group of players is, obviously there's a certain level of talent that people get a chance to see but it's the makeup of each guy, they've committed to being as good as they can be. They have high expectations, they enjoy winning, the hate losing, which is really, really important.
R.FALLA
So how as a GM how do you overcome the roster difficulties that you've been having with the Angels? Tons of injuries that are super hard to get through. But what is on your plate when it comes to getting through something like that?
PERRY
Yeah, being in this game as long as I have, one of the advantages of that is having a lot of different experiences. maybe I've never seen a team go through what we've gone through from an injury standpoint, but I've seen teams with injuries and you try to do the best you can to learn from it and try and establish where we are as far as how do we keep our players on the field. There’s just certain injuries you can't prevent. But there are some that maybe you can and those are the ones that we really take a look at to study. But the injuries we've had this year have given a lot of opportunity to players that maybe would not have had that opportunity to come out and play. I think will show up in the years to come with their development.
R.FALLA
That was the Angels GM. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

By Ryan Falla, AngelsWin.com Columnist
There is no more difficult job in baseball than heading the Angels organization as the General Manager. Short on staff necessary to encompass the responsibilities of an entire organization, Perry Minasian tirelessly carries the responsibilities of success on his shoulders as he guides the Angels through a disastrous season, the few bright spots in this Shakespearean tragedy coming through the effectiveness of Minasian’s drafting strategies and ability to spot elevated talent in young ballplayers. We’ve spent an entire season harping on the various failures of ownership, the shortcomings on the behalf of medical and training, and the general failure of player performance, and rightfully so. Many of these failures can be attributed to a neglected, decaying organizational infrastructure that does little promote player excellency, yet despite these internal failures that existed long before Perry Minasian our GM has gone above and beyond to bring in young athletes with the grit and gumption to rise above these mediocrities and create within themselves a bright future for Angel fans. 
“There's common traits you look for, abilities are obviously one of them. There's got to be a little bit of actual self-motivation to get the most out of your ability. Internal makeup and what makes you tick, we talk about all the time. We want players that wake up thinking about it, go to bed, thinking about it, obsess about it. We have a great group here of talented young players that have come from all different places and are different ages. When you watch this particular club play [Inland Empire 66ers] the effort levels are outstanding. That's something we've talked about and implemented. We created an expectation that to play here there has to be that type of effort.”
Key word: self-motivation. From a fan perspective it seems as if the Angels have been populated with athletes lacking motivation, without naming names you can easily recount certain veteran players that bring this effect to mind. On the other hand, however, we've witnessed the excellence of future stars such as Logan O’Hoppe/Zach Neto/Ben Joyce/Nolan Schanuel etc., all by way of Perry Minasian. Going beyond what we've seen at the Majors, seeping all the way down to the Minor League Levels, is a brand new system for success implemented piece by piece through the wunderkind of Minasian’s carefully crafted youth-movement. Perry brings a wealth of experience to the ballclub, himself having come from celebrated systems whose successes were built almost entirely on the quality of youth nurtured in the lowest levels of those organizations. This is not just some throwaway experiment by a GM grasping at straws, this is a level headed, deliberate process enacted by an experienced auteur whose executive habits have been molded by winning organizations.
“Building a young core is really, really important. That's something we've talked about and harped on since I've walked in the door. I've been a part of some pretty good organizations. I was in Texas; we had Teixeira, Blaylock, Young and Kinsler. Being in Atlanta with Austin Riley, Ronald Acuna Jr., Ozzie Albies, Max Fried, I can go on and on. That’s something we're trying to establish here. We've had some significant breakthroughs this season that we're excited about. It's the makeup of each guy, they've committed to being as good as they can be. They have high expectations, they enjoy winning, they hate losing, which is really, really important.”
It is not enough to just love winning, you have to hate losing. Sometimes it doesn't feel as all of the Angels big league crop hates losing enough to make a difference. You can look into the Angels dugout after games to see who truly hates these losing ways, and I can tell you right now it isn't as many of them as it should be. Coincidentally enough, the few players on this team that speak out against the losing culture that has permeated this club happen to be the young Minasian acquisitions.  The success of the Low A Inland Empire 66ers on the 2023 season speaks for itself, what was before a bottom of the barrel MiLB team has just recently come into form as a perennial playoff contender. That may not mean much to those who would dismiss this as “minor league baseball”, but the fact is winning organizations are built from the bottom up, not the top down. There is nothing more important to developing a winning culture than to instill it in the lower prospect classes as they rise through the organization together, the key word being together.  A core that learns how to win together and carries that all the way to the Majors will breed big league success. With the work Perry has done crafting an incredibly talented prospect core you can be positive the Angels will cultivate a winning culture at the big league level soon, current free agent signings be damned. All it requires is a little more patience, though it appears as if owner Arte Moreno, and a select few Angel fans, are dangerously short on this ever important virtue.
“Not every player is the same. There's certain guys that can handle certain things and there's certain guys that need a little more time. Nelson [Rada] was somebody we just felt like was up for the challenge being one of the younger players in this league. We felt like mentally he was able to handle it and physically, he was gifted enough to play here and compete day in and day out. He's gone beyond our expectations this season and put together a pretty good year”
Perhaps the show at the big league level is as ugly as it gets, but the very core foundations of this organization are evolving into a form that is better than it has ever been. What was once before an organization that whiffed on draft after draft and carried virtually no presence on the international market is now loaded with talent procured through both avenues. International signings such as Nelson Rada and Denzer Guzman look to offer the future Angels a Braves-esque core with the two young prospects (18 and 19 respectively) capable of carrying playoff caliber clubs off the quality of their expansive athletic talent. Reinforcements are coming from every faucet of possibility in which a GM could derive reinforcements from, and to suggest the Angels should move on from Perry would be to suggest cutting off the greatest talent stream the Angels have seen since their World Series days. Trout and Ohtani may be the greatest talents the Angels, and all of baseball by extension, have ever seen, but they on their own cannot equal the quality of an entire talent stream spanning the whole diamond. 
“There's just certain injuries you can't prevent. Whatever it may be, call it luck, whatever, but there are some that maybe you can and those are the ones that we really take a look at to study. The injuries this year have given a lot of opportunity to players that maybe would have not have that opportunity to come out and play,  I think that will show up in the years to come with their development. Maybe I've never seen a team go through what we've gone through from an injury sample, but I've seen teams with injuries and you try to do the best you can to learn from it. Try to establish where we are as far as how do we keep our players on the field.”
Judging Perry entirely based on the failures of veteran athletes such as Tyler Anderson or Hunter Renfroe is a disservice to the work he’s done building this club from the ground up. Of course this is not to dismiss the shortcomings of current free agent signings or veteran trades, but to overlook the damage Arte’s neglectful attitude has done to the success bearing pillars holding up the big league club is a disservice to the work Perry has done in reversing Artes failures as an owner. Winning culture is not built on the free agency market, it is cultivated internally, and I don’t need to remind Angel fans the immense breath of fresh air that Zach Neto and Logan O’Hoppe have brought to the growing culture of this club. They are only the first of many winning attitudes coming to reinforce the Angels, and while we may be a season or two away from fully seeing the rewards of Perry's hard work to boot him now before his plan enters fruition would truly set this franchise back. Many have harped on the point that not trading Ohtani has set this club back a decade, and while there may be a nugget of truth in that statement the biggest blow to this clubs future chance at success would be booting the one man who has successfully implemented the process of singlehandedly reversing the Angels losing culture. A single player can be replaced, no matter how good they are, if you give attention to the talent across the entire diamond, something that Perry Minasian excels at. What has gone wrong this season has been far out of Perry's hands; whether it's by underperforming athletes toiling under a less than stellar coaching staff or ownership forcing trades to deplete the farm system, and what has gone right this season can be solely accredited to his efforts as a General Manager. It has been a long and tiring season, and fans are bound to lash out at whatever source they feel may ail their injuries, but to point a finger at the one man who has single handedly constructed a new path towards success for the Angels is to play in Arte Moreno's inability to accept responsibility for his failures. The last thing we as fans need to do is feed in Moreno's belief that the problem exists outside of himself. 
Here is the full interview transcript of the interview with Perry Minasian. 
PERRY 
A lot of it depends on where the player is, right? How old they are, what level of competition they played against and all those things. I think there's common traits that you look for, abilities is obviously one of them. You need to have a certain level of ability to play here and compete on a daily basis. There's got to be a little bit of actual self-motivation to get the most out of your ability.
So just like the internal makeup and what makes you tick, we talk about that all the time. We want players that wake up thinking about it, go to bed thinking about it, obsess about it, and make it as important to them as it is to us. We have a great group here of talented young players that have come from all different places and are different ages, but when you watch this particular club play the effort levels are outstanding. That's something we've talked about and implemented and created an expectation, that, to play here there has to be that type of effort.
R.FALLA
Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's really interesting because Angel fans have had a tough time with GMs that don't really draft young talent that can break through the majors. But you really have an eye for that with your drafting strategies.
I'm curious, how are you able to tell that a player is closer to the major league level than not? 
PERRY
A lot of it comes down to what's inside, right? There's depending on where you're picking and it's understanding what that player can handle mentally more so than physically. There's a lot of gifted players, especially in this past draft, when you look at the first five players taken, seven players taken, really all the way through the first round, a lot of talented players that have a chance to have significant ceilings and help their clubs. But the thing for us, it goes back to makeup and the mentality, we're looking for baseball players that play a winning brand of baseball that are really intelligent. Everybody makes mistakes, right? So we want the guys that, they make the mistake, they learn from it and move on, they don't let it fester and you don't continue to see the same mistake over and over.
So I think that's a really huge attribute we look for day in and day out, our scouting staff has done an outstanding job; Tim McIlvaine, Matt Swanson, Derek Watson on the pro side, you know. You're only as good as your people to a certain extent. Internationally, Brian Parker and what his staff has done, when you look at a Nelson Rada and Joel Hurtado, who is pitching today, there's some exciting players here that that have bright futures.
R.FALLA
Yeah, exactly. I know you mentioned Nelson Rada and you also got Denzer Guzman, they come in really young and you know, it's one thing to draft a guy like Nolan Shanuel who's 21 and advanced, but how are you able to see the advancedness in a seventeen-year-old?
PERRY
It's certain people, not everybody is the same right? Not every player is the same. There's certain guys that can handle certain things and there's certain guys that need a little more time. Nelson was somebody we just felt was up for the challenge, being one of the younger players in this league, and we felt mentally he was able to handle it and physically he was gifted enough to play here and compete day in and day out. He's gone beyond our expectations this season and put together a pretty good year.
R.FALLA
Just a couple more quick questions. So the Angels this year have been bringing up a lot of players really young and they've been hitting the mark. you got Zach Neto, Shanuel and Ben Joyce. So how are you able to tell when a player is able to make that jump from the minors to the majors?
PERRY
That's probably the most difficult thing to decide, most times than not the player will tell you, whether it's a certain series over the course of the year or a certain event or a certain conversation that they're ready for the challenge, and sometimes it doesn't always work, right?
You bring somebody up, they don't necessarily perform great, you go back down and then the second chance they get they take off. So that's really, really important to identify and you know, for us building a young core is really, really important and that's something we've talked about and harped on since I've walked in the door. I've been a part of some pretty good organizations. I was in Texas; we had Mark [Teixeira], Hank Blaylock, Michael Young, and Ian Kinsler, a really good group of young players. Being in Atlanta; Austin Riley, Ronald Acuna Jr, Ozzie Albies, Max Fried, I can go on and on. We had some really good players in Toronto too. Something we're trying to establish here and we've had some significant breakthroughs this season we're excited about. I think the most exciting thing about our young group of players is, obviously there's a certain level of talent that people get a chance to see but it's the makeup of each guy, they've committed to being as good as they can be. They have high expectations, they enjoy winning, the hate losing, which is really, really important.
R.FALLA
So how as a GM how do you overcome the roster difficulties that you've been having with the Angels? Tons of injuries that are super hard to get through. But what is on your plate when it comes to getting through something like that?
PERRY
Yeah, being in this game as long as I have, one of the advantages of that is having a lot of different experiences. maybe I've never seen a team go through what we've gone through from an injury standpoint, but I've seen teams with injuries and you try to do the best you can to learn from it and try and establish where we are as far as how do we keep our players on the field. There’s just certain injuries you can't prevent. But there are some that maybe you can and those are the ones that we really take a look at to study. But the injuries we've had this year have given a lot of opportunity to players that maybe would not have had that opportunity to come out and play. I think will show up in the years to come with their development.
R.FALLA
That was the Angels GM. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

By Ryan Falla, AngelsWin.com Columnist
There is no more difficult job in baseball than heading the Angels organization as the General Manager. Short on staff necessary to encompass the responsibilities of an entire organization, Perry Minasian tirelessly carries the responsibilities of success on his shoulders as he guides the Angels through a disastrous season, the few bright spots in this Shakespearean tragedy coming through the effectiveness of Minasian’s drafting strategies and ability to spot elevated talent in young ballplayers. We’ve spent an entire season harping on the various failures of ownership, the shortcomings on the behalf of medical and training, and the general failure of player performance, and rightfully so. Many of these failures can be attributed to a neglected, decaying organizational infrastructure that does little promote player excellency, yet despite these internal failures that existed long before Perry Minasian our GM has gone above and beyond to bring in young athletes with the grit and gumption to rise above these mediocrities and create within themselves a bright future for Angel fans. 
“There's common traits you look for, abilities are obviously one of them. There's got to be a little bit of actual self-motivation to get the most out of your ability. Internal makeup and what makes you tick, we talk about all the time. We want players that wake up thinking about it, go to bed, thinking about it, obsess about it. We have a great group here of talented young players that have come from all different places and are different ages. When you watch this particular club play [Inland Empire 66ers] the effort levels are outstanding. That's something we've talked about and implemented. We created an expectation that to play here there has to be that type of effort.”
Key word: self-motivation. From a fan perspective it seems as if the Angels have been populated with athletes lacking motivation, without naming names you can easily recount certain veteran players that bring this effect to mind. On the other hand, however, we've witnessed the excellence of future stars such as Logan O’Hoppe/Zach Neto/Ben Joyce/Nolan Schanuel etc., all by way of Perry Minasian. Going beyond what we've seen at the Majors, seeping all the way down to the Minor League Levels, is a brand new system for success implemented piece by piece through the wunderkind of Minasian’s carefully crafted youth-movement. Perry brings a wealth of experience to the ballclub, himself having come from celebrated systems whose successes were built almost entirely on the quality of youth nurtured in the lowest levels of those organizations. This is not just some throwaway experiment by a GM grasping at straws, this is a level headed, deliberate process enacted by an experienced auteur whose executive habits have been molded by winning organizations.
“Building a young core is really, really important. That's something we've talked about and harped on since I've walked in the door. I've been a part of some pretty good organizations. I was in Texas; we had Teixeira, Blaylock, Young and Kinsler. Being in Atlanta with Austin Riley, Ronald Acuna Jr., Ozzie Albies, Max Fried, I can go on and on. That’s something we're trying to establish here. We've had some significant breakthroughs this season that we're excited about. It's the makeup of each guy, they've committed to being as good as they can be. They have high expectations, they enjoy winning, they hate losing, which is really, really important.”
It is not enough to just love winning, you have to hate losing. Sometimes it doesn't feel as all of the Angels big league crop hates losing enough to make a difference. You can look into the Angels dugout after games to see who truly hates these losing ways, and I can tell you right now it isn't as many of them as it should be. Coincidentally enough, the few players on this team that speak out against the losing culture that has permeated this club happen to be the young Minasian acquisitions.  The success of the Low A Inland Empire 66ers on the 2023 season speaks for itself, what was before a bottom of the barrel MiLB team has just recently come into form as a perennial playoff contender. That may not mean much to those who would dismiss this as “minor league baseball”, but the fact is winning organizations are built from the bottom up, not the top down. There is nothing more important to developing a winning culture than to instill it in the lower prospect classes as they rise through the organization together, the key word being together.  A core that learns how to win together and carries that all the way to the Majors will breed big league success. With the work Perry has done crafting an incredibly talented prospect core you can be positive the Angels will cultivate a winning culture at the big league level soon, current free agent signings be damned. All it requires is a little more patience, though it appears as if owner Arte Moreno, and a select few Angel fans, are dangerously short on this ever important virtue.
“Not every player is the same. There's certain guys that can handle certain things and there's certain guys that need a little more time. Nelson [Rada] was somebody we just felt like was up for the challenge being one of the younger players in this league. We felt like mentally he was able to handle it and physically, he was gifted enough to play here and compete day in and day out. He's gone beyond our expectations this season and put together a pretty good year”
Perhaps the show at the big league level is as ugly as it gets, but the very core foundations of this organization are evolving into a form that is better than it has ever been. What was once before an organization that whiffed on draft after draft and carried virtually no presence on the international market is now loaded with talent procured through both avenues. International signings such as Nelson Rada and Denzer Guzman look to offer the future Angels a Braves-esque core with the two young prospects (18 and 19 respectively) capable of carrying playoff caliber clubs off the quality of their expansive athletic talent. Reinforcements are coming from every faucet of possibility in which a GM could derive reinforcements from, and to suggest the Angels should move on from Perry would be to suggest cutting off the greatest talent stream the Angels have seen since their World Series days. Trout and Ohtani may be the greatest talents the Angels, and all of baseball by extension, have ever seen, but they on their own cannot equal the quality of an entire talent stream spanning the whole diamond. 
“There's just certain injuries you can't prevent. Whatever it may be, call it luck, whatever, but there are some that maybe you can and those are the ones that we really take a look at to study. The injuries this year have given a lot of opportunity to players that maybe would have not have that opportunity to come out and play,  I think that will show up in the years to come with their development. Maybe I've never seen a team go through what we've gone through from an injury sample, but I've seen teams with injuries and you try to do the best you can to learn from it. Try to establish where we are as far as how do we keep our players on the field.”
Judging Perry entirely based on the failures of veteran athletes such as Tyler Anderson or Hunter Renfroe is a disservice to the work he’s done building this club from the ground up. Of course this is not to dismiss the shortcomings of current free agent signings or veteran trades, but to overlook the damage Arte’s neglectful attitude has done to the success bearing pillars holding up the big league club is a disservice to the work Perry has done in reversing Artes failures as an owner. Winning culture is not built on the free agency market, it is cultivated internally, and I don’t need to remind Angel fans the immense breath of fresh air that Zach Neto and Logan O’Hoppe have brought to the growing culture of this club. They are only the first of many winning attitudes coming to reinforce the Angels, and while we may be a season or two away from fully seeing the rewards of Perry's hard work to boot him now before his plan enters fruition would truly set this franchise back. Many have harped on the point that not trading Ohtani has set this club back a decade, and while there may be a nugget of truth in that statement the biggest blow to this clubs future chance at success would be booting the one man who has successfully implemented the process of singlehandedly reversing the Angels losing culture. A single player can be replaced, no matter how good they are, if you give attention to the talent across the entire diamond, something that Perry Minasian excels at. What has gone wrong this season has been far out of Perry's hands; whether it's by underperforming athletes toiling under a less than stellar coaching staff or ownership forcing trades to deplete the farm system, and what has gone right this season can be solely accredited to his efforts as a General Manager. It has been a long and tiring season, and fans are bound to lash out at whatever source they feel may ail their injuries, but to point a finger at the one man who has single handedly constructed a new path towards success for the Angels is to play in Arte Moreno's inability to accept responsibility for his failures. The last thing we as fans need to do is feed in Moreno's belief that the problem exists outside of himself. 
Here is the full interview transcript of the interview with Perry Minasian. 
PERRY 
A lot of it depends on where the player is, right? How old they are, what level of competition they played against and all those things. I think there's common traits that you look for, abilities is obviously one of them. You need to have a certain level of ability to play here and compete on a daily basis. There's got to be a little bit of actual self-motivation to get the most out of your ability.
So just like the internal makeup and what makes you tick, we talk about that all the time. We want players that wake up thinking about it, go to bed thinking about it, obsess about it, and make it as important to them as it is to us. We have a great group here of talented young players that have come from all different places and are different ages, but when you watch this particular club play the effort levels are outstanding. That's something we've talked about and implemented and created an expectation, that, to play here there has to be that type of effort.
R.FALLA
Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's really interesting because Angel fans have had a tough time with GMs that don't really draft young talent that can break through the majors. But you really have an eye for that with your drafting strategies.
I'm curious, how are you able to tell that a player is closer to the major league level than not? 
PERRY
A lot of it comes down to what's inside, right? There's depending on where you're picking and it's understanding what that player can handle mentally more so than physically. There's a lot of gifted players, especially in this past draft, when you look at the first five players taken, seven players taken, really all the way through the first round, a lot of talented players that have a chance to have significant ceilings and help their clubs. But the thing for us, it goes back to makeup and the mentality, we're looking for baseball players that play a winning brand of baseball that are really intelligent. Everybody makes mistakes, right? So we want the guys that, they make the mistake, they learn from it and move on, they don't let it fester and you don't continue to see the same mistake over and over.
So I think that's a really huge attribute we look for day in and day out, our scouting staff has done an outstanding job; Tim McIlvaine, Matt Swanson, Derek Watson on the pro side, you know. You're only as good as your people to a certain extent. Internationally, Brian Parker and what his staff has done, when you look at a Nelson Rada and Joel Hurtado, who is pitching today, there's some exciting players here that that have bright futures.
R.FALLA
Yeah, exactly. I know you mentioned Nelson Rada and you also got Denzer Guzman, they come in really young and you know, it's one thing to draft a guy like Nolan Shanuel who's 21 and advanced, but how are you able to see the advancedness in a seventeen-year-old?
PERRY
It's certain people, not everybody is the same right? Not every player is the same. There's certain guys that can handle certain things and there's certain guys that need a little more time. Nelson was somebody we just felt was up for the challenge, being one of the younger players in this league, and we felt mentally he was able to handle it and physically he was gifted enough to play here and compete day in and day out. He's gone beyond our expectations this season and put together a pretty good year.
R.FALLA
Just a couple more quick questions. So the Angels this year have been bringing up a lot of players really young and they've been hitting the mark. you got Zach Neto, Shanuel and Ben Joyce. So how are you able to tell when a player is able to make that jump from the minors to the majors?
PERRY
That's probably the most difficult thing to decide, most times than not the player will tell you, whether it's a certain series over the course of the year or a certain event or a certain conversation that they're ready for the challenge, and sometimes it doesn't always work, right?
You bring somebody up, they don't necessarily perform great, you go back down and then the second chance they get they take off. So that's really, really important to identify and you know, for us building a young core is really, really important and that's something we've talked about and harped on since I've walked in the door. I've been a part of some pretty good organizations. I was in Texas; we had Mark [Teixeira], Hank Blaylock, Michael Young, and Ian Kinsler, a really good group of young players. Being in Atlanta; Austin Riley, Ronald Acuna Jr, Ozzie Albies, Max Fried, I can go on and on. We had some really good players in Toronto too. Something we're trying to establish here and we've had some significant breakthroughs this season we're excited about. I think the most exciting thing about our young group of players is, obviously there's a certain level of talent that people get a chance to see but it's the makeup of each guy, they've committed to being as good as they can be. They have high expectations, they enjoy winning, the hate losing, which is really, really important.
R.FALLA
So how as a GM how do you overcome the roster difficulties that you've been having with the Angels? Tons of injuries that are super hard to get through. But what is on your plate when it comes to getting through something like that?
PERRY
Yeah, being in this game as long as I have, one of the advantages of that is having a lot of different experiences. maybe I've never seen a team go through what we've gone through from an injury standpoint, but I've seen teams with injuries and you try to do the best you can to learn from it and try and establish where we are as far as how do we keep our players on the field. There’s just certain injuries you can't prevent. But there are some that maybe you can and those are the ones that we really take a look at to study. But the injuries we've had this year have given a lot of opportunity to players that maybe would not have had that opportunity to come out and play. I think will show up in the years to come with their development.
R.FALLA
That was the Angels GM. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Taylor Blake Ward caught up with two young starting pitchers for the Inland Empire 66ers on the eve of game one of the Low-A California League Playoffs. 
Angels pitching prospect and most recent 2023 eighth-round pick, Barrett Kent, sits down to chat about the draft process and his up-and-down spring that turned into a successful professional debut and then Angels pitching prospect Walbert Urena shares what he believes turned his 2023 season around while utilizing his sinker more effectively and reining in his mechanics, while also sharing a note about touching 102 miles-per-hour.
Check out our interviews below. Enjoy! 
 
View the full article

SEATTLE — If Logan O’Hoppe and Reid Detmers can perform next year the way they are finishing this one, the Angels will have a better shot at playing meaningful games next September.
O’Hoppe blasted two home runs and Detmers pitched seven innings in the Angels’ 8-5, 11-inning victory over the Seattle Mariners on Monday night.
Detmers has a 3.00 ERA in his last 30 innings, and O’Hoppe has hit four homers in his last four games.
After the teams exchanged two-run homers in the 10th – Brandon Drury for the Angels and Julio Rodriguez for the Mariners – the Angels broke the game open in the 11th.
Randal Grichuk drove in the first run with a single. Another scored on an error by third baseman Eugenio Suarez, and then Nolan Schanuel drove in the third run with a single. Jimmy Herget worked the bottom of the inning to finish the Angels’ fourth victory in five games since they ended their six-game losing streak last week.
For O’Hoppe, it was the first multi-homer game of his career. He hit a three-run homer in the second and a solo shot in the fourth, tying the score after the Angels gave up three runs in the first. He also doubled in the ninth inning.
O’Hoppe had been in a .143 slump over a 10-game stretch through last Thursday, when he said he was “disgusted” with his performance at the plate. O’Hoppe was still working his way back after missing four months rehabbing from shoulder surgery, and he said he was still trying to get back the feeling he had before he was hurt in April.
In the four games since, O’Hoppe is 7 for 15 with four homers.
His homers on Monday erased the quick deficit from Detmers’ shaky first inning. Detmers allowed three first-inning runs, and then nothing else, with seven strikeouts and no walks.
It was a solid outing, but more impressive than the final result was the way he adapted to get there.
Detmers gave up three first-inning hits – including a two-run homer – on his slider, so he essentially scrapped the pitch for the rest of the night, in favor of his changeup, just as he had done last week.
Detmers ended up throwing a career-high 27 changeups, accounting for 25% of his 108 pitches. Prior to last week’s start, Detmers was throwing his changeup less than 3% of the time this season.
Detmers threw 19% changeups while allowing one earned run in 6⅓ innings last week.
The slider, which had been his best out pitch for much of the time over the previous two seasons, was clearly not working when he gave up singles to the first two hitters of the game on the pitch, then a two-run homer to Cal Raleigh.
Suddenly, Detmers was down 3-0 after just 10 pitches.
After that, though, Detmers retired 11 in a row. He got into a potential jam when Rodriguez led off with a double in the sixth, but he escaped that with two strikeouts and some questionable Mariners baserunning. Rodriguez tried to go to third on a ground ball to shortstop Zach Neto, who threw him out.
More to come on this story.
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SEATTLE — If Logan O’Hoppe and Reid Detmers can perform next year the way they are finishing this one, the Angels will have a better shot at playing meaningful games next September.
O’Hoppe blasted two home runs and Detmers pitched seven innings in the Angels’ 8-5, 11-inning victory over the Seattle Mariners on Monday night.
Detmers has a 3.00 ERA in his last 30 innings, and O’Hoppe has hit four homers in his last four games.
After the teams exchanged two-run homers in the 10th – Brandon Drury for the Angels and Julio Rodriguez for the Mariners – the Angels broke the game open in the 11th.
Randal Grichuk drove in the first run with a single. Another scored on an error by third baseman Eugenio Suarez, and then Nolan Schanuel drove in the third run with a single. Jimmy Herget worked the bottom of the inning to finish the Angels’ fourth victory in five games since they ended their six-game losing streak last week.
For O’Hoppe, it was the first multi-homer game of his career. He hit a three-run homer in the second and a solo shot in the fourth, tying the score after the Angels gave up three runs in the first. He also doubled in the ninth inning.
O’Hoppe had been in a .143 slump over a 10-game stretch through last Thursday, when he said he was “disgusted” with his performance at the plate. O’Hoppe was still working his way back after missing four months rehabbing from shoulder surgery, and he said he was still trying to get back the feeling he had before he was hurt in April.
In the four games since, O’Hoppe is 7 for 15 with four homers.
His homers on Monday erased the quick deficit from Detmers’ shaky first inning. Detmers allowed three first-inning runs, and then nothing else, with seven strikeouts and no walks.
It was a solid outing, but more impressive than the final result was the way he adapted to get there.
Detmers gave up three first-inning hits – including a two-run homer – on his slider, so he essentially scrapped the pitch for the rest of the night, in favor of his changeup, just as he had done last week.
Detmers ended up throwing a career-high 27 changeups, accounting for 25% of his 108 pitches. Prior to last week’s start, Detmers was throwing his changeup less than 3% of the time this season.
Detmers threw 19% changeups while allowing one earned run in 6⅓ innings last week.
The slider, which had been his best out pitch for much of the time over the previous two seasons, was clearly not working when he gave up singles to the first two hitters of the game on the pitch, then a two-run homer to Cal Raleigh.
Suddenly, Detmers was down 3-0 after just 10 pitches.
After that, though, Detmers retired 11 in a row. He got into a potential jam when Rodriguez led off with a double in the sixth, but he escaped that with two strikeouts and some questionable Mariners baserunning. Rodriguez tried to go to third on a ground ball to shortstop Zach Neto, who threw him out.
More to come on this story.
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SEATTLE — At least Shohei Ohtani was in the lineup for about an hour this time.
After missing a week with oblique tightness, Ohtani was back in the Angels’ lineup when it was first released, but then he was scratched after he went through his pregame routine. Manager Phil Nevin said Ohtani hit in the cage and didn’t feel ready.
“I don’t necessarily think it’s a setback, he just still has some soreness in there when he lets it go,” Nevin said. “He didn’t think he would have that today, but when he got in there, he did.
“Where that puts us as far as tomorrow? I don’t know. Is he gonna come here and try it again? I don’t know. Those are conversations that he and I are going to have. Yesterday he was very confident that he would feel fine enough to play today and then it just didn’t happen.”
Monday was the eighth consecutive game that Ohtani has been out, and there are only 17 games remaining.
His continued absence raises the question of whether Ohtani will go on the injured list, possibly ending his season.
“Not at this point,” Nevin said.
Nevin said if the Angels get through this series without Ohtani playing, “something like that (the IL) may come up in a conversation. It’s getting to that point, but he feels confident that it’s any day now. He wants to play. That’s the key.”
Ohtani, who is done pitching for the season, is facing a procedure at some point to repair his torn ulnar collateral ligament.
SUAREZ RETURNS
Left-hander Jose Suarez was activated after being on the injured list since May 8 with a shoulder strain. Suarez had a setback over the summer and as of August, he was still not even facing hitters. Suarez said he pitched four games in Arizona, which was enough for the Angels to be confident in bringing him back as a reliever.
“We were very happy with what his numbers had gotten to, with his velocities and shapes and things like that, obviously the things that everybody looks at,” Nevin said.
Suarez had a 9.62 ERA in six starts before he went on the injured list. Nevin said they believe part of the problem was the injury and also he had some mechanical issues.
Suarez is 25 and he’s just a year removed from posting a 3.86 ERA over 207⅓ innings in 2021-22. He’s going to be arbitration-eligible this winter.
The Angels optioned right-hander Gerardo Reyes to create a spot for Suarez.
NOTES
Right-hander Chase Silseth (concussion) will not be ready to pitch by Wednesday, which is the next time the Angels need a starter. “There’s just little minor things that are still affecting him a little bit,” Nevin said. “He’s building up his workouts. He’s building up his bullpens. Nothing that anybody feels is an alarming thing. To go out and make a start and go five, six innings or whatever you anticipate going, he’s got to get through his workouts, got to get through everything without any sort of discomfort and any uneasiness. We’re certainly going to wait until that happens.” …
Outfielder Mickey Moniak (back) is going to need at least the rest of this series off before he might be ready to play, Nevin said. …
First baseman C.J. Cron (back) began doing baseball activity on the field, including taking batting practice, on Monday. Cron said he would like to make it back this season. “Just for my mental health, going into the offseason having played a few games and knowing I’m good, I think is going to go a long way,” Cron said. …
Right-hander Chris Rodriguez (shoulder) has been moved to Triple-A Salt Lake in his rehab assignment. Rodriguez pitched an inning at Class-A Inland Empire on Sunday, his first game in more than two years. “It’s really neat to see him back,” Nevin said. “He’s been through a lot, fought through a lot. The shoulder is tough to come back from. It’s a long rehab process.” …
Outfielder Jo Adell (oblique) has reported to Salt Lake, but he’s not yet ready to play in games. For now, he’s simply doing the rehab there that he had been doing in Arizona. “Where that puts him on a timetable for this year, I’m not sure if he’s going to be able to get in a game yet,” Nevin said. “We’ll see how the next few days in Salt Lake go for him.” …
Shortstop Zach Neto returned to the Angels’ lineup on Monday, and he’s expected to start just about every game the rest of the season. That means Kyren Paris will get some work at other positions, including second base and the outfield, Nevin said.
UP NEXT
Angels (LHP Patrick Sandoval, 7-12, 4.31) vs. Mariners (RHP Bryan Woo, 2-4, 4.50), Tuesday, 6:40 p.m., T-Mobile Park, Bally Sports West, 830 AM
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ANAHEIM — The promise of Shohei Ohtani being back in the lineup had gone on for nearly a week. The Angels were waiting on the two-way star to be able to swing the bat without pain, a streak that extended for seven games as he nursed a sore right oblique.
He was not in uniform again Sunday for the series finale against the Cleveland Guardians, but that could end Monday when the Angels travel to Seattle for a three-game series against the Mariners. Manager Phil Nevin said there is a “realistic chance” of seeing Ohtani playing.
“He feels better today again,” Nevin said. “I know he’s going to take some swings later. I would say today probably.”
Pressed to define “realistic”, Nevin said, “There’s a good chance that he feels he’s good tomorrow and will play.
“Today’s the day where he feels pretty good. He hasn’t swung yet, but like I said, he felt a lot better doing that.”
Ohtani had been a constant in the lineup all season even after tearing the ulnar collateral ligament in his right arm. He missed just two games earlier in the season.
JOYCE, NETO RETURN
Right-hander Ben Joyce was back in the locker room, quietly preparing for Sunday’s game when Angels teammate Logan O’Hoppe gave him a noisy welcome.
“Benny’s back!” O’Hoppe shouted.
Joyce, along with Zack Neto, returned from rehab assignments before Sunday’s series finale against the Cleveland Guardians. And not only was he back in uniform, but Joyce was also back on the mound in Sunday’s 2-1 victory against Cleveland.
The Angels had placed Joyce on the 60-day injured list back in July with ulnar neuritis in his throwing arm and he was all too happy to rejoin his teammates.
“It’s tough anytime you are not able to play and have to be on the sidelines,” Joyce said. “It’s been a longer process than I would have liked, but it’s good to be back now and get through all the hurdles in the recovery process and be back with the team.
“Being back here is all I really wanted.”
Nevin said that he would take it slow with Joyce’s return, limiting his outings until he’s comfortable and doesn’t experience any lingering discomfort.
“We want to make sure he’s feeling right. We’re excited to see him back on the map here,” Nevin said.
Joyce was eager to get back to throwing in a big-league game situation after spending time with the Single-A Inland Empire club, where he struck out one batter and gave up a hit this week in his first appearance in nearly three months. He also tossed a perfect inning.
“I feel good. I wouldn’t have said I was ready if I didn’t feel I could give it all I have,” Joyce said. “I feel 100 percent now. I think I will be able to continue the rest of the year and work in the offseason.”
In corresponding moves, outfielder Trey Cabbage and left-hander Kolton Ingram were optioned to Triple-A Salt Lake following Saturday’s game.
PHILLPS GETS HIS SHOT
Center fielder Brett Phillips had been waiting for this moment all season, to parade through the dugout with the kabuto on his head. The samurai warrior helmet is worn by players who hit home runs.
He finally got his chance when he blasted his first home run of the season in Saturday’s 6-2 victory, a solo shot over the right field wall for his first homer since July 17, 2022.
What was the experience like?
“It was heavy. Real heavy, (but) it felt good,” Phillips said of the kabuto.
Phillips said what felt even better was contributing to the victory.
“It was encouraging with the way this year has gone,” said Phillips, who spent 66 games for Triple-A  Salt Lake City. “Now, I’m just taking advantage of an opportunity down the stretch here. Any chance you get to help contribute to a big league win it’s always good.”
 UP NEXT
Angels (LHP Reid Detmers (3-10, 4.82 ERA) at Seattle RHP Logan Gilbert (13-5, 3.61 ERA), Monday, 6:40 p.m. Bally Sports West, 830 AM
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OAKLAND — Griffin Canning has strung together two strong outings, and the Angels haven’t won either one of them.
Canning gave up two runs in six innings, but the Angels lost 2-1 to the Oakland A’s on Saturday afternoon, dropping the first two in a series against the team with the most losses in the majors.
Last Sunday, Canning gave up two runs in seven innings of a loss to the New York Mets. The bullpen gave up a one-run, eighth-inning lead in that one. This time, the Angels hitters couldn’t even get the bullpen a lead.
The Angels loaded the bases with one out in the first inning and managed just one run, when Luis Rengifo hit a popup to shallow left and shortstop Nick Allen stumbled after making the catch.
In the seventh, the Angels had a chance at a rally, but pinch-runner Andrew Velazquez was caught stealing third with no outs. Shohei Ohtani then hit a popout with two on, and Brandon Drury hit a flyout to end the inning.
The only two runs that Canning allowed came on a 1-and-2 hanging changeup to Brent Rooker, who drilled a two-run homer in the fourth inning.
Canning struck out seven and didn’t walk any, allowing just four hits. He struck out the final three batters he faced, going through the middle of the Oakland order in the sixth inning.
Canning has a 4.30 ERA through a career-high 104-2/3 innings, with 18 starts and two relief appearances.
After missing a season and a half with a back injury, Canning has clearly re-established himself as a potential piece of the future rotation.
More to come on this story.
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The Angels’ plan to cut payroll and avoid the luxury tax in this disappointing season appears to have worked.
Five of the six veterans the Angels put on waivers were reportedly claimed, knocking about $5.7 million off their 2023 payroll. Although the luxury tax calculations are not official until December, the Angels are now below the $233 million threshold, according to FanGraphs.
Pitchers Lucas Giolito, Matt Moore and Reynaldo López were claimed by the Cleveland Guardians, who play next weekend in Anaheim. Right-hander Dominic Leone was claimed by the Seattle Mariners. Outfielder Hunter Renfroe was claimed by the Cincinnati Reds. Outfielder Randal Grichuk went unclaimed, so he can remain with the Angels if they choose to keep him.
The Angels are off Thursday, so they will have until Friday to call up roster replacements before their game in Oakland.
Although there would have been modest tax implications for the Angels to exceed the luxury tax in 2023, the rate would have gone up from 20% to 30% if they exceeded the threshold for a second straight year in 2024. Now they can pay just the 20% tax if they go over next season. The tax is 50% for the third consecutive season over the threshold.
If the Angels lose Shohei Ohtani after making him a qualifying offer, they would receive a compensation pick after the second round if they are under the luxury-tax threshold. It would have been after the fourth round if they were over the threshold.
The Angels’ decision to place so many players on waivers sent shock waves throughout the industry, leading to speculation that Major League Baseball may change the rule that allowed the Angels to do so.
The Angels, however, found themselves in an unusual circumstance that made this move logical. Most teams out of the pennant race simply trade players in July to cut costs, but the Angels were in the race when they acquired players before the Aug. 1 trade deadline. It was only after the team went into a tailspin in August that they fell out of the race.
The Angels also have an unusually large number of impending free agents with reasonable contracts, making it more probable a contender would be likely to take on their salaries.
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Less than a month after the Angels signaled their intention to “roll the dice,” by being buyers before the trade deadline, in the words of General Manager Perry Minasian, the results have been bad enough that they’ve now given up.
The Angels are 64-70. Making the playoffs is all but impossible, but even finishing with a winning record after last year’s 74-88 season would be some progress.
While fans are waiting to see whether Shohei Ohtani will have Tommy John surgery, there is much to ponder about what all of this means for 2024.
Q: How bad do these latest moves look to free agents the Angels will try to sign in the offseason? — @stevelomax4
A: I’m sure different players will view it in different ways.
On one hand, the players might feel disrespected by being essentially given away. They are forced to uproot their lives and go elsewhere with no say in the matter.
However, that’s not much of a distinction from when they are traded. And in this case, the players are going to have the opportunity to go to contenders and maybe win the World Series, instead of simply playing out the string with the Angels. And they still get all of their salaries.
By the way, the same question could have been asked if the Angels had traded Ohtani when they were three games out of a playoff spot. Potential free agents certainly might have wondered about the commitment to winning if they’d done that.
Q: Hey Jeff can you confirm the shedding of money was a grand plan in order to provide more financial resources to try and re-sign Ohtani? — @SoCalAvsFan
A: I wouldn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, but if the Angels can get under the luxury tax threshold for 2023, it would have an impact on what they could spend in 2024 and going forward.
Teams pay a tax of 20% on their overage in the first year they are over the luxury tax threshold, and it goes up to 30% in the second year and then 50% in the third year.
If, hypothetically, the Angels want to be able to go over the threshold in 2024, it’s a lot cheaper to do it if they didn’t do it in 2023.
Q: Will the Angels finally let go of (Anthony) Rendon soon, Jeff? — @LAATweeter
Q: I’m just curious of the salary tax implications of releasing a player in the middle of their contract. Does it matter? Is the contract calculated like it’s there for the entirety of it? Basically is there any luxury tax benefit for a team if they decide to release a player? — @JAH1722
A: I’m combining these, for obvious reasons.
Certainly, Rendon’s seven-year, $245 million deal has not worked out for the Angels so far. He’s played 200 of a possible 518 games in the first four seasons of his deal.
Trading him would seem to be pretty impossible unless the Angels were willing to eat almost all of the contract.
I would be shocked if the Angels simply released him, though. When he’s hurt, he doesn’t clog the roster because he’s on the injured list. And they can’t get him off the payroll, no matter what they do. If they release him, his salary would still count toward the Angels’ luxury tax.
I expect the Angels to again build their team with other players who can play third, so they’re covered for when he’s hurt.
Q: Any indication the Angels are happy enough with how (Mike) Moustakas has played to bring him back next year? — @dumbmailguy
A: Speaking of players who can cover for Rendon …
I asked Moustakas if he’d like to come back and I asked Minasian if he’d like to bring Moustakas back, and both were noncommittal, saying it was something to address after the season.
That being said, a reunion does make some sense. Moustakas can play third and first, which are two spots the Angels need covered. He’s also developed into a clubhouse favorite, providing some leadership. The fact that Moustakas was not among the players placed on waivers is noteworthy.
The risk is that Moustakas is going to be 35, and he was hurt for most of the 2021 and 2022 seasons, so his salary would need to reflect that.
Q: Here’s a legit question, the Angels’ biggest issue over the last 8 years has been pitching development. Why has this crucial element been mostly ignored by the organization? Pitching and defense wins games! Look forward to your response.
A: I wouldn’t say the Angels have “ignored” it. In 2021, they drafted pitchers with every single one of their 20 picks. The problem is just that they haven’t been very good at it.
When I examined the Angels’ player development system last year, there was some sentiment from those who had been in the system that they lagged behind in terms of technology when Jerry Dipoto was the general manager. When Billy Eppler took over, they got caught up in that respect but may have pushed too far in focusing on tools and processes and not enough on performance.
Minasian has sought a balance of everything. It’s too early to know if it’s really working, but one measure is that the pitchers other teams want in trades are the ones drafted by Minasian, not Eppler.
Q: Jeff, any news on manager Phil Nevin and his return for next season? Any hints of bringing in a new manager and coaching staff? — @NetcoRecruiter
A: Nevin does not have a contract for next season. Even though Nevin seems to be well-liked in the clubhouse, this is a results-oriented business. If the Angels play well down the stretch, even if they ultimately come up short of the playoffs, it would certainly help his case to return. If they limp across the finish line, a change is likely.
As for the coaches, teams have coaching staff changes all the time, even good teams, so there certainly could be some shuffling after this season.
Q: I’d love to know a little about the Angels’ stolen base philosophy. Seems like even with more favorable rules, no one but (Shohei) Ohtani thinks it’s worth it. What gives? — @EN_parker
A: The Angels simply don’t have much speed. Their fastest players are Ohtani, Mike Trout, Jo Adell, Andrew Velazquez and Luis Rengifo. Even when Trout is healthy, he’s not going to run much because of the risk of injury and the risk of running into an out when he’s in the middle of the order.
Q: What is going on with Jo Adell? — @hawaiiwriter
A: Although the initial word was that Adell’s oblique strain was somewhere between the severity of the ones suffered by shortstop Zach Neto and relief pitcher Matt Moore, at this point it looks like it will end up being more severe than both of them. He still has not begun any type of baseball activity, and he’s nearly eight weeks removed from the injury. He still has time to make it back this season, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t.
Q: Do the Angels still view Sam Bachman as a starter? He has the tools to be a dominant reliever but they drafted him where they did for him to start. — @raymond_210
A: Yes, when the Angels drafted Bachman with their first pick in 2021, they did so envisioning him as a starter. He still has only started in the minor leagues. When they called him up this year to pitch in relief, it was more of a short-term solution.
The Angels would still love for Bachman to evolve as a starter, but I think they’re open to whatever works. He’s also had injury issues, so they need to find out which role works better for him from the perspective of his health.
UP NEXT
Angels (LHP Patrick Sandoval, 7-10, 3.95 ERA) at A’s (TBD), Friday, 6:40 p.m., Bally Sports West, 830 AM
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Torii Hunter may be one of the most beloved former Angels in the history of their franchise so we wanted to pull some of our greatest hits from our old Blog into one column to reminisce a true fan favorite. 
Let's start off with David Saltzer's piece, titled - Torii Hunter, my favorite Angel followed by Coral Marshall's Torii Hunter: A True All-Star. David Saltzer catches up with Torii Hunter in an interview (video) while he was promoting the Pepsi Max Field of Dreams and finally Brian Waller wraps it up in his All Good Things Must Come to an End article on Hunter. 
Enjoy some of our finest through the years on one of our favorite all-time Angels. 
Torii Hunter, My Favorite Angel

By David Saltzer - AngelsWin.com Senior Writer
August 4th, 2010
Years from now, Angels fans might look back on August 3rd, 2010 as the day the Peter Bourjos era began. He is a speedy, dynamic, defensively gifted outfielder who may become an integral part of the Angels’ future. But for me, I’ll remember the day as the day Torii Hunter became my favorite Angel player on the team.
No one likes getting older. When I close my eyes, I don’t picture myself as the person I am standing in front of the mirror. I picture myself as the person I was in my prime, about 10 years ago—the guy with the full head of hair, who could bench a lot more, and who weighed a bit less.
I’m just a few years older than Torii, so it’s not too hard for me to relate to the aging process. While my prime may have been a lot better than I am today, it never will come close to the athleticism that Torii had in his prime. Heck, my prime couldn’t touch his worst. So, it must be much harder for Torii to witness the inevitable toll that time takes on us all.
When Torii Hunter, a nine-time Gold Glove winner in centerfield to agreed to move to right field so that Peter Bourjos could take over center, it took a lot of humility on his part. Torii said "I didn't sleep for three, four days. I prayed about it, thought about it . . . I think we need to do something different.”
I’m sure that this decision didn’t come over easy for Torii. He’s a highly skilled, highly paid, and highly liked player. He’s vocal about what he thinks the team needs in order to win. He is the team’s de facto captain. He didn’t need to make this move. And yet, he did it. Rather than fighting it, he embraced it. In an era of mega-egos, Torii, the face of the franchise, owned the decision to take a back seat to the kid. "This is my decision. This isn't their decision." By stepping aside, he made the team better and gave the team its best shot to win.
As an Angels fan, I want to see the best players on the field playing their hardest every day. I want to see the players playing with passion—running out every play as if it were their only chance to win a spot on the field. I want the players playing selflessly, not selfishly. But more importantly, I want to see the Angels win. I want to see the players doing whatever it takes to win it all—even if it comes at the expense of their individual goals.
"I could say I want to go for that 10th Gold Glove . . . But sometimes you've got to slap pride in the face and all that individual stuff – the Gold Glove stuff – you can let that go . . . All I care about is winning, I need a ring. I've been to the playoffs seven times and haven't won anything. I haven't been to the World Series yet, not even to lose . . . If this makes the team better, I'm going to do it."
With those words and with his actions on the field, Torii showed me that his passion to win is as great as my passion to see the Angels win. He wants to win a ring as badly as I want to see them win another championship. He willingly put aside his personal goals to see the team win some bigger goals. As a fan, I couldn’t be more grateful to have him as a player.
Baseball teaches a lot of life lessons. Sometimes it says in order to win you have to swing for the fence and hit a home run—the ultimate individual achievement. But other times, it also says, in order to be a winner, you sometimes have to lay down a sacrifice. Over the years, I’ve seen Torii hit a lot of homers but I can’t recall ever seeing him lay down a bunt—until today. By moving aside for Bourjos, Torii laid down a perfect sacrifice for the team.
Ever since Tim Salmon retired, I’ve been asked by many people “who is my current favorite player on the team?” And, while there are plenty of good players to like, I haven’t had a clear favorite until now. Today I’m proud to say that Torii Hunter is my favorite current Angels player. He is the ultimate and rare champion—one who plays with a selfless passion to win.
Torri Hunter: A True All-Star

By Coral Marshall - Angelswin.com Columnist
May 18th, 2009
For someone who has won the Gold Glove for eight consecutive seasons, Torii Hunter is a guy who doesn't get much credit when it comes to the All-Star Game. Sure, a career .273 batting average with about 25 home runs a year are not the numbers one expects from an All-Star outfielder (think Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle or Ted Williams). Instead, Hunter's overall numbers are more akin to former Angel Fred Lynn, an All-Star who didn't make it to the game for the last seven seasons of his career. (He too averaged 25 homers a year and a .283 batting average, only .010 higher than Torii's.)
But the All-Star Game isn't about comparing the past with the present; it is about electing who is most deserving in the early months of a season to a game that not only celebrates the players who have done the best so far, but also determines which league gets home field advantage in the World Series. This should not be about fans only electing big name players, or players from their favorite team, yet it inevitably comes down to that; evidenced by the fact that fans are not allowed to vote for pitchers, perhaps even more telling is the election of David Ortiz to play first base when games are in National League parks and designated hitters are not used. But fans of the game of baseball should instead vote for the players who will give them the best game possible, especially since each team is required to have at least one player represented on the roster.
If the Angels are to have only one player on this roster, Torii Hunter is most deserving this season. This isn't to say that Mike Napoli and others have not stepped up to the plate metaphorically, but rather that Hunter has exceeded all expectations in Vladimir Guerrero's absence. While Napoli, Gary Matthews Jr., Bobby Abreu, Juan Rivera and the rest of the team have really come through in the trying times the Angels have faced with this season's injuries, Hunter has displayed the fielding and batting expertise necessary to hold the team together, which does not even include his clubhouse presence — which one can deduce from player interviews keeps everyone in good spirits.
Instead of making the All-Star Game a who's who of baseball, fans should work to honor those who have made a difference on the field and carried their team to this point in the season. Torri Hunter has become a prime example of this. His defense is unmatched, as shown by the aforementioned Gold Gloves, and not to mention his almost nightly appearance on baseball highlight reels. And to be honest, the numbers don't lie — Hunter has a perfect fielding percentage so far this year; that means no errors.
His offense has been impressive so far this season, too. Before Sunday's game, the Angels had a total of 27 home runs this season, of which Hunter had hit 9; that's one-third of the total for the team. (Is anyone else reminded of Babe Ruth in the 1920s by that kind of percentage?) His total ranks him No. 10 in the AL. His at-bats-per-homer ratio is an impressive No. 10 in the league, as well. With 14-plus position players in a game like the All-Star Game, where players are likely to only get one or two at bats for the entire game, this is a highly important statistic. The fewer at bats, on average, it takes for a player to hit a home run the more likely in any game (let alone a game that they will more than likely not bat the minimum three times) they are to do so, increasing the odds of scoring at one time rather than having to put together a rally. While his batting average may not have him on any leader boards before Sunday's game, he was batting .317 this season (an entire .029 points higher than his highest single season average), and more importantly his .611 Slugging Percentage ranks him ninth in the American League, while his 1.012 On-Base Plus Slugging percentage puts him at eighth.
Hunter has not only stood out amongst the Halos this year, but amongst the entire league. Who knows, with these numbers, maybe by the end of the season this will become a petition for an MVP instead of an All-Star Game bid.
Promoting the Pepsi Max Field of Dreams, AngelsWin.com got a chance to interview 9-time Gold Glove winner Torii Hunter.
August 2nd, 2011
All Good Things Must Come to an End

By Brian Waller - AngelsWin.com Columnist
Nov 6th, 2012
All good things must come to an end, and it appears as though fan favorite Torii Hunter’s days in a Halo’s uniform have come to an end; with the door only slightly cracked for the mayor of “Toriitown” to return. After signing a 5 year $90-million deal with the Angels on November 22, 2007 Hunter seemed like the perfect fit for the team. Sure his contract was a little on the pricey side and sure he didn’t appear on paper as the “impact” player the team had been seeking the previous season or so but none the less the marriage seemed perfect; it was consummated at a Del Taco after all.

From afar, I think we all could agree that Hunter was and is the type of player that any fan would love to have on their team. The former 1st round pick of the 1993 amateur draft spent 9 full seasons in Minnesota where he made two All-Star appearances and compiled 192 home runs, 711 rbi’s, swiped 126 bases all while hitting .271 with a .793 OPS. Perhaps Hunter’s most impressive attribute on the field was not his offense, but what he did defensively. In those same 9 seasons with the Twins, Hunter racked up 7 Gold Glove awards and proved himself to be one of the best defenders in Major League Baseball.
As an Angel fan I can honestly say I was pleased with the signing at the time and figured he would be a great addition to the team both offensively and defensively. What I didn’t take into consideration however was the impact Hunter would have on the Angels’ clubhouse as well as the Southern California community. Through the years Hunter has contributed to many charities including his own, the “Torii Hunter Project Education” Initiative, which provides college scholarships to students in California, Arkansas, Nevada and Minnesota. Hunter is also very involved in a partnership with Major League Baseball to help maintain and improve baseball diamonds in inner cities as well as the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the “Big Brother” program. In 2009 Hunter was acknowledged for his hard work in the community and charitable services when he was presented with the Branch Rickey Award; an honor bestowed upon those in the MLB that go above in beyond in the community and who show excellence in charity work.
Hunter became something the Angels hadn’t had since Tim Salmon retired; a face of the franchise. Hunter became the voice of the clubhouse, someone who from afar, seemed to put the team on his shoulders when needed and handled the media when things got rough. He was the cheerleader in the off season reaching out to players to sign with the Angels; players like Carl Crawford, C.J. Wilson, etc. As a fan it was both enjoyable and refreshing to see a player so passionate about his team he would take to Twitter and other media outlets to entice free agents to done Angels red; even though it didn’t always work out.  Hunter’s leadership qualities really became apparent when he voluntarily moved from center field to right field in 2011 to make room for a speedy Peter Bourjos and eventually Mike Trout. Rather than show bitterness and shun the up and coming players, Hunter took his years of knowledge and helped teach the youngsters because he knew it was best for the team. When you really take a step back and realize that a player who had won nine consecutive gold gloves in center field during his career made such an unselfish move you really appreciate just what type of player and person Hunter is.
Hunter would go on to become a solid contributor to the Halos on the field. He won his 8th and 9th Gold Glove awards while with the Angels and also won the only Silver Slugger award of his career in 2009 (thus far). Hunter made the All-Star team twice; most notably in 2010 when the All-Star game was hosted at the “Big A”. Although injury prevented Hunter from participating in the All-Star game it still gave the fans a tremendous sense of pride having one of their own and the face of the franchise voted in to the annual summer classic. Hunter would go on to hit 105 hr, 432 rbi’s, steal 60 bases and hit .286 with an .814 OPS during his 5 year stint in Anaheim; numbers that are not necessarily “eye popping” but again, his value cannot be measured in mere stats.
Watching a fan favorite change teams is never easy, it’s all most like a break up of sorts with the Angels telling Torii “it’s not you….it’s me”. Although both sides may appear to part ways amicably there always will be lingering feelings due to just how intermingled the two were due to Hunter being the face of the franchise. We all have our favorite “Torii moments” and although it is easy to get wrapped up and attached to players we do need to realize it is a business. Hunter has intangibles that can’t be given a stat and won’t show up on the back of a baseball card; how important those intangibles are remains to be seen. The Halos will most likely find out in 2013 what life is like without Hunter and hopefully the dollars saved are worth his absence and will be put to good use.

(Capri Ortiz - Photo by Jerry Espinoza)
By Taylor Blake Ward, AngelsWin.com Columnist
Last year, I started this article with a caveat that is necessary when talking about the Dominican Summer League and Arizona Complex League (which will be referred to as DSL and ACL for simplicity throughout the article). The age variance between leagues can alter the performance of any given player significantly, as ages can vary from 16-years-old to 22-years-old in the DSL and 17-years-old to 24-years-old in the ACL. Comparing the performances from a player who may be the age of a high school sophomore or junior to that of one who would be the same age as someone with a four-year college degree and baseball pedigree at a top-notch program leaves plenty of room for error in the on-paper outlook. Most of these kids or young men have yet to grow into their bodies and power may be at minimal production. Some pitchers may have matured into low-to-mid 90's fastballs and explosive breaking balls while others hardly top out in the mid 80's with no current secondary offering to speak of. Control and command for pitchers is sparse and raw, so on-base percentages are inflated due to a high number of walks. It is always fun to look at on paper performance, but each player will come with his own variance where age and experience will play a vital part in how to look at each individual performance and must be taken with a grain of salt.
If you're going to put emphasis on statistics and performance, there are some isolation performance points you'll need to focus on to see indicators for future success through development and advancement, with one consistent for both hitters and pitchers that tend to carry into development upwards of the mid-minors. For hitters, contact rate and strikeout percentages are large future indicators of ability to hit. While you never want to throw away walk rates, it's already been mentioned those will be inflated because of young pitchers inability to work around the strike zone with consistency. That is where you would want to key in on pitchers is ability to throw strikes as an isolation point of how they'll fare in the future. Strike-throwing ability (i.e., BB%, BB/9) does come as a raw base for being able to do the same at the next level without getting into athletic markers for future command. Control is a fine thing to see on paper and will come prior to command, which is needed for advancement through development into any future Major League role(s).
Before diving in, there is one last note I want to make as we will touch on the record books. The Dominican Summer League (DSL) has been in existence since 1985, with the Angels having an affiliate since 1992 taking a year away in 1997 with a shared affiliate in 1993 (Dodgers), 1996 (Rays), and 1998 (White Sox). Public statistics and records only date back to 2006, which leaves us with only 17 years of basic statistical data, and 13 seasons without. Up until 2019, the DSL had a 72-game schedule, with 2021 being delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a truncated season. In 2022, a scheduling change took place where the DSL season was shortened to 56 games with clubs getting every Wednesday and Sunday off. The reason I mention this is that within my own personal record book I file away in a tab in my notebook (statistics garnered from Baseball-Reference), you will see some players in this article mentioned as being noted within the single-season records but notably off the top. You can only project so much on performance, but with players in 2022 and 2023 getting 16 less games scheduled, it's noteworthy to say a player tapped into the top 10 single season records with an idea they would have reached further up the list with those extra 16 games. You don't run into the same problem with the Arizona Complex League as a 56-game schedule has been consistent throughout its' existence starting in 1988, with the Angels participating in the league from 1989-1996 and 2001 to present and public records held throughout all of league history.
With all the caveats and notes out of the way, let's dive into some of the top performers and prospects from the Angels Rookie Ball affiliates, starting with those who spent their summer in Boca Chica with the DSL affiliate:
After missing most of his pro debut in 2022 with a broken hamate, Kevyn Castillo had arguably the best offensive season in Angels DSL history. The Venezuelan outfielder's slash line of .371/.478/.548 has never been seen before at the affiliate, with his batting average and on-base percentage being the highest among players with over 100 plate appearances, and his slugging percentage trailing only Luis Torres in 2022 (.571) -- and of course, the highest OPS in affiliate history under the same measures. Excluding doubles and home runs, Castillo ranked in the top 10 of nearly every affiliate single-season record, with 44 runs scored (tied-10th), 69 hits (10th), seven triples (tied-fifth), 35 RBI (tied-10th), 23 stolen bases (tied-ninth), 40 walks (ninth), and 102 total bases (tied-sixth). Castillo collected a hit in 42 of the 55 games he played, while reaching base safely in 50, while his 171 wRC+ was fourth across the DSL among qualified hitters. Castillo, signed for $10,000 during the 2022 international signing period, flashes four tools with power being the lesser of the group. He's an above-average runner or better with the ability to handle all three outfield positions with a fine arm for the corners (he had four assists on the season).
The Angels priority international signee for 2023 was Felix Morrobel, a shortstop from the Dominican Republic who signed for $900,000. In the 17-year-old's pro debut was solid with a .286/.322/.335 slash line with 11 stolen bases and 21 runs scored, which helped earn him a DSL All-Star nod. Despite a highly-aggressive approach, Morrobel limited his swing-and-miss at a near uncanny clip, with four of his 13 strikeouts on the season coming in his first 20 plate appearances and then just nine over his next 150 plate appearances, giving him the third lowest strikeout percentage (7.6%) of the 299 qualified hitters in the DSL in 2023. A switch-hitter, Morrobel's ability to manipulate the barrel was evident over the summer, while his power production (0 HR, .344 SLG, .050 ISO) was notably minimal (0 HR, .344 SLG, .050 ISO) and only seen to the gaps as the Angels await his physical maturation where his power projection remains below-average as a hit-over-power offensive type. Morrobel's primary carrying tool is his defense at shortstop where he is a highly athletic defender with quick feet and good internal clock to slow the pace of the game, with an above-average arm giving more confidence to his future outlook as an eventual Major Leaguer as the bat continues to progress.
Though it didn't come with the external fanfare of the Morrobel signing, the Angels were internally very excited over the signing of Juan Flores. Signing for $280,000, Flores was renowned as one of the best amateur defensive catchers in Venezuela and in the 2023 international signing class. That defense was on full display during his pro debut this summer as a 17-year-old, both on paper and the eye test, as he threw out 26-of-49 would be base stealers (53%) with just four passed balls in over 300 innings of work behind the plate. Already advanced defensively, Flores showed all the traits of long-term catching prowess with quiet receiving and framing with lateral mobility and a plus (or plus-plus pending evaluator) arm. His hitting is less rudimentary than thought while going into pro ball as he had a fine approach at the plate with some upper body overswing tendencies leading to groundballs, but also some over-the-fence power where his six home runs were fifth all-time for a single-season at the affiliate. Though his on-base percentage was partially inflated by being hit-by-pitches 15 times which ranked second on affiliate history -- trailing only Leonardo Rivas in 2015 (17) -- everything else in his offensive performance stayed in check with a .236/.352/.388 slash line and 102 wRC+. There is no question about Flores' defense while the bat will dictate what his future role would/could be, whether a high-level filler, backup, or even everyday regular at the Major League level. Between Morrobel and Flores, mixed in with Nelson Rada and Capri Ortiz, the Angels have a solid defensive foundation up the middle in the low levels of the minors.
Oswaldo Patino was a lesser-touted signing in the 2023 international class who put pen to paper for $65,000 as a smaller Venezuelan infielder, but his pro debut carried some excitement, particularly as one of the youngest in the league at 16-years-old. A contact-first hitter, Patino kept his swing-and-miss in check while his discipline and walk rates were off the charts at 25%. Among players in the DSL with 80-or-more plate appearances, his walk rates ranked 14th across the league among 1000+ players, while his on-base percentage (.513) ranked second (You can do the math if you want but it's the 99.9th percentile in both categories). Though I mentioned Kevyn Castillo as having the highest single-season OBP in affiliate history, that was among players with over 200, or 150, or 100 plate appearances -- or in simpler terms: qualified hitters -- but looking at Patino's on-base percentage in a smaller dosage of plate appearances (80 total PA), it is the highest OBP mark in affiliate history outside of two players who shared a combined 13 plate appearances, giving credence to the record books albeit in smaller sample than qualification. There isn't much ceiling to Patino who is a contact-first second base only infielder, but always worth monitoring when video game numbers are put up.
Receiving the fourth largest bonus from the Angels in the 2023 international class, Edwardo Espinal has his season and pro debut delayed until mid-July after breaking his thumb during extended spring. The 17-year-old signed for around $250,000 out of the Dominican Republic as a toolsy outfielder with upside in the bat. With only 22 games played over the summer, it was his final 11 that were attentive and had the Angels happy about his future as he slashed .290/.372/.368 in the final half of his truncated season.
One of the biggest risers in the Angels farm system is Adrian Acosta, a right-handed pitcher who signed late in the 2022 signing period for $10,000 out of the Dominican Republic and saw a velocity jump in 2023 that made his sophomore pro season one of the best in affiliate history. In his 10 starts over the summer, he never allowed more than two runs while striking out five-or-more in each outing excluding his first. Acosta was named a starter in the DSL All-Star game where he went two innings and earned the victory. His 1.17 ERA led the entire DSL and was second best for a single-season in affiliate history among those who through over 40 innings (46.1 IP), trailing only Emilker Guzman who had a 1.02 ERA in 2017 (44 IP), while his 64 strikeouts were 19th all-time in a single-season for the affiliate and comes with the caveat that all above him had a 72-game season to work with. The 18-year-old saw a velocity spike over the summer with improved command that raised his prospect status, parking his fastball 92-95 and touching 96 on occasion. He compliments the fastball with a low-to-mid 80's slider that has enough current shape and feel to receive average or better future grades. With the fastball command progressing well and his on-mound athleticism, the Angels will continue giving Acosta the chance to start through the early stages of his pro career, though his changeup is well below-average offering (very firm and rudimentary) and will be a focus of development to keep him from a relief outlook.
Ubaldo Soto was the Angels top pitching signee from the recent international class, signing for $250,000 out of the Dominican Republic and spending most of the summer as a 16-year-old pitcher in pro ball. Up until the week he turned 17, Soto got four games of extended relief work, going three innings each time out, which included two saves before transitioning to a traditional rotation role in early July. Over the season, Soto performed remarkably well, posting a 1.64 ERA over 44 innings with a 4-1 record. On this next note, I must include that the nature of a complete game and/or shutout in the DSL has some caveats as pitching all innings (or outs) of a shorter scheduled or weather shortened game can be called a "complete game/shutout" in the statistics and does not need to be a complete seven-or-nine inning effort. On that note, Soto threw two (shortened) shutouts over the summer, making him the first to have multiple shutouts or complete games since Daniel Hurtado and Eswarlin Jimenez in 2011 and fifth in affiliate history to have multiple in a season. His two shutouts were the 12th and 13th in affiliate history since record-keeping became public in 2006. Soto, a tall and loose right-hander, has all the projection traits of a starter at the next level with three pitches he mixes well in an upper 80's-to-low 90's fastball that touches 92, and feel for a curveball and changeup with advanced feel for working near the zone.
Though Soto was initially the top bonus pitcher for the Angels 2023 international class, Francis Texido was signed for the same dollar figure at $250,000 two months later after leaving Cuba in September. Texido -- the leader in ERA (0.69) for Cuba's U-18 club (source: Francys Romero, MLB) -- went from being one of the top amateur arms in Cuba to the workhorse of the Angels DSL affiliate, getting the opening day nod and never looked back posting a 2.31 ERA in 50.2 innings with 61 strikeouts, 12 walks, and 0.947 WHIP. The 18-year-old collected six wins on the season, which was tied for 10th most in a single-season for the affiliate, while his 61 strikeouts were 20th most (as noted with Acosta, all players above Texido had the luxury of a 72-game season). Tall and loose, the left-handed pitcher has a low 90's fastball with significant sink that creates weak groundball contact, while he also incorporates a curve, slider and changeup which show enough current merit and advanced command to believe in a four-pitch starter mix through development.
Among the youngest pitchers in professional baseball over the season, Davidxon Lara went from a relatively unknown amateur who signed for $50,000 out of Venezuela, to a pitcher of note in the Angels low minors. The undersized right-hander is a good on-mound athlete with advanced command and feel for the zone. Through his first six games, Lara faced 118 batters and walked just one which included a stretch of 101 batters faced without permitting a walk. Though he would walk four of the final 43 batters he faced (*sarcastically gasps*), Lara showed an advanced ability to mix his pitches and work around the zone, spending all but his final three starts over the summer as a 16-year-old. Lara operates mostly in the upper 80's and low 90's and touched 93 over the summer, with decent feel for a mid-70's curveball and mid 80's changeup. His size (5'10/165) may limit his ceiling, but Lara has the current traits of a future starter with plenty of youth to bank on.
Other DSL Notables:
Signed on the older side of the international amateur market, right-handed pitcher Anel Cabrera signed with the Angels in April as a 20-year-old and spent the summer in the DSL where his 1.25 ERA was second lowest across the entire league (trailing only Adrian Acosta, 1.17; min. 40 IP). The low ERA mark was third best in affiliate history among those with 40-or-more innings pitched... After spending two seasons as the DSL Yankees closer, Ruben Castillo was released by the pinstripes in May and quickly signed with the Angels three weeks later as a 21-year-old minor league free agent. Castillo served as the DSL Angels closer with a 39.0 K% and nine saves, which is tied for the most in affiliate single-season history with Jorge Tavarez (2016)... The DSL Angels finished their season going 37-18, holding the sixth best record in the 50-team league and earning a wildcard spot in the DSL Playoffs. As a team, they had; the third most stolen bases (121), 10th highest batting average (.257), 2nd lowest ERA (3.25), 3rd lowest H/9 (6.9), 4th lowest WHIP (1.311), 10th highest K/9 (9.7), and 10th highest K/BB (2.00). (*NOTE*: At the release of this article the DSL Angels are in the middle of a best-of-three opening playoff series with the DSL Phillies, splitting the first two games. This note will be updated upon completion of the series and/or DSL playoffs.)
After spending the first part of this article down in Boca Chica, let's head north for the rest of the article to Tempe and the Arizona Complex League where a pair of players jumped into prospect status while others have started to create a name for themselves in the low minors.
Signed as a defense-first shortstop from the Dominican Republic for $150,000, Capri Ortiz changed the script this summer in Arizona and has become of the biggest risers in the Angels system. Splitting his pro debut in halves, Ortiz struggled to start in the DSL in 2022, having a .522 OPS in his first 26 games, but turned the corner and posted a .793 OPS in his final 26 games. He carried that late success into instructional league where he became a player of note for the organization and then had a loud presence based on his speed and defense this summer in the ACL. His on-paper performance leaves a bit to be desired in a .273/.374/.345 slash line with a near 30% strikeout rate but the Angels liked his aggression in the box and on the basepaths and ability to adjust to switch-hitting which he started near the midway point of the season, with some promising signs in his ability to hit from both sides. Listed at six-foot and 150-pounds, there is significant weight and strength that needs to be added to the frame to tap into any form of power as Ortiz's game is more suited for slapping the ball through the infield or flaring a ball to the outfield while maintaining his line drive swing. When he puts the ball in play though, he can cause havoc. Posting the occasional sub-4 home-to-first time, Ortiz is more in the 4.0 to 4.1 range which grades above plus but under plus-plus, but his ability to utilize that speed only enhances the tool. Ortiz stole 30 bases over the summer which set a new affiliate record surpassing Aneury Almonte's 28 in 2002, and ranked 16th all-time in league history for a single season while being the most in the league since Monte Harrison stole 32 bases in 2014. Of note, Ortiz's 39 runs scored were the most for a single season at the affiliate since Rolando Gomez (48) and Randal Grichuk (47) in 2009. Along with 18-year-old's speed is the ability to handle a premium defensive position with ease as his quick feet allow him to cover plenty of ground at shortstop, while his internal clock allows him to slow the pace of the game and let his quick release and average arm do the rest. Ortiz may never grow into offensive impact and be more suitable as a bench player by the time he nears the Majors, but his speed and defense give merit to his future role at the upper levels while the bat will dictate whether or not be becomes an everyday player.
When doing my post-season rounds last October to accumulate information for prospect rankings, one name jumped out as one I had never heard previously mentioned as a "prospect" but a standout performance in the DSL (which was noted in this article last year) and during instructional league left me curious about someone who "could be the next Edgar Quero". Though the results of Quero haven't been matched quite yet, Dario Laverde has put his name on the map for Angels prospects and has put up similar performance markers with similar tools to a young Quero to make sense of the comparison. The left-handed hitting catcher who signed for $350,000 out of Venezuela had a .306/.419/.455 slash line with 28 walks and 31 strikeouts on the year as an 18-year-old, while his 123 wRC+ was in the 74th percentile across the league. Laverde started catching around a year prior to signing as a professional, converting from the outfield, and has plenty of raw traits behind the plate that have to be refined before trusting him as a long-term backstop. His arm can grade out as average or better, but his transfer and footwork may need an overhaul to allow his arm to play. An outstanding athlete, Laverde has solid lateral movement and blocking skills, so there is a foundation and building blocks to keep him behind the plate. For as raw as his defense is, his offensive skillset is far more polished than most in his age range. Laverde is a disciplined hitter with a focus on seeing pitches and driving pitches in his hot zone to the gaps. There isn't much power in his five-foot-10 frame, but enough to believe his contactability will translate into the occasional over-the-fence pop. Though it may be hard to project Laverde into what Quero became (Top-100 prospect who warranted a Lucas Giolito return), Laverde has the tools to dream on a platoon catcher with offensive upside and he will become the Angels top catching prospect upon Logan O'Hoppe's prospect graduation.

(Dario Laverde - Photo by Jerry Espinoza)
Signed for $235,000, Anthony Scull was part of a duo from Cuba who signed with the Angels on September 6, 2021, joining Jorge Marcheco. Both got a quick trip to Boca Chica where Scull was able to play 10 games with some lackluster performance and was initially assigned back to the DSL to start 2022, but after one plate appearance was sent back stateside to Arizona where he performed well in a limited 13-game sample. Scull repeated his offensive success in 2023, slashing .300/.377/.453 with seven doubles, five triples, and three home runs. Scull started the season with a 12-game hitting streak and collected a hit in 24 of his first 27 games while batting .363 and having an OPS that hovered around 1.000 throughout. His bat cooled off for the latter half of his season hitting .206 in his final 21 games with a 33.3 K% (13.7 K% in first 27 games). The 19-year-old outfielder is more a sum of all parts kind of player as opposed to having a real standout or carrying tool, not dissimilar to fellow Angels Cuban farmhand Orlando Martinez. The son of former Cuban baseball star and Olympian, Antonio, the younger Scull has a swing reminiscent to his father with a closed stance, short load, and present bat speed that make him a line-to-line hitter with focus on the bat being his ability to utilize the barrel and occasionally tap into some gap power, while his defense may be limited to a corner outfield position as he's only a fringe athlete. There's a lot to like about the overall package Scull provides and players of his caliber sometimes turn into platoon-type players at the upper levels and into the Majors, though his status as a prospect remains limited.
After turning heads in his pro debut in the Dominican, Luis Torres carried his near unmatched DSL year into video game type numbers to start his sophomore pro season in Arizona, slashing .583/.659/.889 in his first 10 games which included four doubles, two triples, and a home run. He earned a quick promotion to Low-A Inland Empire where he had a three-hit game in his full season debut and three more hits in the two games following but quickly cooled off against elder and more polished talent collecting just five hits in his next 15 games and was sent back to Arizona. Some inconsistencies came in his second stint with the ACL affiliate as he hit .250 with a .719 OPS and 29.1 K% in his final 19 games with Tempe. For the bulk and completion of his season, his 150 wRC+ was seventh best across the league among hitters with 100+ plate appearances. The inconsistencies haven't deterred Torres' status as a low-level follow (as opposed to a solidified prospect), but the 19-year-old Dominican still may have finally seen his free and loose swing be exposed to some holes while he began to chase at more pitches out of the zone with both approach and swing refinements needed. Signed for $10,000 in February 2022, Torres has a large physique that allows him to tap into hard contact and over-the-fence power from the right side. Though he's limited to first base only defensively, Torres has enough feel for hitting and the power production to continue monitoring how he can cut down his chase rates and overswing tendencies to potentially grow into a prospect with a likely trip to full season ball next season.
Cristian Garcia has spent the last three summers between the DSL and ACL with steady performance based mostly on plate discipline. Garcia, a 19-year-old corner infielder, has progressively walked his way through Rookie Ball (pun intended) with his 2023 campaign seeing 37 free passes, which rank fourth in Angels AZL/ACL affiliate history and the most since 1993. There isn't much in terms of prospect status when it comes to Garcia, as he's a fringy athlete with a below-average hit tool, but players of his caliber tend to make waves for their on-base percentage in the low minors and grow into monitoring status as they progress through development in hopes that more repetition can turn particular offensive tool into a fringe/average skill. On the season, Garcia slashed .266/.418/.413.
Drafted by the Angels in the fourth-round of the 2019 MLB Draft, Erik Rivera is one of just seven remaining players drafted and signed by the Angels in that class. Rivera was drafted as a two-way player with upside as a power hitting outfielder from the left side and power southpaw on the mound. Following the draft, the Angels sent him out strictly as a designated hitter and it was evident his future would be on the mound which would wait until the following season which would not occur due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In his first pro pitching outing, Rivera tossed over three scoreless with Low-A Inland Empire, allowing a hit and a walk while striking out six, but saw his velocity dip quickly in his final outing. It's been a long road for Rivera since that point as a tear in his UCL required Tommy John surgery followed by some unspecified complications which caused him to miss the rest of the 2021 season, all of the 2022 season, and most of the 2023 season. Rivera returned to the mound on the second day of August this summer for the first time in over two years but showed similar tools to what made him such an alluring pitching prospect prior to surgery. He came out sitting 92-93 while touching 96 over the summer, while still flashing a plus changeup and signs of a breaking ball. Control dogged Rivera through his five brief outings in Arizona, as he walked 13 of the 37 batters, he faced but when he was near the zone, he was unhittable allowing just three hits to those same 37, striking out 11. Though he's an elder statesman for a low-level arm at 22-years-old, Rivera being healthy and green on the mound is a boon for the Angels pitching depth, particularly with so few left-handed pitching prospects. He'll need to show more command and control to return to his prospect status from prior years, but the raw package remains near the same as when he was a highly touted youngster after the draft.
A standout from extended spring, Keythel Key is a relatively unknown pitching project who has garnered some attention as a low-level arm with tools that could carry him into more than organization filler status. Most of Key's success comes in flashes as opposed to frequency, which was evident in his summer in the ACL where he had performed on par with most of the league average, posting a 4.53 ERA, while walking 32 and striking out 40 over 43.2 innings. Key is a tall and lean 19-year-old with good on-mound athleticism who operates mostly in the low 90's with some mids in the bag, with a slider that flashes average. There's a lot of raw tools -- particularly in fastball command and ability to consistently snap his breaking ball -- but enough to like about Key and his athletic markers and projection to continue monitoring him.
Of the Angels 19 draft picks in 2023, 13 started their pro career in Tempe. Nolan Schanuel (1st round), Alberto Rios (3rd round), Joe Redfield (4th round), Cole Fontenelle (7th round), Caleb Ketchup (15th round), and Mac McCroskey (20th round) all got less than a handful of games each before shipping out to affiliates, with Schanuel being the clear standout not only as a first-rounder but as a Major Leaguer only 21 games into his pro career. Seven of the 13 found less temporary residence in Arizona and spent the full start of their pro careers in Tempe. John Wimmer (11th round), an athletic shortstop with spark plug offensive upside from Rock Hill High School (SC), struggled against elder pitching in nine games, striking out in half of his plate appearances with a .432 OPS. Rio Foster (16th round), an athletic and physical high-ceiling outfielder from Florence-Darlington Tech (SC), struggled in a brief eight games as his active swing brought swing-and-miss with it, striking out 10 times in 25 plate appearances with a .414 OPS. Opposite his draft mates, Raudi Rodriguez (19th round) hit pro ball in stride over a brief 12 games, slashing .368/.415/.447, despite being viewed as the rawer product and free swinger of the previously mentioned pair. In recent years under Perry Minasian's regime, the Angels have pivoted savings from the second day of the draft to go well over slot with an early teen pick, but altered that course this year (in a way) and had their big bonus player come in the eighth-round in Barrett Kent, a tall and projectable right-handed pitcher from Pottsboro High School (TX) with a low-to-mid 90's fastball and trio of off-speed offerings that could grade out as average. Kent pitched well in his brief pro debut, allowing six baserunners without permitting a run while recording 14 outs over two stints, striking out five. Chase Gockel (9th round), a right-handed pitching grad student from Quincy University with a mid-90's fastball, struggled to find the zone in four brief outings walking 12 of the 23 batters he faced. Riley Bauman (13th round), a right-handed pitcher from Abilene Christian who returned from Tommy John late this spring showing a mid-90's sinker, got a quick taste of post-surgery action in pro ball allowing five runs in four innings of work. 
The Angels transitioned catcher Straton Podaras, infielder Christian Sepulveda, and outfielder Darwin Moreno to the mound progressively through the summer, with all sitting around 89-91 and topping around 93. This wasn't dissimilar to what they did with Logan Britt and Mario Zabala. Both Britt and Zabala were draft prospects as prep outfielders in 2020 but their star dwindled during their collegiate careers. Britt faced three batters in college (Abilene Christian) before the Angels took him as a pitcher in the 17th-round in 2023. Zabala was a two-year starter at Florida International but was limited to pinch-running duties his junior season with just 15 batters faced on the mound with minimal success, but the Angels consider both as pitchers at this point and will continue their development as such. I have no report on Britt or Zabala as pitchers currently.
Other ACL Notables: 
The Angels hit the NDFA/UDFA (whichever/whatever you want to call it) market quick and heavily after the draft signing some of the more notable non-drafted draft prospects with the headliners being catcher Caleb Bartolero (Troy), shortstop Andy Blake (Columbia), and outfielder Landon Wallace (West Virginia). Bartolero and Blake played well, albeit in six game stints each, in Arizona while Wallace went hitless in his first four games, he turned the corner quickly over his final six games going 8-for-14 (.571). Infielder Will McGillis (South Carolina) was not among the notable UDFA's but took advantage of his collegiate experience as a 24-year-old sporting a .378/.525/.644 slash line in 59 plate appearances, collecting hits in 12 of the 15 games he played and reaching base safely in 14. His 191 wRC+ was second highest across the league among hitters with 50-or-more plate appearances...
For the third consecutive season, Alex Martinez has held court in the Angels ACL bullpen, as his 1.17 ERA in 2023 was third lowest across the league (min. 20 IP). The undersized right-hander who is fastball dominant has now spent the last three summers in Arizona with a combined 0.92 ERA, 14.1 K/9, and 37.2 K%...
18-year-old outfielder Ramon Ramirez was an offensive staple to the DSL Angels in 2022 and garnered attention as more than just a low-level organization filler though not quite into prospect status. After collecting one hit in his first six games with sparse playing time, the left-handed hitter got back into a hitting groove over his last 12 games hitting .313 with five extra-base hits and a .965 OPS...
Randy de Jesus was a touted amateur outfielder from the Dominican Republic when the Angels signed him for $1.2 million in 2022, but his first taste of stateside ball left some questions about the consistency his bat will offer. Scouts still like the foundation de Jesus provides but there is a lot of fine tuning before tapping into even part of the finished product which still may be a power-only offensive base with too much swing-and-miss to get to any ceiling. Splitting his seasons into quarters, his final three-quarters showed glimpses of success with a .282/.343/.366 slash line and much lower 23.0 K% compared to the 29.6 K% in his first 12 games... Three players who suffered season-ending leg or knee injuries in 2022 returned to action in 2023 in the likes of infielders Edgar Alfonso and Luis Rodriguez, and outfielder Natanael Santana. Alfonso, 19, is a light-hitting speedster from Cuba who didn't showcase his plus to plus-plus speed on the basepaths frequently during the season but walked a bit and hit .247 over 35 games. Rodriguez, 18, was a big-bonus baby out of Venezuela on the international market (though his actual bonus has differing reports and has not been confirmed to this writer) who showed impressive tools at instructional league in 2022 and got his first taste of pro ball in 2023 in Arizona performing around league average with a .791 OPS and two home runs. Santana, 22, became a name to follow in 2021 after showcasing impressive power and speed tools from an impressive physique but was sidelined in 2022 with a knee injury. The raw offensive product is still in play for Santana as he struck out in nearly 35% of his plate appearances but still showcased the same tools as before. It's unlikely he'll be able to hit enough to hit his immense ceiling, and may be forever stuck in the low minors, but remains an interesting follow.
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(Capri Ortiz - Photo by Jerry Espinoza)
By Taylor Blake Ward, AngelsWin.com Columnist
Last year, I started this article with a caveat that is necessary when talking about the Dominican Summer League and Arizona Complex League (which will be referred to as DSL and ACL for simplicity throughout the article). The age variance between leagues can alter the performance of any given player significantly, as ages can vary from 16-years-old to 22-years-old in the DSL and 17-years-old to 24-years-old in the ACL. Comparing the performances from a player who may be the age of a high school sophomore or junior to that of one who would be the same age as someone with a four-year college degree and baseball pedigree at a top-notch program leaves plenty of room for error in the on-paper outlook. Most of these kids or young men have yet to grow into their bodies and power may be at minimal production. Some pitchers may have matured into low-to-mid 90's fastballs and explosive breaking balls while others hardly top out in the mid 80's with no current secondary offering to speak of. Control and command for pitchers is sparse and raw, so on-base percentages are inflated due to a high number of walks. It is always fun to look at on paper performance, but each player will come with his own variance where age and experience will play a vital part in how to look at each individual performance and must be taken with a grain of salt.
If you're going to put emphasis on statistics and performance, there are some isolation performance points you'll need to focus on to see indicators for future success through development and advancement, with one consistent for both hitters and pitchers that tend to carry into development upwards of the mid-minors. For hitters, contact rate and strikeout percentages are large future indicators of ability to hit. While you never want to throw away walk rates, it's already been mentioned those will be inflated because of young pitchers inability to work around the strike zone with consistency. That is where you would want to key in on pitchers is ability to throw strikes as an isolation point of how they'll fare in the future. Strike-throwing ability (i.e., BB%, BB/9) does come as a raw base for being able to do the same at the next level without getting into athletic markers for future command. Control is a fine thing to see on paper and will come prior to command, which is needed for advancement through development into any future Major League role(s).
Before diving in, there is one last note I want to make as we will touch on the record books. The Dominican Summer League (DSL) has been in existence since 1985, with the Angels having an affiliate since 1992 taking a year away in 1997 with a shared affiliate in 1993 (Dodgers), 1996 (Rays), and 1998 (White Sox). Public statistics and records only date back to 2006, which leaves us with only 17 years of basic statistical data, and 13 seasons without. Up until 2019, the DSL had a 72-game schedule, with 2021 being delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a truncated season. In 2022, a scheduling change took place where the DSL season was shortened to 56 games with clubs getting every Wednesday and Sunday off. The reason I mention this is that within my own personal record book I file away in a tab in my notebook (statistics garnered from Baseball-Reference), you will see some players in this article mentioned as being noted within the single-season records but notably off the top. You can only project so much on performance, but with players in 2022 and 2023 getting 16 less games scheduled, it's noteworthy to say a player tapped into the top 10 single season records with an idea they would have reached further up the list with those extra 16 games. You don't run into the same problem with the Arizona Complex League as a 56-game schedule has been consistent throughout its' existence starting in 1988, with the Angels participating in the league from 1989-1996 and 2001 to present and public records held throughout all of league history.
With all the caveats and notes out of the way, let's dive into some of the top performers and prospects from the Angels Rookie Ball affiliates, starting with those who spent their summer in Boca Chica with the DSL affiliate:
After missing most of his pro debut in 2022 with a broken hamate, Kevyn Castillo had arguably the best offensive season in Angels DSL history. The Venezuelan outfielder's slash line of .371/.478/.548 has never been seen before at the affiliate, with his batting average and on-base percentage being the highest among players with over 100 plate appearances, and his slugging percentage trailing only Luis Torres in 2022 (.571) -- and of course, the highest OPS in affiliate history under the same measures. Excluding doubles and home runs, Castillo ranked in the top 10 of nearly every affiliate single-season record, with 44 runs scored (tied-10th), 69 hits (10th), seven triples (tied-fifth), 35 RBI (tied-10th), 23 stolen bases (tied-ninth), 40 walks (ninth), and 102 total bases (tied-sixth). Castillo collected a hit in 42 of the 55 games he played, while reaching base safely in 50, while his 171 wRC+ was fourth across the DSL among qualified hitters. Castillo, signed for $10,000 during the 2022 international signing period, flashes four tools with power being the lesser of the group. He's an above-average runner or better with the ability to handle all three outfield positions with a fine arm for the corners (he had four assists on the season).
The Angels priority international signee for 2023 was Felix Morrobel, a shortstop from the Dominican Republic who signed for $900,000. In the 17-year-old's pro debut was solid with a .286/.322/.335 slash line with 11 stolen bases and 21 runs scored, which helped earn him a DSL All-Star nod. Despite a highly-aggressive approach, Morrobel limited his swing-and-miss at a near uncanny clip, with four of his 13 strikeouts on the season coming in his first 20 plate appearances and then just nine over his next 150 plate appearances, giving him the third lowest strikeout percentage (7.6%) of the 299 qualified hitters in the DSL in 2023. A switch-hitter, Morrobel's ability to manipulate the barrel was evident over the summer, while his power production (0 HR, .344 SLG, .050 ISO) was notably minimal (0 HR, .344 SLG, .050 ISO) and only seen to the gaps as the Angels await his physical maturation where his power projection remains below-average as a hit-over-power offensive type. Morrobel's primary carrying tool is his defense at shortstop where he is a highly athletic defender with quick feet and good internal clock to slow the pace of the game, with an above-average arm giving more confidence to his future outlook as an eventual Major Leaguer as the bat continues to progress.
Though it didn't come with the external fanfare of the Morrobel signing, the Angels were internally very excited over the signing of Juan Flores. Signing for $280,000, Flores was renowned as one of the best amateur defensive catchers in Venezuela and in the 2023 international signing class. That defense was on full display during his pro debut this summer as a 17-year-old, both on paper and the eye test, as he threw out 26-of-49 would be base stealers (53%) with just four passed balls in over 300 innings of work behind the plate. Already advanced defensively, Flores showed all the traits of long-term catching prowess with quiet receiving and framing with lateral mobility and a plus (or plus-plus pending evaluator) arm. His hitting is less rudimentary than thought while going into pro ball as he had a fine approach at the plate with some upper body overswing tendencies leading to groundballs, but also some over-the-fence power where his six home runs were fifth all-time for a single-season at the affiliate. Though his on-base percentage was partially inflated by being hit-by-pitches 15 times which ranked second on affiliate history -- trailing only Leonardo Rivas in 2015 (17) -- everything else in his offensive performance stayed in check with a .236/.352/.388 slash line and 102 wRC+. There is no question about Flores' defense while the bat will dictate what his future role would/could be, whether a high-level filler, backup, or even everyday regular at the Major League level. Between Morrobel and Flores, mixed in with Nelson Rada and Capri Ortiz, the Angels have a solid defensive foundation up the middle in the low levels of the minors.
Oswaldo Patino was a lesser-touted signing in the 2023 international class who put pen to paper for $65,000 as a smaller Venezuelan infielder, but his pro debut carried some excitement, particularly as one of the youngest in the league at 16-years-old. A contact-first hitter, Patino kept his swing-and-miss in check while his discipline and walk rates were off the charts at 25%. Among players in the DSL with 80-or-more plate appearances, his walk rates ranked 14th across the league among 1000+ players, while his on-base percentage (.513) ranked second (You can do the math if you want but it's the 99.9th percentile in both categories). Though I mentioned Kevyn Castillo as having the highest single-season OBP in affiliate history, that was among players with over 200, or 150, or 100 plate appearances -- or in simpler terms: qualified hitters -- but looking at Patino's on-base percentage in a smaller dosage of plate appearances (80 total PA), it is the highest OBP mark in affiliate history outside of two players who shared a combined 13 plate appearances, giving credence to the record books albeit in smaller sample than qualification. There isn't much ceiling to Patino who is a contact-first second base only infielder, but always worth monitoring when video game numbers are put up.
Receiving the fourth largest bonus from the Angels in the 2023 international class, Edwardo Espinal has his season and pro debut delayed until mid-July after breaking his thumb during extended spring. The 17-year-old signed for around $250,000 out of the Dominican Republic as a toolsy outfielder with upside in the bat. With only 22 games played over the summer, it was his final 11 that were attentive and had the Angels happy about his future as he slashed .290/.372/.368 in the final half of his truncated season.
One of the biggest risers in the Angels farm system is Adrian Acosta, a right-handed pitcher who signed late in the 2022 signing period for $10,000 out of the Dominican Republic and saw a velocity jump in 2023 that made his sophomore pro season one of the best in affiliate history. In his 10 starts over the summer, he never allowed more than two runs while striking out five-or-more in each outing excluding his first. Acosta was named a starter in the DSL All-Star game where he went two innings and earned the victory. His 1.17 ERA led the entire DSL and was second best for a single-season in affiliate history among those who through over 40 innings (46.1 IP), trailing only Emilker Guzman who had a 1.02 ERA in 2017 (44 IP), while his 64 strikeouts were 19th all-time in a single-season for the affiliate and comes with the caveat that all above him had a 72-game season to work with. The 18-year-old saw a velocity spike over the summer with improved command that raised his prospect status, parking his fastball 92-95 and touching 96 on occasion. He compliments the fastball with a low-to-mid 80's slider that has enough current shape and feel to receive average or better future grades. With the fastball command progressing well and his on-mound athleticism, the Angels will continue giving Acosta the chance to start through the early stages of his pro career, though his changeup is well below-average offering (very firm and rudimentary) and will be a focus of development to keep him from a relief outlook.
Ubaldo Soto was the Angels top pitching signee from the recent international class, signing for $250,000 out of the Dominican Republic and spending most of the summer as a 16-year-old pitcher in pro ball. Up until the week he turned 17, Soto got four games of extended relief work, going three innings each time out, which included two saves before transitioning to a traditional rotation role in early July. Over the season, Soto performed remarkably well, posting a 1.64 ERA over 44 innings with a 4-1 record. On this next note, I must include that the nature of a complete game and/or shutout in the DSL has some caveats as pitching all innings (or outs) of a shorter scheduled or weather shortened game can be called a "complete game/shutout" in the statistics and does not need to be a complete seven-or-nine inning effort. On that note, Soto threw two (shortened) shutouts over the summer, making him the first to have multiple shutouts or complete games since Daniel Hurtado and Eswarlin Jimenez in 2011 and fifth in affiliate history to have multiple in a season. His two shutouts were the 12th and 13th in affiliate history since record-keeping became public in 2006. Soto, a tall and loose right-hander, has all the projection traits of a starter at the next level with three pitches he mixes well in an upper 80's-to-low 90's fastball that touches 92, and feel for a curveball and changeup with advanced feel for working near the zone.
Though Soto was initially the top bonus pitcher for the Angels 2023 international class, Francis Texido was signed for the same dollar figure at $250,000 two months later after leaving Cuba in September. Texido -- the leader in ERA (0.69) for Cuba's U-18 club (source: Francys Romero, MLB) -- went from being one of the top amateur arms in Cuba to the workhorse of the Angels DSL affiliate, getting the opening day nod and never looked back posting a 2.31 ERA in 50.2 innings with 61 strikeouts, 12 walks, and 0.947 WHIP. The 18-year-old collected six wins on the season, which was tied for 10th most in a single-season for the affiliate, while his 61 strikeouts were 20th most (as noted with Acosta, all players above Texido had the luxury of a 72-game season). Tall and loose, the left-handed pitcher has a low 90's fastball with significant sink that creates weak groundball contact, while he also incorporates a curve, slider and changeup which show enough current merit and advanced command to believe in a four-pitch starter mix through development.
Among the youngest pitchers in professional baseball over the season, Davidxon Lara went from a relatively unknown amateur who signed for $50,000 out of Venezuela, to a pitcher of note in the Angels low minors. The undersized right-hander is a good on-mound athlete with advanced command and feel for the zone. Through his first six games, Lara faced 118 batters and walked just one which included a stretch of 101 batters faced without permitting a walk. Though he would walk four of the final 43 batters he faced (*sarcastically gasps*), Lara showed an advanced ability to mix his pitches and work around the zone, spending all but his final three starts over the summer as a 16-year-old. Lara operates mostly in the upper 80's and low 90's and touched 93 over the summer, with decent feel for a mid-70's curveball and mid 80's changeup. His size (5'10/165) may limit his ceiling, but Lara has the current traits of a future starter with plenty of youth to bank on.
Other DSL Notables:
Signed on the older side of the international amateur market, right-handed pitcher Anel Cabrera signed with the Angels in April as a 20-year-old and spent the summer in the DSL where his 1.25 ERA was second lowest across the entire league (trailing only Adrian Acosta, 1.17; min. 40 IP). The low ERA mark was third best in affiliate history among those with 40-or-more innings pitched... After spending two seasons as the DSL Yankees closer, Ruben Castillo was released by the pinstripes in May and quickly signed with the Angels three weeks later as a 21-year-old minor league free agent. Castillo served as the DSL Angels closer with a 39.0 K% and nine saves, which is tied for the most in affiliate single-season history with Jorge Tavarez (2016)... The DSL Angels finished their season going 37-18, holding the sixth best record in the 50-team league and earning a wildcard spot in the DSL Playoffs. As a team, they had; the third most stolen bases (121), 10th highest batting average (.257), 2nd lowest ERA (3.25), 3rd lowest H/9 (6.9), 4th lowest WHIP (1.311), 10th highest K/9 (9.7), and 10th highest K/BB (2.00). (*NOTE*: At the release of this article the DSL Angels are in the middle of a best-of-three opening playoff series with the DSL Phillies, splitting the first two games. This note will be updated upon completion of the series and/or DSL playoffs.)
After spending the first part of this article down in Boca Chica, let's head north for the rest of the article to Tempe and the Arizona Complex League where a pair of players jumped into prospect status while others have started to create a name for themselves in the low minors.
Signed as a defense-first shortstop from the Dominican Republic for $150,000, Capri Ortiz changed the script this summer in Arizona and has become of the biggest risers in the Angels system. Splitting his pro debut in halves, Ortiz struggled to start in the DSL in 2022, having a .522 OPS in his first 26 games, but turned the corner and posted a .793 OPS in his final 26 games. He carried that late success into instructional league where he became a player of note for the organization and then had a loud presence based on his speed and defense this summer in the ACL. His on-paper performance leaves a bit to be desired in a .273/.374/.345 slash line with a near 30% strikeout rate but the Angels liked his aggression in the box and on the basepaths and ability to adjust to switch-hitting which he started near the midway point of the season, with some promising signs in his ability to hit from both sides. Listed at six-foot and 150-pounds, there is significant weight and strength that needs to be added to the frame to tap into any form of power as Ortiz's game is more suited for slapping the ball through the infield or flaring a ball to the outfield while maintaining his line drive swing. When he puts the ball in play though, he can cause havoc. Posting the occasional sub-4 home-to-first time, Ortiz is more in the 4.0 to 4.1 range which grades above plus but under plus-plus, but his ability to utilize that speed only enhances the tool. Ortiz stole 30 bases over the summer which set a new affiliate record surpassing Aneury Almonte's 28 in 2002, and ranked 16th all-time in league history for a single season while being the most in the league since Monte Harrison stole 32 bases in 2014. Of note, Ortiz's 39 runs scored were the most for a single season at the affiliate since Rolando Gomez (48) and Randal Grichuk (47) in 2009. Along with 18-year-old's speed is the ability to handle a premium defensive position with ease as his quick feet allow him to cover plenty of ground at shortstop, while his internal clock allows him to slow the pace of the game and let his quick release and average arm do the rest. Ortiz may never grow into offensive impact and be more suitable as a bench player by the time he nears the Majors, but his speed and defense give merit to his future role at the upper levels while the bat will dictate whether or not be becomes an everyday player.
When doing my post-season rounds last October to accumulate information for prospect rankings, one name jumped out as one I had never heard previously mentioned as a "prospect" but a standout performance in the DSL (which was noted in this article last year) and during instructional league left me curious about someone who "could be the next Edgar Quero". Though the results of Quero haven't been matched quite yet, Dario Laverde has put his name on the map for Angels prospects and has put up similar performance markers with similar tools to a young Quero to make sense of the comparison. The left-handed hitting catcher who signed for $350,000 out of Venezuela had a .306/.419/.455 slash line with 28 walks and 31 strikeouts on the year as an 18-year-old, while his 123 wRC+ was in the 74th percentile across the league. Laverde started catching around a year prior to signing as a professional, converting from the outfield, and has plenty of raw traits behind the plate that have to be refined before trusting him as a long-term backstop. His arm can grade out as average or better, but his transfer and footwork may need an overhaul to allow his arm to play. An outstanding athlete, Laverde has solid lateral movement and blocking skills, so there is a foundation and building blocks to keep him behind the plate. For as raw as his defense is, his offensive skillset is far more polished than most in his age range. Laverde is a disciplined hitter with a focus on seeing pitches and driving pitches in his hot zone to the gaps. There isn't much power in his five-foot-10 frame, but enough to believe his contactability will translate into the occasional over-the-fence pop. Though it may be hard to project Laverde into what Quero became (Top-100 prospect who warranted a Lucas Giolito return), Laverde has the tools to dream on a platoon catcher with offensive upside and he will become the Angels top catching prospect upon Logan O'Hoppe's prospect graduation.

(Dario Laverde - Photo by Jerry Espinoza)
Signed for $235,000, Anthony Scull was part of a duo from Cuba who signed with the Angels on September 6, 2021, joining Jorge Marcheco. Both got a quick trip to Boca Chica where Scull was able to play 10 games with some lackluster performance and was initially assigned back to the DSL to start 2022, but after one plate appearance was sent back stateside to Arizona where he performed well in a limited 13-game sample. Scull repeated his offensive success in 2023, slashing .300/.377/.453 with seven doubles, five triples, and three home runs. Scull started the season with a 12-game hitting streak and collected a hit in 24 of his first 27 games while batting .363 and having an OPS that hovered around 1.000 throughout. His bat cooled off for the latter half of his season hitting .206 in his final 21 games with a 33.3 K% (13.7 K% in first 27 games). The 19-year-old outfielder is more a sum of all parts kind of player as opposed to having a real standout or carrying tool, not dissimilar to fellow Angels Cuban farmhand Orlando Martinez. The son of former Cuban baseball star and Olympian, Antonio, the younger Scull has a swing reminiscent to his father with a closed stance, short load, and present bat speed that make him a line-to-line hitter with focus on the bat being his ability to utilize the barrel and occasionally tap into some gap power, while his defense may be limited to a corner outfield position as he's only a fringe athlete. There's a lot to like about the overall package Scull provides and players of his caliber sometimes turn into platoon-type players at the upper levels and into the Majors, though his status as a prospect remains limited.
After turning heads in his pro debut in the Dominican, Luis Torres carried his near unmatched DSL year into video game type numbers to start his sophomore pro season in Arizona, slashing .583/.659/.889 in his first 10 games which included four doubles, two triples, and a home run. He earned a quick promotion to Low-A Inland Empire where he had a three-hit game in his full season debut and three more hits in the two games following but quickly cooled off against elder and more polished talent collecting just five hits in his next 15 games and was sent back to Arizona. Some inconsistencies came in his second stint with the ACL affiliate as he hit .250 with a .719 OPS and 29.1 K% in his final 19 games with Tempe. For the bulk and completion of his season, his 150 wRC+ was seventh best across the league among hitters with 100+ plate appearances. The inconsistencies haven't deterred Torres' status as a low-level follow (as opposed to a solidified prospect), but the 19-year-old Dominican still may have finally seen his free and loose swing be exposed to some holes while he began to chase at more pitches out of the zone with both approach and swing refinements needed. Signed for $10,000 in February 2022, Torres has a large physique that allows him to tap into hard contact and over-the-fence power from the right side. Though he's limited to first base only defensively, Torres has enough feel for hitting and the power production to continue monitoring how he can cut down his chase rates and overswing tendencies to potentially grow into a prospect with a likely trip to full season ball next season.
Cristian Garcia has spent the last three summers between the DSL and ACL with steady performance based mostly on plate discipline. Garcia, a 19-year-old corner infielder, has progressively walked his way through Rookie Ball (pun intended) with his 2023 campaign seeing 37 free passes, which rank fourth in Angels AZL/ACL affiliate history and the most since 1993. There isn't much in terms of prospect status when it comes to Garcia, as he's a fringy athlete with a below-average hit tool, but players of his caliber tend to make waves for their on-base percentage in the low minors and grow into monitoring status as they progress through development in hopes that more repetition can turn particular offensive tool into a fringe/average skill. On the season, Garcia slashed .266/.418/.413.
Drafted by the Angels in the fourth-round of the 2019 MLB Draft, Erik Rivera is one of just seven remaining players drafted and signed by the Angels in that class. Rivera was drafted as a two-way player with upside as a power hitting outfielder from the left side and power southpaw on the mound. Following the draft, the Angels sent him out strictly as a designated hitter and it was evident his future would be on the mound which would wait until the following season which would not occur due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In his first pro pitching outing, Rivera tossed over three scoreless with Low-A Inland Empire, allowing a hit and a walk while striking out six, but saw his velocity dip quickly in his final outing. It's been a long road for Rivera since that point as a tear in his UCL required Tommy John surgery followed by some unspecified complications which caused him to miss the rest of the 2021 season, all of the 2022 season, and most of the 2023 season. Rivera returned to the mound on the second day of August this summer for the first time in over two years but showed similar tools to what made him such an alluring pitching prospect prior to surgery. He came out sitting 92-93 while touching 96 over the summer, while still flashing a plus changeup and signs of a breaking ball. Control dogged Rivera through his five brief outings in Arizona, as he walked 13 of the 37 batters, he faced but when he was near the zone, he was unhittable allowing just three hits to those same 37, striking out 11. Though he's an elder statesman for a low-level arm at 22-years-old, Rivera being healthy and green on the mound is a boon for the Angels pitching depth, particularly with so few left-handed pitching prospects. He'll need to show more command and control to return to his prospect status from prior years, but the raw package remains near the same as when he was a highly touted youngster after the draft.
A standout from extended spring, Keythel Key is a relatively unknown pitching project who has garnered some attention as a low-level arm with tools that could carry him into more than organization filler status. Most of Key's success comes in flashes as opposed to frequency, which was evident in his summer in the ACL where he had performed on par with most of the league average, posting a 4.53 ERA, while walking 32 and striking out 40 over 43.2 innings. Key is a tall and lean 19-year-old with good on-mound athleticism who operates mostly in the low 90's with some mids in the bag, with a slider that flashes average. There's a lot of raw tools -- particularly in fastball command and ability to consistently snap his breaking ball -- but enough to like about Key and his athletic markers and projection to continue monitoring him.
Of the Angels 19 draft picks in 2023, 13 started their pro career in Tempe. Nolan Schanuel (1st round), Alberto Rios (3rd round), Joe Redfield (4th round), Cole Fontenelle (7th round), Caleb Ketchup (15th round), and Mac McCroskey (20th round) all got less than a handful of games each before shipping out to affiliates, with Schanuel being the clear standout not only as a first-rounder but as a Major Leaguer only 21 games into his pro career. Seven of the 13 found less temporary residence in Arizona and spent the full start of their pro careers in Tempe. John Wimmer (11th round), an athletic shortstop with spark plug offensive upside from Rock Hill High School (SC), struggled against elder pitching in nine games, striking out in half of his plate appearances with a .432 OPS. Rio Foster (16th round), an athletic and physical high-ceiling outfielder from Florence-Darlington Tech (SC), struggled in a brief eight games as his active swing brought swing-and-miss with it, striking out 10 times in 25 plate appearances with a .414 OPS. Opposite his draft mates, Raudi Rodriguez (19th round) hit pro ball in stride over a brief 12 games, slashing .368/.415/.447, despite being viewed as the rawer product and free swinger of the previously mentioned pair. In recent years under Perry Minasian's regime, the Angels have pivoted savings from the second day of the draft to go well over slot with an early teen pick, but altered that course this year (in a way) and had their big bonus player come in the eighth-round in Barrett Kent, a tall and projectable right-handed pitcher from Pottsboro High School (TX) with a low-to-mid 90's fastball and trio of off-speed offerings that could grade out as average. Kent pitched well in his brief pro debut, allowing six baserunners without permitting a run while recording 14 outs over two stints, striking out five. Chase Gockel (9th round), a right-handed pitching grad student from Quincy University with a mid-90's fastball, struggled to find the zone in four brief outings walking 12 of the 23 batters he faced. Riley Bauman (13th round), a right-handed pitcher from Abilene Christian who returned from Tommy John late this spring showing a mid-90's sinker, got a quick taste of post-surgery action in pro ball allowing five runs in four innings of work. 
The Angels transitioned catcher Straton Podaras, infielder Christian Sepulveda, and outfielder Darwin Moreno to the mound progressively through the summer, with all sitting around 89-91 and topping around 93. This wasn't dissimilar to what they did with Logan Britt and Mario Zabala. Both Britt and Zabala were draft prospects as prep outfielders in 2020 but their star dwindled during their collegiate careers. Britt faced three batters in college (Abilene Christian) before the Angels took him as a pitcher in the 17th-round in 2023. Zabala was a two-year starter at Florida International but was limited to pinch-running duties his junior season with just 15 batters faced on the mound with minimal success, but the Angels consider both as pitchers at this point and will continue their development as such. I have no report on Britt or Zabala as pitchers currently.
Other ACL Notables: 
The Angels hit the NDFA/UDFA (whichever/whatever you want to call it) market quick and heavily after the draft signing some of the more notable non-drafted draft prospects with the headliners being catcher Caleb Bartolero (Troy), shortstop Andy Blake (Columbia), and outfielder Landon Wallace (West Virginia). Bartolero and Blake played well, albeit in six game stints each, in Arizona while Wallace went hitless in his first four games, he turned the corner quickly over his final six games going 8-for-14 (.571). Infielder Will McGillis (South Carolina) was not among the notable UDFA's but took advantage of his collegiate experience as a 24-year-old sporting a .378/.525/.644 slash line in 59 plate appearances, collecting hits in 12 of the 15 games he played and reaching base safely in 14. His 191 wRC+ was second highest across the league among hitters with 50-or-more plate appearances...
For the third consecutive season, Alex Martinez has held court in the Angels ACL bullpen, as his 1.17 ERA in 2023 was third lowest across the league (min. 20 IP). The undersized right-hander who is fastball dominant has now spent the last three summers in Arizona with a combined 0.92 ERA, 14.1 K/9, and 37.2 K%...
18-year-old outfielder Ramon Ramirez was an offensive staple to the DSL Angels in 2022 and garnered attention as more than just a low-level organization filler though not quite into prospect status. After collecting one hit in his first six games with sparse playing time, the left-handed hitter got back into a hitting groove over his last 12 games hitting .313 with five extra-base hits and a .965 OPS...
Randy de Jesus was a touted amateur outfielder from the Dominican Republic when the Angels signed him for $1.2 million in 2022, but his first taste of stateside ball left some questions about the consistency his bat will offer. Scouts still like the foundation de Jesus provides but there is a lot of fine tuning before tapping into even part of the finished product which still may be a power-only offensive base with too much swing-and-miss to get to any ceiling. Splitting his seasons into quarters, his final three-quarters showed glimpses of success with a .282/.343/.366 slash line and much lower 23.0 K% compared to the 29.6 K% in his first 12 games... Three players who suffered season-ending leg or knee injuries in 2022 returned to action in 2023 in the likes of infielders Edgar Alfonso and Luis Rodriguez, and outfielder Natanael Santana. Alfonso, 19, is a light-hitting speedster from Cuba who didn't showcase his plus to plus-plus speed on the basepaths frequently during the season but walked a bit and hit .247 over 35 games. Rodriguez, 18, was a big-bonus baby out of Venezuela on the international market (though his actual bonus has differing reports and has not been confirmed to this writer) who showed impressive tools at instructional league in 2022 and got his first taste of pro ball in 2023 in Arizona performing around league average with a .791 OPS and two home runs. Santana, 22, became a name to follow in 2021 after showcasing impressive power and speed tools from an impressive physique but was sidelined in 2022 with a knee injury. The raw offensive product is still in play for Santana as he struck out in nearly 35% of his plate appearances but still showcased the same tools as before. It's unlikely he'll be able to hit enough to hit his immense ceiling, and may be forever stuck in the low minors, but remains an interesting follow.
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Torii Hunter may be one of the most beloved former Angels in the history of their franchise so we wanted to pull some of our greatest hits from our old Blog into one column to reminisce a true fan favorite. 
Let's start off with David Saltzer's piece, titled - Torii Hunter, my favorite Angel followed by Coral Marshall's Torii Hunter: A True All-Star. David Saltzer catches up with Torii Hunter in an interview (video) while he was promoting the Pepsi Max Field of Dreams and finally Brian Waller wraps it up in his All Good Things Must Come to an End article on Hunter. 
Enjoy some of our finest through the years on one of our favorite all-time Angels. 
Torii Hunter, My Favorite Angel

By David Saltzer - AngelsWin.com Senior Writer
August 4th, 2010
Years from now, Angels fans might look back on August 3rd, 2010 as the day the Peter Bourjos era began. He is a speedy, dynamic, defensively gifted outfielder who may become an integral part of the Angels’ future. But for me, I’ll remember the day as the day Torii Hunter became my favorite Angel player on the team.
No one likes getting older. When I close my eyes, I don’t picture myself as the person I am standing in front of the mirror. I picture myself as the person I was in my prime, about 10 years ago—the guy with the full head of hair, who could bench a lot more, and who weighed a bit less.
I’m just a few years older than Torii, so it’s not too hard for me to relate to the aging process. While my prime may have been a lot better than I am today, it never will come close to the athleticism that Torii had in his prime. Heck, my prime couldn’t touch his worst. So, it must be much harder for Torii to witness the inevitable toll that time takes on us all.
When Torii Hunter, a nine-time Gold Glove winner in centerfield to agreed to move to right field so that Peter Bourjos could take over center, it took a lot of humility on his part. Torii said "I didn't sleep for three, four days. I prayed about it, thought about it . . . I think we need to do something different.”
I’m sure that this decision didn’t come over easy for Torii. He’s a highly skilled, highly paid, and highly liked player. He’s vocal about what he thinks the team needs in order to win. He is the team’s de facto captain. He didn’t need to make this move. And yet, he did it. Rather than fighting it, he embraced it. In an era of mega-egos, Torii, the face of the franchise, owned the decision to take a back seat to the kid. "This is my decision. This isn't their decision." By stepping aside, he made the team better and gave the team its best shot to win.
As an Angels fan, I want to see the best players on the field playing their hardest every day. I want to see the players playing with passion—running out every play as if it were their only chance to win a spot on the field. I want the players playing selflessly, not selfishly. But more importantly, I want to see the Angels win. I want to see the players doing whatever it takes to win it all—even if it comes at the expense of their individual goals.
"I could say I want to go for that 10th Gold Glove . . . But sometimes you've got to slap pride in the face and all that individual stuff – the Gold Glove stuff – you can let that go . . . All I care about is winning, I need a ring. I've been to the playoffs seven times and haven't won anything. I haven't been to the World Series yet, not even to lose . . . If this makes the team better, I'm going to do it."
With those words and with his actions on the field, Torii showed me that his passion to win is as great as my passion to see the Angels win. He wants to win a ring as badly as I want to see them win another championship. He willingly put aside his personal goals to see the team win some bigger goals. As a fan, I couldn’t be more grateful to have him as a player.
Baseball teaches a lot of life lessons. Sometimes it says in order to win you have to swing for the fence and hit a home run—the ultimate individual achievement. But other times, it also says, in order to be a winner, you sometimes have to lay down a sacrifice. Over the years, I’ve seen Torii hit a lot of homers but I can’t recall ever seeing him lay down a bunt—until today. By moving aside for Bourjos, Torii laid down a perfect sacrifice for the team.
Ever since Tim Salmon retired, I’ve been asked by many people “who is my current favorite player on the team?” And, while there are plenty of good players to like, I haven’t had a clear favorite until now. Today I’m proud to say that Torii Hunter is my favorite current Angels player. He is the ultimate and rare champion—one who plays with a selfless passion to win.
Torri Hunter: A True All-Star

By Coral Marshall - Angelswin.com Columnist
May 18th, 2009
For someone who has won the Gold Glove for eight consecutive seasons, Torii Hunter is a guy who doesn't get much credit when it comes to the All-Star Game. Sure, a career .273 batting average with about 25 home runs a year are not the numbers one expects from an All-Star outfielder (think Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle or Ted Williams). Instead, Hunter's overall numbers are more akin to former Angel Fred Lynn, an All-Star who didn't make it to the game for the last seven seasons of his career. (He too averaged 25 homers a year and a .283 batting average, only .010 higher than Torii's.)
But the All-Star Game isn't about comparing the past with the present; it is about electing who is most deserving in the early months of a season to a game that not only celebrates the players who have done the best so far, but also determines which league gets home field advantage in the World Series. This should not be about fans only electing big name players, or players from their favorite team, yet it inevitably comes down to that; evidenced by the fact that fans are not allowed to vote for pitchers, perhaps even more telling is the election of David Ortiz to play first base when games are in National League parks and designated hitters are not used. But fans of the game of baseball should instead vote for the players who will give them the best game possible, especially since each team is required to have at least one player represented on the roster.
If the Angels are to have only one player on this roster, Torii Hunter is most deserving this season. This isn't to say that Mike Napoli and others have not stepped up to the plate metaphorically, but rather that Hunter has exceeded all expectations in Vladimir Guerrero's absence. While Napoli, Gary Matthews Jr., Bobby Abreu, Juan Rivera and the rest of the team have really come through in the trying times the Angels have faced with this season's injuries, Hunter has displayed the fielding and batting expertise necessary to hold the team together, which does not even include his clubhouse presence — which one can deduce from player interviews keeps everyone in good spirits.
Instead of making the All-Star Game a who's who of baseball, fans should work to honor those who have made a difference on the field and carried their team to this point in the season. Torri Hunter has become a prime example of this. His defense is unmatched, as shown by the aforementioned Gold Gloves, and not to mention his almost nightly appearance on baseball highlight reels. And to be honest, the numbers don't lie — Hunter has a perfect fielding percentage so far this year; that means no errors.
His offense has been impressive so far this season, too. Before Sunday's game, the Angels had a total of 27 home runs this season, of which Hunter had hit 9; that's one-third of the total for the team. (Is anyone else reminded of Babe Ruth in the 1920s by that kind of percentage?) His total ranks him No. 10 in the AL. His at-bats-per-homer ratio is an impressive No. 10 in the league, as well. With 14-plus position players in a game like the All-Star Game, where players are likely to only get one or two at bats for the entire game, this is a highly important statistic. The fewer at bats, on average, it takes for a player to hit a home run the more likely in any game (let alone a game that they will more than likely not bat the minimum three times) they are to do so, increasing the odds of scoring at one time rather than having to put together a rally. While his batting average may not have him on any leader boards before Sunday's game, he was batting .317 this season (an entire .029 points higher than his highest single season average), and more importantly his .611 Slugging Percentage ranks him ninth in the American League, while his 1.012 On-Base Plus Slugging percentage puts him at eighth.
Hunter has not only stood out amongst the Halos this year, but amongst the entire league. Who knows, with these numbers, maybe by the end of the season this will become a petition for an MVP instead of an All-Star Game bid.
Promoting the Pepsi Max Field of Dreams, AngelsWin.com got a chance to interview 9-time Gold Glove winner Torii Hunter.
August 2nd, 2011
All Good Things Must Come to an End

By Brian Waller - AngelsWin.com Columnist
Nov 6th, 2012
All good things must come to an end, and it appears as though fan favorite Torii Hunter’s days in a Halo’s uniform have come to an end; with the door only slightly cracked for the mayor of “Toriitown” to return. After signing a 5 year $90-million deal with the Angels on November 22, 2007 Hunter seemed like the perfect fit for the team. Sure his contract was a little on the pricey side and sure he didn’t appear on paper as the “impact” player the team had been seeking the previous season or so but none the less the marriage seemed perfect; it was consummated at a Del Taco after all.

From afar, I think we all could agree that Hunter was and is the type of player that any fan would love to have on their team. The former 1st round pick of the 1993 amateur draft spent 9 full seasons in Minnesota where he made two All-Star appearances and compiled 192 home runs, 711 rbi’s, swiped 126 bases all while hitting .271 with a .793 OPS. Perhaps Hunter’s most impressive attribute on the field was not his offense, but what he did defensively. In those same 9 seasons with the Twins, Hunter racked up 7 Gold Glove awards and proved himself to be one of the best defenders in Major League Baseball.
As an Angel fan I can honestly say I was pleased with the signing at the time and figured he would be a great addition to the team both offensively and defensively. What I didn’t take into consideration however was the impact Hunter would have on the Angels’ clubhouse as well as the Southern California community. Through the years Hunter has contributed to many charities including his own, the “Torii Hunter Project Education” Initiative, which provides college scholarships to students in California, Arkansas, Nevada and Minnesota. Hunter is also very involved in a partnership with Major League Baseball to help maintain and improve baseball diamonds in inner cities as well as the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the “Big Brother” program. In 2009 Hunter was acknowledged for his hard work in the community and charitable services when he was presented with the Branch Rickey Award; an honor bestowed upon those in the MLB that go above in beyond in the community and who show excellence in charity work.
Hunter became something the Angels hadn’t had since Tim Salmon retired; a face of the franchise. Hunter became the voice of the clubhouse, someone who from afar, seemed to put the team on his shoulders when needed and handled the media when things got rough. He was the cheerleader in the off season reaching out to players to sign with the Angels; players like Carl Crawford, C.J. Wilson, etc. As a fan it was both enjoyable and refreshing to see a player so passionate about his team he would take to Twitter and other media outlets to entice free agents to done Angels red; even though it didn’t always work out.  Hunter’s leadership qualities really became apparent when he voluntarily moved from center field to right field in 2011 to make room for a speedy Peter Bourjos and eventually Mike Trout. Rather than show bitterness and shun the up and coming players, Hunter took his years of knowledge and helped teach the youngsters because he knew it was best for the team. When you really take a step back and realize that a player who had won nine consecutive gold gloves in center field during his career made such an unselfish move you really appreciate just what type of player and person Hunter is.
Hunter would go on to become a solid contributor to the Halos on the field. He won his 8th and 9th Gold Glove awards while with the Angels and also won the only Silver Slugger award of his career in 2009 (thus far). Hunter made the All-Star team twice; most notably in 2010 when the All-Star game was hosted at the “Big A”. Although injury prevented Hunter from participating in the All-Star game it still gave the fans a tremendous sense of pride having one of their own and the face of the franchise voted in to the annual summer classic. Hunter would go on to hit 105 hr, 432 rbi’s, steal 60 bases and hit .286 with an .814 OPS during his 5 year stint in Anaheim; numbers that are not necessarily “eye popping” but again, his value cannot be measured in mere stats.
Watching a fan favorite change teams is never easy, it’s all most like a break up of sorts with the Angels telling Torii “it’s not you….it’s me”. Although both sides may appear to part ways amicably there always will be lingering feelings due to just how intermingled the two were due to Hunter being the face of the franchise. We all have our favorite “Torii moments” and although it is easy to get wrapped up and attached to players we do need to realize it is a business. Hunter has intangibles that can’t be given a stat and won’t show up on the back of a baseball card; how important those intangibles are remains to be seen. The Halos will most likely find out in 2013 what life is like without Hunter and hopefully the dollars saved are worth his absence and will be put to good use.

(Capri Ortiz - Photo by Jerry Espinoza)
By Taylor Blake Ward, AngelsWin.com Columnist
Last year, I started this article with a caveat that is necessary when talking about the Dominican Summer League and Arizona Complex League (which will be referred to as DSL and ACL for simplicity throughout the article). The age variance between leagues can alter the performance of any given player significantly, as ages can vary from 16-years-old to 22-years-old in the DSL and 17-years-old to 24-years-old in the ACL. Comparing the performances from a player who may be the age of a high school sophomore or junior to that of one who would be the same age as someone with a four-year college degree and baseball pedigree at a top-notch program leaves plenty of room for error in the on-paper outlook. Most of these kids or young men have yet to grow into their bodies and power may be at minimal production. Some pitchers may have matured into low-to-mid 90's fastballs and explosive breaking balls while others hardly top out in the mid 80's with no current secondary offering to speak of. Control and command for pitchers is sparse and raw, so on-base percentages are inflated due to a high number of walks. It is always fun to look at on paper performance, but each player will come with his own variance where age and experience will play a vital part in how to look at each individual performance and must be taken with a grain of salt.
If you're going to put emphasis on statistics and performance, there are some isolation performance points you'll need to focus on to see indicators for future success through development and advancement, with one consistent for both hitters and pitchers that tend to carry into development upwards of the mid-minors. For hitters, contact rate and strikeout percentages are large future indicators of ability to hit. While you never want to throw away walk rates, it's already been mentioned those will be inflated because of young pitchers inability to work around the strike zone with consistency. That is where you would want to key in on pitchers is ability to throw strikes as an isolation point of how they'll fare in the future. Strike-throwing ability (i.e., BB%, BB/9) does come as a raw base for being able to do the same at the next level without getting into athletic markers for future command. Control is a fine thing to see on paper and will come prior to command, which is needed for advancement through development into any future Major League role(s).
Before diving in, there is one last note I want to make as we will touch on the record books. The Dominican Summer League (DSL) has been in existence since 1985, with the Angels having an affiliate since 1992 taking a year away in 1997 with a shared affiliate in 1993 (Dodgers), 1996 (Rays), and 1998 (White Sox). Public statistics and records only date back to 2006, which leaves us with only 17 years of basic statistical data, and 13 seasons without. Up until 2019, the DSL had a 72-game schedule, with 2021 being delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a truncated season. In 2022, a scheduling change took place where the DSL season was shortened to 56 games with clubs getting every Wednesday and Sunday off. The reason I mention this is that within my own personal record book I file away in a tab in my notebook (statistics garnered from Baseball-Reference), you will see some players in this article mentioned as being noted within the single-season records but notably off the top. You can only project so much on performance, but with players in 2022 and 2023 getting 16 less games scheduled, it's noteworthy to say a player tapped into the top 10 single season records with an idea they would have reached further up the list with those extra 16 games. You don't run into the same problem with the Arizona Complex League as a 56-game schedule has been consistent throughout its' existence starting in 1988, with the Angels participating in the league from 1989-1996 and 2001 to present and public records held throughout all of league history.
With all the caveats and notes out of the way, let's dive into some of the top performers and prospects from the Angels Rookie Ball affiliates, starting with those who spent their summer in Boca Chica with the DSL affiliate:
After missing most of his pro debut in 2022 with a broken hamate, Kevyn Castillo had arguably the best offensive season in Angels DSL history. The Venezuelan outfielder's slash line of .371/.478/.548 has never been seen before at the affiliate, with his batting average and on-base percentage being the highest among players with over 100 plate appearances, and his slugging percentage trailing only Luis Torres in 2022 (.571) -- and of course, the highest OPS in affiliate history under the same measures. Excluding doubles and home runs, Castillo ranked in the top 10 of nearly every affiliate single-season record, with 44 runs scored (tied-10th), 69 hits (10th), seven triples (tied-fifth), 35 RBI (tied-10th), 23 stolen bases (tied-ninth), 40 walks (ninth), and 102 total bases (tied-sixth). Castillo collected a hit in 42 of the 55 games he played, while reaching base safely in 50, while his 171 wRC+ was fourth across the DSL among qualified hitters. Castillo, signed for $10,000 during the 2022 international signing period, flashes four tools with power being the lesser of the group. He's an above-average runner or better with the ability to handle all three outfield positions with a fine arm for the corners (he had four assists on the season).
The Angels priority international signee for 2023 was Felix Morrobel, a shortstop from the Dominican Republic who signed for $900,000. In the 17-year-old's pro debut was solid with a .286/.322/.335 slash line with 11 stolen bases and 21 runs scored, which helped earn him a DSL All-Star nod. Despite a highly-aggressive approach, Morrobel limited his swing-and-miss at a near uncanny clip, with four of his 13 strikeouts on the season coming in his first 20 plate appearances and then just nine over his next 150 plate appearances, giving him the third lowest strikeout percentage (7.6%) of the 299 qualified hitters in the DSL in 2023. A switch-hitter, Morrobel's ability to manipulate the barrel was evident over the summer, while his power production (0 HR, .344 SLG, .050 ISO) was notably minimal (0 HR, .344 SLG, .050 ISO) and only seen to the gaps as the Angels await his physical maturation where his power projection remains below-average as a hit-over-power offensive type. Morrobel's primary carrying tool is his defense at shortstop where he is a highly athletic defender with quick feet and good internal clock to slow the pace of the game, with an above-average arm giving more confidence to his future outlook as an eventual Major Leaguer as the bat continues to progress.
Though it didn't come with the external fanfare of the Morrobel signing, the Angels were internally very excited over the signing of Juan Flores. Signing for $280,000, Flores was renowned as one of the best amateur defensive catchers in Venezuela and in the 2023 international signing class. That defense was on full display during his pro debut this summer as a 17-year-old, both on paper and the eye test, as he threw out 26-of-49 would be base stealers (53%) with just four passed balls in over 300 innings of work behind the plate. Already advanced defensively, Flores showed all the traits of long-term catching prowess with quiet receiving and framing with lateral mobility and a plus (or plus-plus pending evaluator) arm. His hitting is less rudimentary than thought while going into pro ball as he had a fine approach at the plate with some upper body overswing tendencies leading to groundballs, but also some over-the-fence power where his six home runs were fifth all-time for a single-season at the affiliate. Though his on-base percentage was partially inflated by being hit-by-pitches 15 times which ranked second on affiliate history -- trailing only Leonardo Rivas in 2015 (17) -- everything else in his offensive performance stayed in check with a .236/.352/.388 slash line and 102 wRC+. There is no question about Flores' defense while the bat will dictate what his future role would/could be, whether a high-level filler, backup, or even everyday regular at the Major League level. Between Morrobel and Flores, mixed in with Nelson Rada and Capri Ortiz, the Angels have a solid defensive foundation up the middle in the low levels of the minors.
Oswaldo Patino was a lesser-touted signing in the 2023 international class who put pen to paper for $65,000 as a smaller Venezuelan infielder, but his pro debut carried some excitement, particularly as one of the youngest in the league at 16-years-old. A contact-first hitter, Patino kept his swing-and-miss in check while his discipline and walk rates were off the charts at 25%. Among players in the DSL with 80-or-more plate appearances, his walk rates ranked 14th across the league among 1000+ players, while his on-base percentage (.513) ranked second (You can do the math if you want but it's the 99.9th percentile in both categories). Though I mentioned Kevyn Castillo as having the highest single-season OBP in affiliate history, that was among players with over 200, or 150, or 100 plate appearances -- or in simpler terms: qualified hitters -- but looking at Patino's on-base percentage in a smaller dosage of plate appearances (80 total PA), it is the highest OBP mark in affiliate history outside of two players who shared a combined 13 plate appearances, giving credence to the record books albeit in smaller sample than qualification. There isn't much ceiling to Patino who is a contact-first second base only infielder, but always worth monitoring when video game numbers are put up.
Receiving the fourth largest bonus from the Angels in the 2023 international class, Edwardo Espinal has his season and pro debut delayed until mid-July after breaking his thumb during extended spring. The 17-year-old signed for around $250,000 out of the Dominican Republic as a toolsy outfielder with upside in the bat. With only 22 games played over the summer, it was his final 11 that were attentive and had the Angels happy about his future as he slashed .290/.372/.368 in the final half of his truncated season.
One of the biggest risers in the Angels farm system is Adrian Acosta, a right-handed pitcher who signed late in the 2022 signing period for $10,000 out of the Dominican Republic and saw a velocity jump in 2023 that made his sophomore pro season one of the best in affiliate history. In his 10 starts over the summer, he never allowed more than two runs while striking out five-or-more in each outing excluding his first. Acosta was named a starter in the DSL All-Star game where he went two innings and earned the victory. His 1.17 ERA led the entire DSL and was second best for a single-season in affiliate history among those who through over 40 innings (46.1 IP), trailing only Emilker Guzman who had a 1.02 ERA in 2017 (44 IP), while his 64 strikeouts were 19th all-time in a single-season for the affiliate and comes with the caveat that all above him had a 72-game season to work with. The 18-year-old saw a velocity spike over the summer with improved command that raised his prospect status, parking his fastball 92-95 and touching 96 on occasion. He compliments the fastball with a low-to-mid 80's slider that has enough current shape and feel to receive average or better future grades. With the fastball command progressing well and his on-mound athleticism, the Angels will continue giving Acosta the chance to start through the early stages of his pro career, though his changeup is well below-average offering (very firm and rudimentary) and will be a focus of development to keep him from a relief outlook.
Ubaldo Soto was the Angels top pitching signee from the recent international class, signing for $250,000 out of the Dominican Republic and spending most of the summer as a 16-year-old pitcher in pro ball. Up until the week he turned 17, Soto got four games of extended relief work, going three innings each time out, which included two saves before transitioning to a traditional rotation role in early July. Over the season, Soto performed remarkably well, posting a 1.64 ERA over 44 innings with a 4-1 record. On this next note, I must include that the nature of a complete game and/or shutout in the DSL has some caveats as pitching all innings (or outs) of a shorter scheduled or weather shortened game can be called a "complete game/shutout" in the statistics and does not need to be a complete seven-or-nine inning effort. On that note, Soto threw two (shortened) shutouts over the summer, making him the first to have multiple shutouts or complete games since Daniel Hurtado and Eswarlin Jimenez in 2011 and fifth in affiliate history to have multiple in a season. His two shutouts were the 12th and 13th in affiliate history since record-keeping became public in 2006. Soto, a tall and loose right-hander, has all the projection traits of a starter at the next level with three pitches he mixes well in an upper 80's-to-low 90's fastball that touches 92, and feel for a curveball and changeup with advanced feel for working near the zone.
Though Soto was initially the top bonus pitcher for the Angels 2023 international class, Francis Texido was signed for the same dollar figure at $250,000 two months later after leaving Cuba in September. Texido -- the leader in ERA (0.69) for Cuba's U-18 club (source: Francys Romero, MLB) -- went from being one of the top amateur arms in Cuba to the workhorse of the Angels DSL affiliate, getting the opening day nod and never looked back posting a 2.31 ERA in 50.2 innings with 61 strikeouts, 12 walks, and 0.947 WHIP. The 18-year-old collected six wins on the season, which was tied for 10th most in a single-season for the affiliate, while his 61 strikeouts were 20th most (as noted with Acosta, all players above Texido had the luxury of a 72-game season). Tall and loose, the left-handed pitcher has a low 90's fastball with significant sink that creates weak groundball contact, while he also incorporates a curve, slider and changeup which show enough current merit and advanced command to believe in a four-pitch starter mix through development.
Among the youngest pitchers in professional baseball over the season, Davidxon Lara went from a relatively unknown amateur who signed for $50,000 out of Venezuela, to a pitcher of note in the Angels low minors. The undersized right-hander is a good on-mound athlete with advanced command and feel for the zone. Through his first six games, Lara faced 118 batters and walked just one which included a stretch of 101 batters faced without permitting a walk. Though he would walk four of the final 43 batters he faced (*sarcastically gasps*), Lara showed an advanced ability to mix his pitches and work around the zone, spending all but his final three starts over the summer as a 16-year-old. Lara operates mostly in the upper 80's and low 90's and touched 93 over the summer, with decent feel for a mid-70's curveball and mid 80's changeup. His size (5'10/165) may limit his ceiling, but Lara has the current traits of a future starter with plenty of youth to bank on.
Other DSL Notables:
Signed on the older side of the international amateur market, right-handed pitcher Anel Cabrera signed with the Angels in April as a 20-year-old and spent the summer in the DSL where his 1.25 ERA was second lowest across the entire league (trailing only Adrian Acosta, 1.17; min. 40 IP). The low ERA mark was third best in affiliate history among those with 40-or-more innings pitched... After spending two seasons as the DSL Yankees closer, Ruben Castillo was released by the pinstripes in May and quickly signed with the Angels three weeks later as a 21-year-old minor league free agent. Castillo served as the DSL Angels closer with a 39.0 K% and nine saves, which is tied for the most in affiliate single-season history with Jorge Tavarez (2016)... The DSL Angels finished their season going 37-18, holding the sixth best record in the 50-team league and earning a wildcard spot in the DSL Playoffs. As a team, they had; the third most stolen bases (121), 10th highest batting average (.257), 2nd lowest ERA (3.25), 3rd lowest H/9 (6.9), 4th lowest WHIP (1.311), 10th highest K/9 (9.7), and 10th highest K/BB (2.00). (*NOTE*: At the release of this article the DSL Angels are in the middle of a best-of-three opening playoff series with the DSL Phillies, splitting the first two games. This note will be updated upon completion of the series and/or DSL playoffs.)
After spending the first part of this article down in Boca Chica, let's head north for the rest of the article to Tempe and the Arizona Complex League where a pair of players jumped into prospect status while others have started to create a name for themselves in the low minors.
Signed as a defense-first shortstop from the Dominican Republic for $150,000, Capri Ortiz changed the script this summer in Arizona and has become of the biggest risers in the Angels system. Splitting his pro debut in halves, Ortiz struggled to start in the DSL in 2022, having a .522 OPS in his first 26 games, but turned the corner and posted a .793 OPS in his final 26 games. He carried that late success into instructional league where he became a player of note for the organization and then had a loud presence based on his speed and defense this summer in the ACL. His on-paper performance leaves a bit to be desired in a .273/.374/.345 slash line with a near 30% strikeout rate but the Angels liked his aggression in the box and on the basepaths and ability to adjust to switch-hitting which he started near the midway point of the season, with some promising signs in his ability to hit from both sides. Listed at six-foot and 150-pounds, there is significant weight and strength that needs to be added to the frame to tap into any form of power as Ortiz's game is more suited for slapping the ball through the infield or flaring a ball to the outfield while maintaining his line drive swing. When he puts the ball in play though, he can cause havoc. Posting the occasional sub-4 home-to-first time, Ortiz is more in the 4.0 to 4.1 range which grades above plus but under plus-plus, but his ability to utilize that speed only enhances the tool. Ortiz stole 30 bases over the summer which set a new affiliate record surpassing Aneury Almonte's 28 in 2002, and ranked 16th all-time in league history for a single season while being the most in the league since Monte Harrison stole 32 bases in 2014. Of note, Ortiz's 39 runs scored were the most for a single season at the affiliate since Rolando Gomez (48) and Randal Grichuk (47) in 2009. Along with 18-year-old's speed is the ability to handle a premium defensive position with ease as his quick feet allow him to cover plenty of ground at shortstop, while his internal clock allows him to slow the pace of the game and let his quick release and average arm do the rest. Ortiz may never grow into offensive impact and be more suitable as a bench player by the time he nears the Majors, but his speed and defense give merit to his future role at the upper levels while the bat will dictate whether or not be becomes an everyday player.
When doing my post-season rounds last October to accumulate information for prospect rankings, one name jumped out as one I had never heard previously mentioned as a "prospect" but a standout performance in the DSL (which was noted in this article last year) and during instructional league left me curious about someone who "could be the next Edgar Quero". Though the results of Quero haven't been matched quite yet, Dario Laverde has put his name on the map for Angels prospects and has put up similar performance markers with similar tools to a young Quero to make sense of the comparison. The left-handed hitting catcher who signed for $350,000 out of Venezuela had a .306/.419/.455 slash line with 28 walks and 31 strikeouts on the year as an 18-year-old, while his 123 wRC+ was in the 74th percentile across the league. Laverde started catching around a year prior to signing as a professional, converting from the outfield, and has plenty of raw traits behind the plate that have to be refined before trusting him as a long-term backstop. His arm can grade out as average or better, but his transfer and footwork may need an overhaul to allow his arm to play. An outstanding athlete, Laverde has solid lateral movement and blocking skills, so there is a foundation and building blocks to keep him behind the plate. For as raw as his defense is, his offensive skillset is far more polished than most in his age range. Laverde is a disciplined hitter with a focus on seeing pitches and driving pitches in his hot zone to the gaps. There isn't much power in his five-foot-10 frame, but enough to believe his contactability will translate into the occasional over-the-fence pop. Though it may be hard to project Laverde into what Quero became (Top-100 prospect who warranted a Lucas Giolito return), Laverde has the tools to dream on a platoon catcher with offensive upside and he will become the Angels top catching prospect upon Logan O'Hoppe's prospect graduation.

(Dario Laverde - Photo by Jerry Espinoza)
Signed for $235,000, Anthony Scull was part of a duo from Cuba who signed with the Angels on September 6, 2021, joining Jorge Marcheco. Both got a quick trip to Boca Chica where Scull was able to play 10 games with some lackluster performance and was initially assigned back to the DSL to start 2022, but after one plate appearance was sent back stateside to Arizona where he performed well in a limited 13-game sample. Scull repeated his offensive success in 2023, slashing .300/.377/.453 with seven doubles, five triples, and three home runs. Scull started the season with a 12-game hitting streak and collected a hit in 24 of his first 27 games while batting .363 and having an OPS that hovered around 1.000 throughout. His bat cooled off for the latter half of his season hitting .206 in his final 21 games with a 33.3 K% (13.7 K% in first 27 games). The 19-year-old outfielder is more a sum of all parts kind of player as opposed to having a real standout or carrying tool, not dissimilar to fellow Angels Cuban farmhand Orlando Martinez. The son of former Cuban baseball star and Olympian, Antonio, the younger Scull has a swing reminiscent to his father with a closed stance, short load, and present bat speed that make him a line-to-line hitter with focus on the bat being his ability to utilize the barrel and occasionally tap into some gap power, while his defense may be limited to a corner outfield position as he's only a fringe athlete. There's a lot to like about the overall package Scull provides and players of his caliber sometimes turn into platoon-type players at the upper levels and into the Majors, though his status as a prospect remains limited.
After turning heads in his pro debut in the Dominican, Luis Torres carried his near unmatched DSL year into video game type numbers to start his sophomore pro season in Arizona, slashing .583/.659/.889 in his first 10 games which included four doubles, two triples, and a home run. He earned a quick promotion to Low-A Inland Empire where he had a three-hit game in his full season debut and three more hits in the two games following but quickly cooled off against elder and more polished talent collecting just five hits in his next 15 games and was sent back to Arizona. Some inconsistencies came in his second stint with the ACL affiliate as he hit .250 with a .719 OPS and 29.1 K% in his final 19 games with Tempe. For the bulk and completion of his season, his 150 wRC+ was seventh best across the league among hitters with 100+ plate appearances. The inconsistencies haven't deterred Torres' status as a low-level follow (as opposed to a solidified prospect), but the 19-year-old Dominican still may have finally seen his free and loose swing be exposed to some holes while he began to chase at more pitches out of the zone with both approach and swing refinements needed. Signed for $10,000 in February 2022, Torres has a large physique that allows him to tap into hard contact and over-the-fence power from the right side. Though he's limited to first base only defensively, Torres has enough feel for hitting and the power production to continue monitoring how he can cut down his chase rates and overswing tendencies to potentially grow into a prospect with a likely trip to full season ball next season.
Cristian Garcia has spent the last three summers between the DSL and ACL with steady performance based mostly on plate discipline. Garcia, a 19-year-old corner infielder, has progressively walked his way through Rookie Ball (pun intended) with his 2023 campaign seeing 37 free passes, which rank fourth in Angels AZL/ACL affiliate history and the most since 1993. There isn't much in terms of prospect status when it comes to Garcia, as he's a fringy athlete with a below-average hit tool, but players of his caliber tend to make waves for their on-base percentage in the low minors and grow into monitoring status as they progress through development in hopes that more repetition can turn particular offensive tool into a fringe/average skill. On the season, Garcia slashed .266/.418/.413.
Drafted by the Angels in the fourth-round of the 2019 MLB Draft, Erik Rivera is one of just seven remaining players drafted and signed by the Angels in that class. Rivera was drafted as a two-way player with upside as a power hitting outfielder from the left side and power southpaw on the mound. Following the draft, the Angels sent him out strictly as a designated hitter and it was evident his future would be on the mound which would wait until the following season which would not occur due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In his first pro pitching outing, Rivera tossed over three scoreless with Low-A Inland Empire, allowing a hit and a walk while striking out six, but saw his velocity dip quickly in his final outing. It's been a long road for Rivera since that point as a tear in his UCL required Tommy John surgery followed by some unspecified complications which caused him to miss the rest of the 2021 season, all of the 2022 season, and most of the 2023 season. Rivera returned to the mound on the second day of August this summer for the first time in over two years but showed similar tools to what made him such an alluring pitching prospect prior to surgery. He came out sitting 92-93 while touching 96 over the summer, while still flashing a plus changeup and signs of a breaking ball. Control dogged Rivera through his five brief outings in Arizona, as he walked 13 of the 37 batters, he faced but when he was near the zone, he was unhittable allowing just three hits to those same 37, striking out 11. Though he's an elder statesman for a low-level arm at 22-years-old, Rivera being healthy and green on the mound is a boon for the Angels pitching depth, particularly with so few left-handed pitching prospects. He'll need to show more command and control to return to his prospect status from prior years, but the raw package remains near the same as when he was a highly touted youngster after the draft.
A standout from extended spring, Keythel Key is a relatively unknown pitching project who has garnered some attention as a low-level arm with tools that could carry him into more than organization filler status. Most of Key's success comes in flashes as opposed to frequency, which was evident in his summer in the ACL where he had performed on par with most of the league average, posting a 4.53 ERA, while walking 32 and striking out 40 over 43.2 innings. Key is a tall and lean 19-year-old with good on-mound athleticism who operates mostly in the low 90's with some mids in the bag, with a slider that flashes average. There's a lot of raw tools -- particularly in fastball command and ability to consistently snap his breaking ball -- but enough to like about Key and his athletic markers and projection to continue monitoring him.
Of the Angels 19 draft picks in 2023, 13 started their pro career in Tempe. Nolan Schanuel (1st round), Alberto Rios (3rd round), Joe Redfield (4th round), Cole Fontenelle (7th round), Caleb Ketchup (15th round), and Mac McCroskey (20th round) all got less than a handful of games each before shipping out to affiliates, with Schanuel being the clear standout not only as a first-rounder but as a Major Leaguer only 21 games into his pro career. Seven of the 13 found less temporary residence in Arizona and spent the full start of their pro careers in Tempe. John Wimmer (11th round), an athletic shortstop with spark plug offensive upside from Rock Hill High School (SC), struggled against elder pitching in nine games, striking out in half of his plate appearances with a .432 OPS. Rio Foster (16th round), an athletic and physical high-ceiling outfielder from Florence-Darlington Tech (SC), struggled in a brief eight games as his active swing brought swing-and-miss with it, striking out 10 times in 25 plate appearances with a .414 OPS. Opposite his draft mates, Raudi Rodriguez (19th round) hit pro ball in stride over a brief 12 games, slashing .368/.415/.447, despite being viewed as the rawer product and free swinger of the previously mentioned pair. In recent years under Perry Minasian's regime, the Angels have pivoted savings from the second day of the draft to go well over slot with an early teen pick, but altered that course this year (in a way) and had their big bonus player come in the eighth-round in Barrett Kent, a tall and projectable right-handed pitcher from Pottsboro High School (TX) with a low-to-mid 90's fastball and trio of off-speed offerings that could grade out as average. Kent pitched well in his brief pro debut, allowing six baserunners without permitting a run while recording 14 outs over two stints, striking out five. Chase Gockel (9th round), a right-handed pitching grad student from Quincy University with a mid-90's fastball, struggled to find the zone in four brief outings walking 12 of the 23 batters he faced. Riley Bauman (13th round), a right-handed pitcher from Abilene Christian who returned from Tommy John late this spring showing a mid-90's sinker, got a quick taste of post-surgery action in pro ball allowing five runs in four innings of work. 
The Angels transitioned catcher Straton Podaras, infielder Christian Sepulveda, and outfielder Darwin Moreno to the mound progressively through the summer, with all sitting around 89-91 and topping around 93. This wasn't dissimilar to what they did with Logan Britt and Mario Zabala. Both Britt and Zabala were draft prospects as prep outfielders in 2020 but their star dwindled during their collegiate careers. Britt faced three batters in college (Abilene Christian) before the Angels took him as a pitcher in the 17th-round in 2023. Zabala was a two-year starter at Florida International but was limited to pinch-running duties his junior season with just 15 batters faced on the mound with minimal success, but the Angels consider both as pitchers at this point and will continue their development as such. I have no report on Britt or Zabala as pitchers currently.
Other ACL Notables: 
The Angels hit the NDFA/UDFA (whichever/whatever you want to call it) market quick and heavily after the draft signing some of the more notable non-drafted draft prospects with the headliners being catcher Caleb Bartolero (Troy), shortstop Andy Blake (Columbia), and outfielder Landon Wallace (West Virginia). Bartolero and Blake played well, albeit in six game stints each, in Arizona while Wallace went hitless in his first four games, he turned the corner quickly over his final six games going 8-for-14 (.571). Infielder Will McGillis (South Carolina) was not among the notable UDFA's but took advantage of his collegiate experience as a 24-year-old sporting a .378/.525/.644 slash line in 59 plate appearances, collecting hits in 12 of the 15 games he played and reaching base safely in 14. His 191 wRC+ was second highest across the league among hitters with 50-or-more plate appearances...
For the third consecutive season, Alex Martinez has held court in the Angels ACL bullpen, as his 1.17 ERA in 2023 was third lowest across the league (min. 20 IP). The undersized right-hander who is fastball dominant has now spent the last three summers in Arizona with a combined 0.92 ERA, 14.1 K/9, and 37.2 K%...
18-year-old outfielder Ramon Ramirez was an offensive staple to the DSL Angels in 2022 and garnered attention as more than just a low-level organization filler though not quite into prospect status. After collecting one hit in his first six games with sparse playing time, the left-handed hitter got back into a hitting groove over his last 12 games hitting .313 with five extra-base hits and a .965 OPS...
Randy de Jesus was a touted amateur outfielder from the Dominican Republic when the Angels signed him for $1.2 million in 2022, but his first taste of stateside ball left some questions about the consistency his bat will offer. Scouts still like the foundation de Jesus provides but there is a lot of fine tuning before tapping into even part of the finished product which still may be a power-only offensive base with too much swing-and-miss to get to any ceiling. Splitting his seasons into quarters, his final three-quarters showed glimpses of success with a .282/.343/.366 slash line and much lower 23.0 K% compared to the 29.6 K% in his first 12 games... Three players who suffered season-ending leg or knee injuries in 2022 returned to action in 2023 in the likes of infielders Edgar Alfonso and Luis Rodriguez, and outfielder Natanael Santana. Alfonso, 19, is a light-hitting speedster from Cuba who didn't showcase his plus to plus-plus speed on the basepaths frequently during the season but walked a bit and hit .247 over 35 games. Rodriguez, 18, was a big-bonus baby out of Venezuela on the international market (though his actual bonus has differing reports and has not been confirmed to this writer) who showed impressive tools at instructional league in 2022 and got his first taste of pro ball in 2023 in Arizona performing around league average with a .791 OPS and two home runs. Santana, 22, became a name to follow in 2021 after showcasing impressive power and speed tools from an impressive physique but was sidelined in 2022 with a knee injury. The raw offensive product is still in play for Santana as he struck out in nearly 35% of his plate appearances but still showcased the same tools as before. It's unlikely he'll be able to hit enough to hit his immense ceiling, and may be forever stuck in the low minors, but remains an interesting follow.
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(Capri Ortiz - Photo by Jerry Espinoza)
By Taylor Blake Ward, AngelsWin.com Columnist
Last year, I started this article with a caveat that is necessary when talking about the Dominican Summer League and Arizona Complex League (which will be referred to as DSL and ACL for simplicity throughout the article). The age variance between leagues can alter the performance of any given player significantly, as ages can vary from 16-years-old to 22-years-old in the DSL and 17-years-old to 24-years-old in the ACL. Comparing the performances from a player who may be the age of a high school sophomore or junior to that of one who would be the same age as someone with a four-year college degree and baseball pedigree at a top-notch program leaves plenty of room for error in the on-paper outlook. Most of these kids or young men have yet to grow into their bodies and power may be at minimal production. Some pitchers may have matured into low-to-mid 90's fastballs and explosive breaking balls while others hardly top out in the mid 80's with no current secondary offering to speak of. Control and command for pitchers is sparse and raw, so on-base percentages are inflated due to a high number of walks. It is always fun to look at on paper performance, but each player will come with his own variance where age and experience will play a vital part in how to look at each individual performance and must be taken with a grain of salt.
If you're going to put emphasis on statistics and performance, there are some isolation performance points you'll need to focus on to see indicators for future success through development and advancement, with one consistent for both hitters and pitchers that tend to carry into development upwards of the mid-minors. For hitters, contact rate and strikeout percentages are large future indicators of ability to hit. While you never want to throw away walk rates, it's already been mentioned those will be inflated because of young pitchers inability to work around the strike zone with consistency. That is where you would want to key in on pitchers is ability to throw strikes as an isolation point of how they'll fare in the future. Strike-throwing ability (i.e., BB%, BB/9) does come as a raw base for being able to do the same at the next level without getting into athletic markers for future command. Control is a fine thing to see on paper and will come prior to command, which is needed for advancement through development into any future Major League role(s).
Before diving in, there is one last note I want to make as we will touch on the record books. The Dominican Summer League (DSL) has been in existence since 1985, with the Angels having an affiliate since 1992 taking a year away in 1997 with a shared affiliate in 1993 (Dodgers), 1996 (Rays), and 1998 (White Sox). Public statistics and records only date back to 2006, which leaves us with only 17 years of basic statistical data, and 13 seasons without. Up until 2019, the DSL had a 72-game schedule, with 2021 being delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a truncated season. In 2022, a scheduling change took place where the DSL season was shortened to 56 games with clubs getting every Wednesday and Sunday off. The reason I mention this is that within my own personal record book I file away in a tab in my notebook (statistics garnered from Baseball-Reference), you will see some players in this article mentioned as being noted within the single-season records but notably off the top. You can only project so much on performance, but with players in 2022 and 2023 getting 16 less games scheduled, it's noteworthy to say a player tapped into the top 10 single season records with an idea they would have reached further up the list with those extra 16 games. You don't run into the same problem with the Arizona Complex League as a 56-game schedule has been consistent throughout its' existence starting in 1988, with the Angels participating in the league from 1989-1996 and 2001 to present and public records held throughout all of league history.
With all the caveats and notes out of the way, let's dive into some of the top performers and prospects from the Angels Rookie Ball affiliates, starting with those who spent their summer in Boca Chica with the DSL affiliate:
After missing most of his pro debut in 2022 with a broken hamate, Kevyn Castillo had arguably the best offensive season in Angels DSL history. The Venezuelan outfielder's slash line of .371/.478/.548 has never been seen before at the affiliate, with his batting average and on-base percentage being the highest among players with over 100 plate appearances, and his slugging percentage trailing only Luis Torres in 2022 (.571) -- and of course, the highest OPS in affiliate history under the same measures. Excluding doubles and home runs, Castillo ranked in the top 10 of nearly every affiliate single-season record, with 44 runs scored (tied-10th), 69 hits (10th), seven triples (tied-fifth), 35 RBI (tied-10th), 23 stolen bases (tied-ninth), 40 walks (ninth), and 102 total bases (tied-sixth). Castillo collected a hit in 42 of the 55 games he played, while reaching base safely in 50, while his 171 wRC+ was fourth across the DSL among qualified hitters. Castillo, signed for $10,000 during the 2022 international signing period, flashes four tools with power being the lesser of the group. He's an above-average runner or better with the ability to handle all three outfield positions with a fine arm for the corners (he had four assists on the season).
The Angels priority international signee for 2023 was Felix Morrobel, a shortstop from the Dominican Republic who signed for $900,000. In the 17-year-old's pro debut was solid with a .286/.322/.335 slash line with 11 stolen bases and 21 runs scored, which helped earn him a DSL All-Star nod. Despite a highly-aggressive approach, Morrobel limited his swing-and-miss at a near uncanny clip, with four of his 13 strikeouts on the season coming in his first 20 plate appearances and then just nine over his next 150 plate appearances, giving him the third lowest strikeout percentage (7.6%) of the 299 qualified hitters in the DSL in 2023. A switch-hitter, Morrobel's ability to manipulate the barrel was evident over the summer, while his power production (0 HR, .344 SLG, .050 ISO) was notably minimal (0 HR, .344 SLG, .050 ISO) and only seen to the gaps as the Angels await his physical maturation where his power projection remains below-average as a hit-over-power offensive type. Morrobel's primary carrying tool is his defense at shortstop where he is a highly athletic defender with quick feet and good internal clock to slow the pace of the game, with an above-average arm giving more confidence to his future outlook as an eventual Major Leaguer as the bat continues to progress.
Though it didn't come with the external fanfare of the Morrobel signing, the Angels were internally very excited over the signing of Juan Flores. Signing for $280,000, Flores was renowned as one of the best amateur defensive catchers in Venezuela and in the 2023 international signing class. That defense was on full display during his pro debut this summer as a 17-year-old, both on paper and the eye test, as he threw out 26-of-49 would be base stealers (53%) with just four passed balls in over 300 innings of work behind the plate. Already advanced defensively, Flores showed all the traits of long-term catching prowess with quiet receiving and framing with lateral mobility and a plus (or plus-plus pending evaluator) arm. His hitting is less rudimentary than thought while going into pro ball as he had a fine approach at the plate with some upper body overswing tendencies leading to groundballs, but also some over-the-fence power where his six home runs were fifth all-time for a single-season at the affiliate. Though his on-base percentage was partially inflated by being hit-by-pitches 15 times which ranked second on affiliate history -- trailing only Leonardo Rivas in 2015 (17) -- everything else in his offensive performance stayed in check with a .236/.352/.388 slash line and 102 wRC+. There is no question about Flores' defense while the bat will dictate what his future role would/could be, whether a high-level filler, backup, or even everyday regular at the Major League level. Between Morrobel and Flores, mixed in with Nelson Rada and Capri Ortiz, the Angels have a solid defensive foundation up the middle in the low levels of the minors.
Oswaldo Patino was a lesser-touted signing in the 2023 international class who put pen to paper for $65,000 as a smaller Venezuelan infielder, but his pro debut carried some excitement, particularly as one of the youngest in the league at 16-years-old. A contact-first hitter, Patino kept his swing-and-miss in check while his discipline and walk rates were off the charts at 25%. Among players in the DSL with 80-or-more plate appearances, his walk rates ranked 14th across the league among 1000+ players, while his on-base percentage (.513) ranked second (You can do the math if you want but it's the 99.9th percentile in both categories). Though I mentioned Kevyn Castillo as having the highest single-season OBP in affiliate history, that was among players with over 200, or 150, or 100 plate appearances -- or in simpler terms: qualified hitters -- but looking at Patino's on-base percentage in a smaller dosage of plate appearances (80 total PA), it is the highest OBP mark in affiliate history outside of two players who shared a combined 13 plate appearances, giving credence to the record books albeit in smaller sample than qualification. There isn't much ceiling to Patino who is a contact-first second base only infielder, but always worth monitoring when video game numbers are put up.
Receiving the fourth largest bonus from the Angels in the 2023 international class, Edwardo Espinal has his season and pro debut delayed until mid-July after breaking his thumb during extended spring. The 17-year-old signed for around $250,000 out of the Dominican Republic as a toolsy outfielder with upside in the bat. With only 22 games played over the summer, it was his final 11 that were attentive and had the Angels happy about his future as he slashed .290/.372/.368 in the final half of his truncated season.
One of the biggest risers in the Angels farm system is Adrian Acosta, a right-handed pitcher who signed late in the 2022 signing period for $10,000 out of the Dominican Republic and saw a velocity jump in 2023 that made his sophomore pro season one of the best in affiliate history. In his 10 starts over the summer, he never allowed more than two runs while striking out five-or-more in each outing excluding his first. Acosta was named a starter in the DSL All-Star game where he went two innings and earned the victory. His 1.17 ERA led the entire DSL and was second best for a single-season in affiliate history among those who through over 40 innings (46.1 IP), trailing only Emilker Guzman who had a 1.02 ERA in 2017 (44 IP), while his 64 strikeouts were 19th all-time in a single-season for the affiliate and comes with the caveat that all above him had a 72-game season to work with. The 18-year-old saw a velocity spike over the summer with improved command that raised his prospect status, parking his fastball 92-95 and touching 96 on occasion. He compliments the fastball with a low-to-mid 80's slider that has enough current shape and feel to receive average or better future grades. With the fastball command progressing well and his on-mound athleticism, the Angels will continue giving Acosta the chance to start through the early stages of his pro career, though his changeup is well below-average offering (very firm and rudimentary) and will be a focus of development to keep him from a relief outlook.
Ubaldo Soto was the Angels top pitching signee from the recent international class, signing for $250,000 out of the Dominican Republic and spending most of the summer as a 16-year-old pitcher in pro ball. Up until the week he turned 17, Soto got four games of extended relief work, going three innings each time out, which included two saves before transitioning to a traditional rotation role in early July. Over the season, Soto performed remarkably well, posting a 1.64 ERA over 44 innings with a 4-1 record. On this next note, I must include that the nature of a complete game and/or shutout in the DSL has some caveats as pitching all innings (or outs) of a shorter scheduled or weather shortened game can be called a "complete game/shutout" in the statistics and does not need to be a complete seven-or-nine inning effort. On that note, Soto threw two (shortened) shutouts over the summer, making him the first to have multiple shutouts or complete games since Daniel Hurtado and Eswarlin Jimenez in 2011 and fifth in affiliate history to have multiple in a season. His two shutouts were the 12th and 13th in affiliate history since record-keeping became public in 2006. Soto, a tall and loose right-hander, has all the projection traits of a starter at the next level with three pitches he mixes well in an upper 80's-to-low 90's fastball that touches 92, and feel for a curveball and changeup with advanced feel for working near the zone.
Though Soto was initially the top bonus pitcher for the Angels 2023 international class, Francis Texido was signed for the same dollar figure at $250,000 two months later after leaving Cuba in September. Texido -- the leader in ERA (0.69) for Cuba's U-18 club (source: Francys Romero, MLB) -- went from being one of the top amateur arms in Cuba to the workhorse of the Angels DSL affiliate, getting the opening day nod and never looked back posting a 2.31 ERA in 50.2 innings with 61 strikeouts, 12 walks, and 0.947 WHIP. The 18-year-old collected six wins on the season, which was tied for 10th most in a single-season for the affiliate, while his 61 strikeouts were 20th most (as noted with Acosta, all players above Texido had the luxury of a 72-game season). Tall and loose, the left-handed pitcher has a low 90's fastball with significant sink that creates weak groundball contact, while he also incorporates a curve, slider and changeup which show enough current merit and advanced command to believe in a four-pitch starter mix through development.
Among the youngest pitchers in professional baseball over the season, Davidxon Lara went from a relatively unknown amateur who signed for $50,000 out of Venezuela, to a pitcher of note in the Angels low minors. The undersized right-hander is a good on-mound athlete with advanced command and feel for the zone. Through his first six games, Lara faced 118 batters and walked just one which included a stretch of 101 batters faced without permitting a walk. Though he would walk four of the final 43 batters he faced (*sarcastically gasps*), Lara showed an advanced ability to mix his pitches and work around the zone, spending all but his final three starts over the summer as a 16-year-old. Lara operates mostly in the upper 80's and low 90's and touched 93 over the summer, with decent feel for a mid-70's curveball and mid 80's changeup. His size (5'10/165) may limit his ceiling, but Lara has the current traits of a future starter with plenty of youth to bank on.
Other DSL Notables:
Signed on the older side of the international amateur market, right-handed pitcher Anel Cabrera signed with the Angels in April as a 20-year-old and spent the summer in the DSL where his 1.25 ERA was second lowest across the entire league (trailing only Adrian Acosta, 1.17; min. 40 IP). The low ERA mark was third best in affiliate history among those with 40-or-more innings pitched... After spending two seasons as the DSL Yankees closer, Ruben Castillo was released by the pinstripes in May and quickly signed with the Angels three weeks later as a 21-year-old minor league free agent. Castillo served as the DSL Angels closer with a 39.0 K% and nine saves, which is tied for the most in affiliate single-season history with Jorge Tavarez (2016)... The DSL Angels finished their season going 37-18, holding the sixth best record in the 50-team league and earning a wildcard spot in the DSL Playoffs. As a team, they had; the third most stolen bases (121), 10th highest batting average (.257), 2nd lowest ERA (3.25), 3rd lowest H/9 (6.9), 4th lowest WHIP (1.311), 10th highest K/9 (9.7), and 10th highest K/BB (2.00). (*NOTE*: At the release of this article the DSL Angels are in the middle of a best-of-three opening playoff series with the DSL Phillies, splitting the first two games. This note will be updated upon completion of the series and/or DSL playoffs.)
After spending the first part of this article down in Boca Chica, let's head north for the rest of the article to Tempe and the Arizona Complex League where a pair of players jumped into prospect status while others have started to create a name for themselves in the low minors.
Signed as a defense-first shortstop from the Dominican Republic for $150,000, Capri Ortiz changed the script this summer in Arizona and has become of the biggest risers in the Angels system. Splitting his pro debut in halves, Ortiz struggled to start in the DSL in 2022, having a .522 OPS in his first 26 games, but turned the corner and posted a .793 OPS in his final 26 games. He carried that late success into instructional league where he became a player of note for the organization and then had a loud presence based on his speed and defense this summer in the ACL. His on-paper performance leaves a bit to be desired in a .273/.374/.345 slash line with a near 30% strikeout rate but the Angels liked his aggression in the box and on the basepaths and ability to adjust to switch-hitting which he started near the midway point of the season, with some promising signs in his ability to hit from both sides. Listed at six-foot and 150-pounds, there is significant weight and strength that needs to be added to the frame to tap into any form of power as Ortiz's game is more suited for slapping the ball through the infield or flaring a ball to the outfield while maintaining his line drive swing. When he puts the ball in play though, he can cause havoc. Posting the occasional sub-4 home-to-first time, Ortiz is more in the 4.0 to 4.1 range which grades above plus but under plus-plus, but his ability to utilize that speed only enhances the tool. Ortiz stole 30 bases over the summer which set a new affiliate record surpassing Aneury Almonte's 28 in 2002, and ranked 16th all-time in league history for a single season while being the most in the league since Monte Harrison stole 32 bases in 2014. Of note, Ortiz's 39 runs scored were the most for a single season at the affiliate since Rolando Gomez (48) and Randal Grichuk (47) in 2009. Along with 18-year-old's speed is the ability to handle a premium defensive position with ease as his quick feet allow him to cover plenty of ground at shortstop, while his internal clock allows him to slow the pace of the game and let his quick release and average arm do the rest. Ortiz may never grow into offensive impact and be more suitable as a bench player by the time he nears the Majors, but his speed and defense give merit to his future role at the upper levels while the bat will dictate whether or not be becomes an everyday player.
When doing my post-season rounds last October to accumulate information for prospect rankings, one name jumped out as one I had never heard previously mentioned as a "prospect" but a standout performance in the DSL (which was noted in this article last year) and during instructional league left me curious about someone who "could be the next Edgar Quero". Though the results of Quero haven't been matched quite yet, Dario Laverde has put his name on the map for Angels prospects and has put up similar performance markers with similar tools to a young Quero to make sense of the comparison. The left-handed hitting catcher who signed for $350,000 out of Venezuela had a .306/.419/.455 slash line with 28 walks and 31 strikeouts on the year as an 18-year-old, while his 123 wRC+ was in the 74th percentile across the league. Laverde started catching around a year prior to signing as a professional, converting from the outfield, and has plenty of raw traits behind the plate that have to be refined before trusting him as a long-term backstop. His arm can grade out as average or better, but his transfer and footwork may need an overhaul to allow his arm to play. An outstanding athlete, Laverde has solid lateral movement and blocking skills, so there is a foundation and building blocks to keep him behind the plate. For as raw as his defense is, his offensive skillset is far more polished than most in his age range. Laverde is a disciplined hitter with a focus on seeing pitches and driving pitches in his hot zone to the gaps. There isn't much power in his five-foot-10 frame, but enough to believe his contactability will translate into the occasional over-the-fence pop. Though it may be hard to project Laverde into what Quero became (Top-100 prospect who warranted a Lucas Giolito return), Laverde has the tools to dream on a platoon catcher with offensive upside and he will become the Angels top catching prospect upon Logan O'Hoppe's prospect graduation.

(Dario Laverde - Photo by Jerry Espinoza)
Signed for $235,000, Anthony Scull was part of a duo from Cuba who signed with the Angels on September 6, 2021, joining Jorge Marcheco. Both got a quick trip to Boca Chica where Scull was able to play 10 games with some lackluster performance and was initially assigned back to the DSL to start 2022, but after one plate appearance was sent back stateside to Arizona where he performed well in a limited 13-game sample. Scull repeated his offensive success in 2023, slashing .300/.377/.453 with seven doubles, five triples, and three home runs. Scull started the season with a 12-game hitting streak and collected a hit in 24 of his first 27 games while batting .363 and having an OPS that hovered around 1.000 throughout. His bat cooled off for the latter half of his season hitting .206 in his final 21 games with a 33.3 K% (13.7 K% in first 27 games). The 19-year-old outfielder is more a sum of all parts kind of player as opposed to having a real standout or carrying tool, not dissimilar to fellow Angels Cuban farmhand Orlando Martinez. The son of former Cuban baseball star and Olympian, Antonio, the younger Scull has a swing reminiscent to his father with a closed stance, short load, and present bat speed that make him a line-to-line hitter with focus on the bat being his ability to utilize the barrel and occasionally tap into some gap power, while his defense may be limited to a corner outfield position as he's only a fringe athlete. There's a lot to like about the overall package Scull provides and players of his caliber sometimes turn into platoon-type players at the upper levels and into the Majors, though his status as a prospect remains limited.
After turning heads in his pro debut in the Dominican, Luis Torres carried his near unmatched DSL year into video game type numbers to start his sophomore pro season in Arizona, slashing .583/.659/.889 in his first 10 games which included four doubles, two triples, and a home run. He earned a quick promotion to Low-A Inland Empire where he had a three-hit game in his full season debut and three more hits in the two games following but quickly cooled off against elder and more polished talent collecting just five hits in his next 15 games and was sent back to Arizona. Some inconsistencies came in his second stint with the ACL affiliate as he hit .250 with a .719 OPS and 29.1 K% in his final 19 games with Tempe. For the bulk and completion of his season, his 150 wRC+ was seventh best across the league among hitters with 100+ plate appearances. The inconsistencies haven't deterred Torres' status as a low-level follow (as opposed to a solidified prospect), but the 19-year-old Dominican still may have finally seen his free and loose swing be exposed to some holes while he began to chase at more pitches out of the zone with both approach and swing refinements needed. Signed for $10,000 in February 2022, Torres has a large physique that allows him to tap into hard contact and over-the-fence power from the right side. Though he's limited to first base only defensively, Torres has enough feel for hitting and the power production to continue monitoring how he can cut down his chase rates and overswing tendencies to potentially grow into a prospect with a likely trip to full season ball next season.
Cristian Garcia has spent the last three summers between the DSL and ACL with steady performance based mostly on plate discipline. Garcia, a 19-year-old corner infielder, has progressively walked his way through Rookie Ball (pun intended) with his 2023 campaign seeing 37 free passes, which rank fourth in Angels AZL/ACL affiliate history and the most since 1993. There isn't much in terms of prospect status when it comes to Garcia, as he's a fringy athlete with a below-average hit tool, but players of his caliber tend to make waves for their on-base percentage in the low minors and grow into monitoring status as they progress through development in hopes that more repetition can turn particular offensive tool into a fringe/average skill. On the season, Garcia slashed .266/.418/.413.
Drafted by the Angels in the fourth-round of the 2019 MLB Draft, Erik Rivera is one of just seven remaining players drafted and signed by the Angels in that class. Rivera was drafted as a two-way player with upside as a power hitting outfielder from the left side and power southpaw on the mound. Following the draft, the Angels sent him out strictly as a designated hitter and it was evident his future would be on the mound which would wait until the following season which would not occur due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In his first pro pitching outing, Rivera tossed over three scoreless with Low-A Inland Empire, allowing a hit and a walk while striking out six, but saw his velocity dip quickly in his final outing. It's been a long road for Rivera since that point as a tear in his UCL required Tommy John surgery followed by some unspecified complications which caused him to miss the rest of the 2021 season, all of the 2022 season, and most of the 2023 season. Rivera returned to the mound on the second day of August this summer for the first time in over two years but showed similar tools to what made him such an alluring pitching prospect prior to surgery. He came out sitting 92-93 while touching 96 over the summer, while still flashing a plus changeup and signs of a breaking ball. Control dogged Rivera through his five brief outings in Arizona, as he walked 13 of the 37 batters, he faced but when he was near the zone, he was unhittable allowing just three hits to those same 37, striking out 11. Though he's an elder statesman for a low-level arm at 22-years-old, Rivera being healthy and green on the mound is a boon for the Angels pitching depth, particularly with so few left-handed pitching prospects. He'll need to show more command and control to return to his prospect status from prior years, but the raw package remains near the same as when he was a highly touted youngster after the draft.
A standout from extended spring, Keythel Key is a relatively unknown pitching project who has garnered some attention as a low-level arm with tools that could carry him into more than organization filler status. Most of Key's success comes in flashes as opposed to frequency, which was evident in his summer in the ACL where he had performed on par with most of the league average, posting a 4.53 ERA, while walking 32 and striking out 40 over 43.2 innings. Key is a tall and lean 19-year-old with good on-mound athleticism who operates mostly in the low 90's with some mids in the bag, with a slider that flashes average. There's a lot of raw tools -- particularly in fastball command and ability to consistently snap his breaking ball -- but enough to like about Key and his athletic markers and projection to continue monitoring him.
Of the Angels 19 draft picks in 2023, 13 started their pro career in Tempe. Nolan Schanuel (1st round), Alberto Rios (3rd round), Joe Redfield (4th round), Cole Fontenelle (7th round), Caleb Ketchup (15th round), and Mac McCroskey (20th round) all got less than a handful of games each before shipping out to affiliates, with Schanuel being the clear standout not only as a first-rounder but as a Major Leaguer only 21 games into his pro career. Seven of the 13 found less temporary residence in Arizona and spent the full start of their pro careers in Tempe. John Wimmer (11th round), an athletic shortstop with spark plug offensive upside from Rock Hill High School (SC), struggled against elder pitching in nine games, striking out in half of his plate appearances with a .432 OPS. Rio Foster (16th round), an athletic and physical high-ceiling outfielder from Florence-Darlington Tech (SC), struggled in a brief eight games as his active swing brought swing-and-miss with it, striking out 10 times in 25 plate appearances with a .414 OPS. Opposite his draft mates, Raudi Rodriguez (19th round) hit pro ball in stride over a brief 12 games, slashing .368/.415/.447, despite being viewed as the rawer product and free swinger of the previously mentioned pair. In recent years under Perry Minasian's regime, the Angels have pivoted savings from the second day of the draft to go well over slot with an early teen pick, but altered that course this year (in a way) and had their big bonus player come in the eighth-round in Barrett Kent, a tall and projectable right-handed pitcher from Pottsboro High School (TX) with a low-to-mid 90's fastball and trio of off-speed offerings that could grade out as average. Kent pitched well in his brief pro debut, allowing six baserunners without permitting a run while recording 14 outs over two stints, striking out five. Chase Gockel (9th round), a right-handed pitching grad student from Quincy University with a mid-90's fastball, struggled to find the zone in four brief outings walking 12 of the 23 batters he faced. Riley Bauman (13th round), a right-handed pitcher from Abilene Christian who returned from Tommy John late this spring showing a mid-90's sinker, got a quick taste of post-surgery action in pro ball allowing five runs in four innings of work. 
The Angels transitioned catcher Straton Podaras, infielder Christian Sepulveda, and outfielder Darwin Moreno to the mound progressively through the summer, with all sitting around 89-91 and topping around 93. This wasn't dissimilar to what they did with Logan Britt and Mario Zabala. Both Britt and Zabala were draft prospects as prep outfielders in 2020 but their star dwindled during their collegiate careers. Britt faced three batters in college (Abilene Christian) before the Angels took him as a pitcher in the 17th-round in 2023. Zabala was a two-year starter at Florida International but was limited to pinch-running duties his junior season with just 15 batters faced on the mound with minimal success, but the Angels consider both as pitchers at this point and will continue their development as such. I have no report on Britt or Zabala as pitchers currently.
Other ACL Notables: 
The Angels hit the NDFA/UDFA (whichever/whatever you want to call it) market quick and heavily after the draft signing some of the more notable non-drafted draft prospects with the headliners being catcher Caleb Bartolero (Troy), shortstop Andy Blake (Columbia), and outfielder Landon Wallace (West Virginia). Bartolero and Blake played well, albeit in six game stints each, in Arizona while Wallace went hitless in his first four games, he turned the corner quickly over his final six games going 8-for-14 (.571). Infielder Will McGillis (South Carolina) was not among the notable UDFA's but took advantage of his collegiate experience as a 24-year-old sporting a .378/.525/.644 slash line in 59 plate appearances, collecting hits in 12 of the 15 games he played and reaching base safely in 14. His 191 wRC+ was second highest across the league among hitters with 50-or-more plate appearances...
For the third consecutive season, Alex Martinez has held court in the Angels ACL bullpen, as his 1.17 ERA in 2023 was third lowest across the league (min. 20 IP). The undersized right-hander who is fastball dominant has now spent the last three summers in Arizona with a combined 0.92 ERA, 14.1 K/9, and 37.2 K%...
18-year-old outfielder Ramon Ramirez was an offensive staple to the DSL Angels in 2022 and garnered attention as more than just a low-level organization filler though not quite into prospect status. After collecting one hit in his first six games with sparse playing time, the left-handed hitter got back into a hitting groove over his last 12 games hitting .313 with five extra-base hits and a .965 OPS...
Randy de Jesus was a touted amateur outfielder from the Dominican Republic when the Angels signed him for $1.2 million in 2022, but his first taste of stateside ball left some questions about the consistency his bat will offer. Scouts still like the foundation de Jesus provides but there is a lot of fine tuning before tapping into even part of the finished product which still may be a power-only offensive base with too much swing-and-miss to get to any ceiling. Splitting his seasons into quarters, his final three-quarters showed glimpses of success with a .282/.343/.366 slash line and much lower 23.0 K% compared to the 29.6 K% in his first 12 games... Three players who suffered season-ending leg or knee injuries in 2022 returned to action in 2023 in the likes of infielders Edgar Alfonso and Luis Rodriguez, and outfielder Natanael Santana. Alfonso, 19, is a light-hitting speedster from Cuba who didn't showcase his plus to plus-plus speed on the basepaths frequently during the season but walked a bit and hit .247 over 35 games. Rodriguez, 18, was a big-bonus baby out of Venezuela on the international market (though his actual bonus has differing reports and has not been confirmed to this writer) who showed impressive tools at instructional league in 2022 and got his first taste of pro ball in 2023 in Arizona performing around league average with a .791 OPS and two home runs. Santana, 22, became a name to follow in 2021 after showcasing impressive power and speed tools from an impressive physique but was sidelined in 2022 with a knee injury. The raw offensive product is still in play for Santana as he struck out in nearly 35% of his plate appearances but still showcased the same tools as before. It's unlikely he'll be able to hit enough to hit his immense ceiling, and may be forever stuck in the low minors, but remains an interesting follow.
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(Capri Ortiz - Photo by Jerry Espinoza)
By Taylor Blake Ward, AngelsWin.com Columnist
Last year, I started this article with a caveat that is necessary when talking about the Dominican Summer League and Arizona Complex League (which will be referred to as DSL and ACL for simplicity throughout the article). The age variance between leagues can alter the performance of any given player significantly, as ages can vary from 16-years-old to 22-years-old in the DSL and 17-years-old to 24-years-old in the ACL. Comparing the performances from a player who may be the age of a high school sophomore or junior to that of one who would be the same age as someone with a four-year college degree and baseball pedigree at a top-notch program leaves plenty of room for error in the on-paper outlook. Most of these kids or young men have yet to grow into their bodies and power may be at minimal production. Some pitchers may have matured into low-to-mid 90's fastballs and explosive breaking balls while others hardly top out in the mid 80's with no current secondary offering to speak of. Control and command for pitchers is sparse and raw, so on-base percentages are inflated due to a high number of walks. It is always fun to look at on paper performance, but each player will come with his own variance where age and experience will play a vital part in how to look at each individual performance and must be taken with a grain of salt.
If you're going to put emphasis on statistics and performance, there are some isolation performance points you'll need to focus on to see indicators for future success through development and advancement, with one consistent for both hitters and pitchers that tend to carry into development upwards of the mid-minors. For hitters, contact rate and strikeout percentages are large future indicators of ability to hit. While you never want to throw away walk rates, it's already been mentioned those will be inflated because of young pitchers inability to work around the strike zone with consistency. That is where you would want to key in on pitchers is ability to throw strikes as an isolation point of how they'll fare in the future. Strike-throwing ability (i.e., BB%, BB/9) does come as a raw base for being able to do the same at the next level without getting into athletic markers for future command. Control is a fine thing to see on paper and will come prior to command, which is needed for advancement through development into any future Major League role(s).
Before diving in, there is one last note I want to make as we will touch on the record books. The Dominican Summer League (DSL) has been in existence since 1985, with the Angels having an affiliate since 1992 taking a year away in 1997 with a shared affiliate in 1993 (Dodgers), 1996 (Rays), and 1998 (White Sox). Public statistics and records only date back to 2006, which leaves us with only 17 years of basic statistical data, and 13 seasons without. Up until 2019, the DSL had a 72-game schedule, with 2021 being delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a truncated season. In 2022, a scheduling change took place where the DSL season was shortened to 56 games with clubs getting every Wednesday and Sunday off. The reason I mention this is that within my own personal record book I file away in a tab in my notebook (statistics garnered from Baseball-Reference), you will see some players in this article mentioned as being noted within the single-season records but notably off the top. You can only project so much on performance, but with players in 2022 and 2023 getting 16 less games scheduled, it's noteworthy to say a player tapped into the top 10 single season records with an idea they would have reached further up the list with those extra 16 games. You don't run into the same problem with the Arizona Complex League as a 56-game schedule has been consistent throughout its' existence starting in 1988, with the Angels participating in the league from 1989-1996 and 2001 to present and public records held throughout all of league history.
With all the caveats and notes out of the way, let's dive into some of the top performers and prospects from the Angels Rookie Ball affiliates, starting with those who spent their summer in Boca Chica with the DSL affiliate:
After missing most of his pro debut in 2022 with a broken hamate, Kevyn Castillo had arguably the best offensive season in Angels DSL history. The Venezuelan outfielder's slash line of .371/.478/.548 has never been seen before at the affiliate, with his batting average and on-base percentage being the highest among players with over 100 plate appearances, and his slugging percentage trailing only Luis Torres in 2022 (.571) -- and of course, the highest OPS in affiliate history under the same measures. Excluding doubles and home runs, Castillo ranked in the top 10 of nearly every affiliate single-season record, with 44 runs scored (tied-10th), 69 hits (10th), seven triples (tied-fifth), 35 RBI (tied-10th), 23 stolen bases (tied-ninth), 40 walks (ninth), and 102 total bases (tied-sixth). Castillo collected a hit in 42 of the 55 games he played, while reaching base safely in 50, while his 171 wRC+ was fourth across the DSL among qualified hitters. Castillo, signed for $10,000 during the 2022 international signing period, flashes four tools with power being the lesser of the group. He's an above-average runner or better with the ability to handle all three outfield positions with a fine arm for the corners (he had four assists on the season).
The Angels priority international signee for 2023 was Felix Morrobel, a shortstop from the Dominican Republic who signed for $900,000. In the 17-year-old's pro debut was solid with a .286/.322/.335 slash line with 11 stolen bases and 21 runs scored, which helped earn him a DSL All-Star nod. Despite a highly-aggressive approach, Morrobel limited his swing-and-miss at a near uncanny clip, with four of his 13 strikeouts on the season coming in his first 20 plate appearances and then just nine over his next 150 plate appearances, giving him the third lowest strikeout percentage (7.6%) of the 299 qualified hitters in the DSL in 2023. A switch-hitter, Morrobel's ability to manipulate the barrel was evident over the summer, while his power production (0 HR, .344 SLG, .050 ISO) was notably minimal (0 HR, .344 SLG, .050 ISO) and only seen to the gaps as the Angels await his physical maturation where his power projection remains below-average as a hit-over-power offensive type. Morrobel's primary carrying tool is his defense at shortstop where he is a highly athletic defender with quick feet and good internal clock to slow the pace of the game, with an above-average arm giving more confidence to his future outlook as an eventual Major Leaguer as the bat continues to progress.
Though it didn't come with the external fanfare of the Morrobel signing, the Angels were internally very excited over the signing of Juan Flores. Signing for $280,000, Flores was renowned as one of the best amateur defensive catchers in Venezuela and in the 2023 international signing class. That defense was on full display during his pro debut this summer as a 17-year-old, both on paper and the eye test, as he threw out 26-of-49 would be base stealers (53%) with just four passed balls in over 300 innings of work behind the plate. Already advanced defensively, Flores showed all the traits of long-term catching prowess with quiet receiving and framing with lateral mobility and a plus (or plus-plus pending evaluator) arm. His hitting is less rudimentary than thought while going into pro ball as he had a fine approach at the plate with some upper body overswing tendencies leading to groundballs, but also some over-the-fence power where his six home runs were fifth all-time for a single-season at the affiliate. Though his on-base percentage was partially inflated by being hit-by-pitches 15 times which ranked second on affiliate history -- trailing only Leonardo Rivas in 2015 (17) -- everything else in his offensive performance stayed in check with a .236/.352/.388 slash line and 102 wRC+. There is no question about Flores' defense while the bat will dictate what his future role would/could be, whether a high-level filler, backup, or even everyday regular at the Major League level. Between Morrobel and Flores, mixed in with Nelson Rada and Capri Ortiz, the Angels have a solid defensive foundation up the middle in the low levels of the minors.
Oswaldo Patino was a lesser-touted signing in the 2023 international class who put pen to paper for $65,000 as a smaller Venezuelan infielder, but his pro debut carried some excitement, particularly as one of the youngest in the league at 16-years-old. A contact-first hitter, Patino kept his swing-and-miss in check while his discipline and walk rates were off the charts at 25%. Among players in the DSL with 80-or-more plate appearances, his walk rates ranked 14th across the league among 1000+ players, while his on-base percentage (.513) ranked second (You can do the math if you want but it's the 99.9th percentile in both categories). Though I mentioned Kevyn Castillo as having the highest single-season OBP in affiliate history, that was among players with over 200, or 150, or 100 plate appearances -- or in simpler terms: qualified hitters -- but looking at Patino's on-base percentage in a smaller dosage of plate appearances (80 total PA), it is the highest OBP mark in affiliate history outside of two players who shared a combined 13 plate appearances, giving credence to the record books albeit in smaller sample than qualification. There isn't much ceiling to Patino who is a contact-first second base only infielder, but always worth monitoring when video game numbers are put up.
Receiving the fourth largest bonus from the Angels in the 2023 international class, Edwardo Espinal has his season and pro debut delayed until mid-July after breaking his thumb during extended spring. The 17-year-old signed for around $250,000 out of the Dominican Republic as a toolsy outfielder with upside in the bat. With only 22 games played over the summer, it was his final 11 that were attentive and had the Angels happy about his future as he slashed .290/.372/.368 in the final half of his truncated season.
One of the biggest risers in the Angels farm system is Adrian Acosta, a right-handed pitcher who signed late in the 2022 signing period for $10,000 out of the Dominican Republic and saw a velocity jump in 2023 that made his sophomore pro season one of the best in affiliate history. In his 10 starts over the summer, he never allowed more than two runs while striking out five-or-more in each outing excluding his first. Acosta was named a starter in the DSL All-Star game where he went two innings and earned the victory. His 1.17 ERA led the entire DSL and was second best for a single-season in affiliate history among those who through over 40 innings (46.1 IP), trailing only Emilker Guzman who had a 1.02 ERA in 2017 (44 IP), while his 64 strikeouts were 19th all-time in a single-season for the affiliate and comes with the caveat that all above him had a 72-game season to work with. The 18-year-old saw a velocity spike over the summer with improved command that raised his prospect status, parking his fastball 92-95 and touching 96 on occasion. He compliments the fastball with a low-to-mid 80's slider that has enough current shape and feel to receive average or better future grades. With the fastball command progressing well and his on-mound athleticism, the Angels will continue giving Acosta the chance to start through the early stages of his pro career, though his changeup is well below-average offering (very firm and rudimentary) and will be a focus of development to keep him from a relief outlook.
Ubaldo Soto was the Angels top pitching signee from the recent international class, signing for $250,000 out of the Dominican Republic and spending most of the summer as a 16-year-old pitcher in pro ball. Up until the week he turned 17, Soto got four games of extended relief work, going three innings each time out, which included two saves before transitioning to a traditional rotation role in early July. Over the season, Soto performed remarkably well, posting a 1.64 ERA over 44 innings with a 4-1 record. On this next note, I must include that the nature of a complete game and/or shutout in the DSL has some caveats as pitching all innings (or outs) of a shorter scheduled or weather shortened game can be called a "complete game/shutout" in the statistics and does not need to be a complete seven-or-nine inning effort. On that note, Soto threw two (shortened) shutouts over the summer, making him the first to have multiple shutouts or complete games since Daniel Hurtado and Eswarlin Jimenez in 2011 and fifth in affiliate history to have multiple in a season. His two shutouts were the 12th and 13th in affiliate history since record-keeping became public in 2006. Soto, a tall and loose right-hander, has all the projection traits of a starter at the next level with three pitches he mixes well in an upper 80's-to-low 90's fastball that touches 92, and feel for a curveball and changeup with advanced feel for working near the zone.
Though Soto was initially the top bonus pitcher for the Angels 2023 international class, Francis Texido was signed for the same dollar figure at $250,000 two months later after leaving Cuba in September. Texido -- the leader in ERA (0.69) for Cuba's U-18 club (source: Francys Romero, MLB) -- went from being one of the top amateur arms in Cuba to the workhorse of the Angels DSL affiliate, getting the opening day nod and never looked back posting a 2.31 ERA in 50.2 innings with 61 strikeouts, 12 walks, and 0.947 WHIP. The 18-year-old collected six wins on the season, which was tied for 10th most in a single-season for the affiliate, while his 61 strikeouts were 20th most (as noted with Acosta, all players above Texido had the luxury of a 72-game season). Tall and loose, the left-handed pitcher has a low 90's fastball with significant sink that creates weak groundball contact, while he also incorporates a curve, slider and changeup which show enough current merit and advanced command to believe in a four-pitch starter mix through development.
Among the youngest pitchers in professional baseball over the season, Davidxon Lara went from a relatively unknown amateur who signed for $50,000 out of Venezuela, to a pitcher of note in the Angels low minors. The undersized right-hander is a good on-mound athlete with advanced command and feel for the zone. Through his first six games, Lara faced 118 batters and walked just one which included a stretch of 101 batters faced without permitting a walk. Though he would walk four of the final 43 batters he faced (*sarcastically gasps*), Lara showed an advanced ability to mix his pitches and work around the zone, spending all but his final three starts over the summer as a 16-year-old. Lara operates mostly in the upper 80's and low 90's and touched 93 over the summer, with decent feel for a mid-70's curveball and mid 80's changeup. His size (5'10/165) may limit his ceiling, but Lara has the current traits of a future starter with plenty of youth to bank on.
Other DSL Notables:
Signed on the older side of the international amateur market, right-handed pitcher Anel Cabrera signed with the Angels in April as a 20-year-old and spent the summer in the DSL where his 1.25 ERA was second lowest across the entire league (trailing only Adrian Acosta, 1.17; min. 40 IP). The low ERA mark was third best in affiliate history among those with 40-or-more innings pitched... After spending two seasons as the DSL Yankees closer, Ruben Castillo was released by the pinstripes in May and quickly signed with the Angels three weeks later as a 21-year-old minor league free agent. Castillo served as the DSL Angels closer with a 39.0 K% and nine saves, which is tied for the most in affiliate single-season history with Jorge Tavarez (2016)... The DSL Angels finished their season going 37-18, holding the sixth best record in the 50-team league and earning a wildcard spot in the DSL Playoffs. As a team, they had; the third most stolen bases (121), 10th highest batting average (.257), 2nd lowest ERA (3.25), 3rd lowest H/9 (6.9), 4th lowest WHIP (1.311), 10th highest K/9 (9.7), and 10th highest K/BB (2.00). (*NOTE*: At the release of this article the DSL Angels are in the middle of a best-of-three opening playoff series with the DSL Phillies, splitting the first two games. This note will be updated upon completion of the series and/or DSL playoffs.)
After spending the first part of this article down in Boca Chica, let's head north for the rest of the article to Tempe and the Arizona Complex League where a pair of players jumped into prospect status while others have started to create a name for themselves in the low minors.
Signed as a defense-first shortstop from the Dominican Republic for $150,000, Capri Ortiz changed the script this summer in Arizona and has become of the biggest risers in the Angels system. Splitting his pro debut in halves, Ortiz struggled to start in the DSL in 2022, having a .522 OPS in his first 26 games, but turned the corner and posted a .793 OPS in his final 26 games. He carried that late success into instructional league where he became a player of note for the organization and then had a loud presence based on his speed and defense this summer in the ACL. His on-paper performance leaves a bit to be desired in a .273/.374/.345 slash line with a near 30% strikeout rate but the Angels liked his aggression in the box and on the basepaths and ability to adjust to switch-hitting which he started near the midway point of the season, with some promising signs in his ability to hit from both sides. Listed at six-foot and 150-pounds, there is significant weight and strength that needs to be added to the frame to tap into any form of power as Ortiz's game is more suited for slapping the ball through the infield or flaring a ball to the outfield while maintaining his line drive swing. When he puts the ball in play though, he can cause havoc. Posting the occasional sub-4 home-to-first time, Ortiz is more in the 4.0 to 4.1 range which grades above plus but under plus-plus, but his ability to utilize that speed only enhances the tool. Ortiz stole 30 bases over the summer which set a new affiliate record surpassing Aneury Almonte's 28 in 2002, and ranked 16th all-time in league history for a single season while being the most in the league since Monte Harrison stole 32 bases in 2014. Of note, Ortiz's 39 runs scored were the most for a single season at the affiliate since Rolando Gomez (48) and Randal Grichuk (47) in 2009. Along with 18-year-old's speed is the ability to handle a premium defensive position with ease as his quick feet allow him to cover plenty of ground at shortstop, while his internal clock allows him to slow the pace of the game and let his quick release and average arm do the rest. Ortiz may never grow into offensive impact and be more suitable as a bench player by the time he nears the Majors, but his speed and defense give merit to his future role at the upper levels while the bat will dictate whether or not be becomes an everyday player.
When doing my post-season rounds last October to accumulate information for prospect rankings, one name jumped out as one I had never heard previously mentioned as a "prospect" but a standout performance in the DSL (which was noted in this article last year) and during instructional league left me curious about someone who "could be the next Edgar Quero". Though the results of Quero haven't been matched quite yet, Dario Laverde has put his name on the map for Angels prospects and has put up similar performance markers with similar tools to a young Quero to make sense of the comparison. The left-handed hitting catcher who signed for $350,000 out of Venezuela had a .306/.419/.455 slash line with 28 walks and 31 strikeouts on the year as an 18-year-old, while his 123 wRC+ was in the 74th percentile across the league. Laverde started catching around a year prior to signing as a professional, converting from the outfield, and has plenty of raw traits behind the plate that have to be refined before trusting him as a long-term backstop. His arm can grade out as average or better, but his transfer and footwork may need an overhaul to allow his arm to play. An outstanding athlete, Laverde has solid lateral movement and blocking skills, so there is a foundation and building blocks to keep him behind the plate. For as raw as his defense is, his offensive skillset is far more polished than most in his age range. Laverde is a disciplined hitter with a focus on seeing pitches and driving pitches in his hot zone to the gaps. There isn't much power in his five-foot-10 frame, but enough to believe his contactability will translate into the occasional over-the-fence pop. Though it may be hard to project Laverde into what Quero became (Top-100 prospect who warranted a Lucas Giolito return), Laverde has the tools to dream on a platoon catcher with offensive upside and he will become the Angels top catching prospect upon Logan O'Hoppe's prospect graduation.

(Dario Laverde - Photo by Jerry Espinoza)
Signed for $235,000, Anthony Scull was part of a duo from Cuba who signed with the Angels on September 6, 2021, joining Jorge Marcheco. Both got a quick trip to Boca Chica where Scull was able to play 10 games with some lackluster performance and was initially assigned back to the DSL to start 2022, but after one plate appearance was sent back stateside to Arizona where he performed well in a limited 13-game sample. Scull repeated his offensive success in 2023, slashing .300/.377/.453 with seven doubles, five triples, and three home runs. Scull started the season with a 12-game hitting streak and collected a hit in 24 of his first 27 games while batting .363 and having an OPS that hovered around 1.000 throughout. His bat cooled off for the latter half of his season hitting .206 in his final 21 games with a 33.3 K% (13.7 K% in first 27 games). The 19-year-old outfielder is more a sum of all parts kind of player as opposed to having a real standout or carrying tool, not dissimilar to fellow Angels Cuban farmhand Orlando Martinez. The son of former Cuban baseball star and Olympian, Antonio, the younger Scull has a swing reminiscent to his father with a closed stance, short load, and present bat speed that make him a line-to-line hitter with focus on the bat being his ability to utilize the barrel and occasionally tap into some gap power, while his defense may be limited to a corner outfield position as he's only a fringe athlete. There's a lot to like about the overall package Scull provides and players of his caliber sometimes turn into platoon-type players at the upper levels and into the Majors, though his status as a prospect remains limited.
After turning heads in his pro debut in the Dominican, Luis Torres carried his near unmatched DSL year into video game type numbers to start his sophomore pro season in Arizona, slashing .583/.659/.889 in his first 10 games which included four doubles, two triples, and a home run. He earned a quick promotion to Low-A Inland Empire where he had a three-hit game in his full season debut and three more hits in the two games following but quickly cooled off against elder and more polished talent collecting just five hits in his next 15 games and was sent back to Arizona. Some inconsistencies came in his second stint with the ACL affiliate as he hit .250 with a .719 OPS and 29.1 K% in his final 19 games with Tempe. For the bulk and completion of his season, his 150 wRC+ was seventh best across the league among hitters with 100+ plate appearances. The inconsistencies haven't deterred Torres' status as a low-level follow (as opposed to a solidified prospect), but the 19-year-old Dominican still may have finally seen his free and loose swing be exposed to some holes while he began to chase at more pitches out of the zone with both approach and swing refinements needed. Signed for $10,000 in February 2022, Torres has a large physique that allows him to tap into hard contact and over-the-fence power from the right side. Though he's limited to first base only defensively, Torres has enough feel for hitting and the power production to continue monitoring how he can cut down his chase rates and overswing tendencies to potentially grow into a prospect with a likely trip to full season ball next season.
Cristian Garcia has spent the last three summers between the DSL and ACL with steady performance based mostly on plate discipline. Garcia, a 19-year-old corner infielder, has progressively walked his way through Rookie Ball (pun intended) with his 2023 campaign seeing 37 free passes, which rank fourth in Angels AZL/ACL affiliate history and the most since 1993. There isn't much in terms of prospect status when it comes to Garcia, as he's a fringy athlete with a below-average hit tool, but players of his caliber tend to make waves for their on-base percentage in the low minors and grow into monitoring status as they progress through development in hopes that more repetition can turn particular offensive tool into a fringe/average skill. On the season, Garcia slashed .266/.418/.413.
Drafted by the Angels in the fourth-round of the 2019 MLB Draft, Erik Rivera is one of just seven remaining players drafted and signed by the Angels in that class. Rivera was drafted as a two-way player with upside as a power hitting outfielder from the left side and power southpaw on the mound. Following the draft, the Angels sent him out strictly as a designated hitter and it was evident his future would be on the mound which would wait until the following season which would not occur due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In his first pro pitching outing, Rivera tossed over three scoreless with Low-A Inland Empire, allowing a hit and a walk while striking out six, but saw his velocity dip quickly in his final outing. It's been a long road for Rivera since that point as a tear in his UCL required Tommy John surgery followed by some unspecified complications which caused him to miss the rest of the 2021 season, all of the 2022 season, and most of the 2023 season. Rivera returned to the mound on the second day of August this summer for the first time in over two years but showed similar tools to what made him such an alluring pitching prospect prior to surgery. He came out sitting 92-93 while touching 96 over the summer, while still flashing a plus changeup and signs of a breaking ball. Control dogged Rivera through his five brief outings in Arizona, as he walked 13 of the 37 batters, he faced but when he was near the zone, he was unhittable allowing just three hits to those same 37, striking out 11. Though he's an elder statesman for a low-level arm at 22-years-old, Rivera being healthy and green on the mound is a boon for the Angels pitching depth, particularly with so few left-handed pitching prospects. He'll need to show more command and control to return to his prospect status from prior years, but the raw package remains near the same as when he was a highly touted youngster after the draft.
A standout from extended spring, Keythel Key is a relatively unknown pitching project who has garnered some attention as a low-level arm with tools that could carry him into more than organization filler status. Most of Key's success comes in flashes as opposed to frequency, which was evident in his summer in the ACL where he had performed on par with most of the league average, posting a 4.53 ERA, while walking 32 and striking out 40 over 43.2 innings. Key is a tall and lean 19-year-old with good on-mound athleticism who operates mostly in the low 90's with some mids in the bag, with a slider that flashes average. There's a lot of raw tools -- particularly in fastball command and ability to consistently snap his breaking ball -- but enough to like about Key and his athletic markers and projection to continue monitoring him.
Of the Angels 19 draft picks in 2023, 13 started their pro career in Tempe. Nolan Schanuel (1st round), Alberto Rios (3rd round), Joe Redfield (4th round), Cole Fontenelle (7th round), Caleb Ketchup (15th round), and Mac McCroskey (20th round) all got less than a handful of games each before shipping out to affiliates, with Schanuel being the clear standout not only as a first-rounder but as a Major Leaguer only 21 games into his pro career. Seven of the 13 found less temporary residence in Arizona and spent the full start of their pro careers in Tempe. John Wimmer (11th round), an athletic shortstop with spark plug offensive upside from Rock Hill High School (SC), struggled against elder pitching in nine games, striking out in half of his plate appearances with a .432 OPS. Rio Foster (16th round), an athletic and physical high-ceiling outfielder from Florence-Darlington Tech (SC), struggled in a brief eight games as his active swing brought swing-and-miss with it, striking out 10 times in 25 plate appearances with a .414 OPS. Opposite his draft mates, Raudi Rodriguez (19th round) hit pro ball in stride over a brief 12 games, slashing .368/.415/.447, despite being viewed as the rawer product and free swinger of the previously mentioned pair. In recent years under Perry Minasian's regime, the Angels have pivoted savings from the second day of the draft to go well over slot with an early teen pick, but altered that course this year (in a way) and had their big bonus player come in the eighth-round in Barrett Kent, a tall and projectable right-handed pitcher from Pottsboro High School (TX) with a low-to-mid 90's fastball and trio of off-speed offerings that could grade out as average. Kent pitched well in his brief pro debut, allowing six baserunners without permitting a run while recording 14 outs over two stints, striking out five. Chase Gockel (9th round), a right-handed pitching grad student from Quincy University with a mid-90's fastball, struggled to find the zone in four brief outings walking 12 of the 23 batters he faced. Riley Bauman (13th round), a right-handed pitcher from Abilene Christian who returned from Tommy John late this spring showing a mid-90's sinker, got a quick taste of post-surgery action in pro ball allowing five runs in four innings of work. 
The Angels transitioned catcher Straton Podaras, infielder Christian Sepulveda, and outfielder Darwin Moreno to the mound progressively through the summer, with all sitting around 89-91 and topping around 93. This wasn't dissimilar to what they did with Logan Britt and Mario Zabala. Both Britt and Zabala were draft prospects as prep outfielders in 2020 but their star dwindled during their collegiate careers. Britt faced three batters in college (Abilene Christian) before the Angels took him as a pitcher in the 17th-round in 2023. Zabala was a two-year starter at Florida International but was limited to pinch-running duties his junior season with just 15 batters faced on the mound with minimal success, but the Angels consider both as pitchers at this point and will continue their development as such. I have no report on Britt or Zabala as pitchers currently.
Other ACL Notables: 
The Angels hit the NDFA/UDFA (whichever/whatever you want to call it) market quick and heavily after the draft signing some of the more notable non-drafted draft prospects with the headliners being catcher Caleb Bartolero (Troy), shortstop Andy Blake (Columbia), and outfielder Landon Wallace (West Virginia). Bartolero and Blake played well, albeit in six game stints each, in Arizona while Wallace went hitless in his first four games, he turned the corner quickly over his final six games going 8-for-14 (.571). Infielder Will McGillis (South Carolina) was not among the notable UDFA's but took advantage of his collegiate experience as a 24-year-old sporting a .378/.525/.644 slash line in 59 plate appearances, collecting hits in 12 of the 15 games he played and reaching base safely in 14. His 191 wRC+ was second highest across the league among hitters with 50-or-more plate appearances...
For the third consecutive season, Alex Martinez has held court in the Angels ACL bullpen, as his 1.17 ERA in 2023 was third lowest across the league (min. 20 IP). The undersized right-hander who is fastball dominant has now spent the last three summers in Arizona with a combined 0.92 ERA, 14.1 K/9, and 37.2 K%...
18-year-old outfielder Ramon Ramirez was an offensive staple to the DSL Angels in 2022 and garnered attention as more than just a low-level organization filler though not quite into prospect status. After collecting one hit in his first six games with sparse playing time, the left-handed hitter got back into a hitting groove over his last 12 games hitting .313 with five extra-base hits and a .965 OPS...
Randy de Jesus was a touted amateur outfielder from the Dominican Republic when the Angels signed him for $1.2 million in 2022, but his first taste of stateside ball left some questions about the consistency his bat will offer. Scouts still like the foundation de Jesus provides but there is a lot of fine tuning before tapping into even part of the finished product which still may be a power-only offensive base with too much swing-and-miss to get to any ceiling. Splitting his seasons into quarters, his final three-quarters showed glimpses of success with a .282/.343/.366 slash line and much lower 23.0 K% compared to the 29.6 K% in his first 12 games... Three players who suffered season-ending leg or knee injuries in 2022 returned to action in 2023 in the likes of infielders Edgar Alfonso and Luis Rodriguez, and outfielder Natanael Santana. Alfonso, 19, is a light-hitting speedster from Cuba who didn't showcase his plus to plus-plus speed on the basepaths frequently during the season but walked a bit and hit .247 over 35 games. Rodriguez, 18, was a big-bonus baby out of Venezuela on the international market (though his actual bonus has differing reports and has not been confirmed to this writer) who showed impressive tools at instructional league in 2022 and got his first taste of pro ball in 2023 in Arizona performing around league average with a .791 OPS and two home runs. Santana, 22, became a name to follow in 2021 after showcasing impressive power and speed tools from an impressive physique but was sidelined in 2022 with a knee injury. The raw offensive product is still in play for Santana as he struck out in nearly 35% of his plate appearances but still showcased the same tools as before. It's unlikely he'll be able to hit enough to hit his immense ceiling, and may be forever stuck in the low minors, but remains an interesting follow.
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These last few Angel seasons have seen the team display a certain aggressiveness when it comes to prospect promotions by being the first organization to promote a draft pick to big league play in each of the last three draft classes. The Angels were the first to break the prospect seal from the 2021 draft with their promotion of Chase Silseth and followed suit this season with their promotion of Zach Neto. With Nolan Schanuel soon to see his Major League debut practically right out of the 2023 draft it appears trends will continue. This move has fans split in two as some praise the Angels aggressiveness in giving a shot to a guy who's blowing MiLB pitching away with others crying desperation at what seems to be a Hail Mary attempt at playoff hopes. The truth behind the matter lies somewhere in between, requiring a more nuanced analysis to understand the logic behind such move. Nolan Schanuels offensive profile right out of the draft already had him as close to Major League ready as it gets, and though this may seem a response to the dire straits of this season in truth this promotion has potential to set the Angels up for competitive play both now and in the future. 
When analyzing this move you first have to account for the extremely advanced profile of Nolan Schanuel. While the Angels could have easily called Trey Cabbage back up there is a clear desire for a more nuanced offensive approach. The Angels current 1B depth offers power potential at the cost of high strikeout percentages, and given the teams low affinity for situational hitting it may not serve future outlook well to continue stacking the cards in such a way. Lack of “development” aside, Schanuel comes into this organization with a truly mind-boggling offensive profile; his last year in college saw him hit .447 across 197 ABs while featuring a ridiculous 71 BBs to 14 Ks across the season, all to the tune of a 1.483 OPS. His previous seasons were no different with Schanuel regularly walking at a far higher clip than he would strikeout while putting up an OPS over 1.000 each season with the school. His lack of current big league power may be a mark against him for some, but with the biggest issue for the Angels being their inability to score runs outside of the long ball Schanuels offensive profile suddenly becomes incredibly desirable on the big league lineup. His current skillset profiles him as a Luis Arraez type, which would be a boon for any organization regardless size or position, and should his power swing develop he could top out as a Freddie Freeman. His offensive build on its own warrants a look or two against big league pitching and once you consider the Angels lack of a true starter at 1B going into 2024 it becomes much more clear as to why the organization would want to evaluate all in-house options.
This organizations recent track record with quick promotions does not go against them either, most of the quality on this team (aside from Trout and Ohtani) have come off of quick prospect turnarounds. Chase Silseth and Zach Neto were both the first players to be called up out of their respective draft classes and have each shown a mixture of promise alongside current ability. On the year Silseth has collected a 3.27 ERA across 41.1 IP and and with his recent streak of quality starts against the Yankees, Braves, and Mariners he’s looking to solidify his reputation as a top of the line starter. On the other hand Zach Neto has shown himself a team leader both with attitude and play; offensively he’s amassed 8 HRs and 14 doubles in 67 games while defensively operating as one of the best shortstop gloves in the game. The current MLB landscape sees teams getting younger every year, ultimately behooving the Angels to let their advanced prospects learn how to operate in the big leagues as soon as their talent call for it. There is clearly steam to the nationwide philosophy of calling up advanced prospects and letting them play it out in the Majors, making it no coincidence as to why the best things about the Angels 2023 season (aside from Ohtani) have been the talent of their young prospect callups. Any moves made to catch this team up to the current standard is worthy of praise considering how far behind the organization has fallen under watch of owner Arte Moreno
More organizations should be encouraged to give shots to their advanced prospect talents based on their skill set and not an arbitrary amount of time spent in the Minors. There is a good reason as to why teams like the Dodgers, Braves, and Astros seem to the run the league year in and year out. People may cry foul and offer the argument that the Angels are disrupting Schanuels development, but if anything offering him opportunity to see Major League at-bats only accelerates his ability to reach Major League form (for obvious reasons). If Nolan Schanuel can translate his high walk, high contact approach this lineup will be in the best place it’s been all year, especially considering close returns by Logan O’Hoppe and Mike Trout.
The rest of August will see the Angels match up against teams facing their own degrees of recent struggle, offering plenty of opportunity to jump back on the playoff horse. A streak of series wins could very well wash out the palate of a decidedly horrific first half of August and put the team in line for a competitive September. The biggest frustrations with the Angels have been their extreme underperformance despite the talent on this team, but in that same vein this is a team with enough talent to flip current fortunes in a major way. This upcoming stretch is going to be a dream come true as the Angels look to match up against a multitude of teams either below or within 5 games of .500. This Rays series is crucial as it will either reinforce this negative August stretch or give Angels ground to break out moving forward, so it only makes sense to add as much potential talent into this lineup as soon as possible even if it is just prospect talent. At the very least it will give Angel fans something worth watching amidst this late season collapse.
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These last few Angel seasons have seen the team display a certain aggressiveness when it comes to prospect promotions by being the first organization to promote a draft pick to big league play in each of the last three draft classes. The Angels were the first to break the prospect seal from the 2021 draft with their promotion of Chase Silseth and followed suit this season with their promotion of Zach Neto. With Nolan Schanuel soon to see his Major League debut practically right out of the 2023 draft it appears trends will continue. This move has fans split in two as some praise the Angels aggressiveness in giving a shot to a guy who's blowing MiLB pitching away with others crying desperation at what seems to be a Hail Mary attempt at playoff hopes. The truth behind the matter lies somewhere in between, requiring a more nuanced analysis to understand the logic behind such move. Nolan Schanuels offensive profile right out of the draft already had him as close to Major League ready as it gets, and though this may seem a response to the dire straits of this season in truth this promotion has potential to set the Angels up for competitive play both now and in the future. 
When analyzing this move you first have to account for the extremely advanced profile of Nolan Schanuel. While the Angels could have easily called Trey Cabbage back up there is a clear desire for a more nuanced offensive approach. The Angels current 1B depth offers power potential at the cost of high strikeout percentages, and given the teams low affinity for situational hitting it may not serve future outlook well to continue stacking the cards in such a way. Lack of “development” aside, Schanuel comes into this organization with a truly mind-boggling offensive profile; his last year in college saw him hit .447 across 197 ABs while featuring a ridiculous 71 BBs to 14 Ks across the season, all to the tune of a 1.483 OPS. His previous seasons were no different with Schanuel regularly walking at a far higher clip than he would strikeout while putting up an OPS over 1.000 each season with the school. His lack of current big league power may be a mark against him for some, but with the biggest issue for the Angels being their inability to score runs outside of the long ball Schanuels offensive profile suddenly becomes incredibly desirable on the big league lineup. His current skillset profiles him as a Luis Arraez type, which would be a boon for any organization regardless size or position, and should his power swing develop he could top out as a Freddie Freeman. His offensive build on its own warrants a look or two against big league pitching and once you consider the Angels lack of a true starter at 1B going into 2024 it becomes much more clear as to why the organization would want to evaluate all in-house options.
This organizations recent track record with quick promotions does not go against them either, most of the quality on this team (aside from Trout and Ohtani) have come off of quick prospect turnarounds. Chase Silseth and Zach Neto were both the first players to be called up out of their respective draft classes and have each shown a mixture of promise alongside current ability. On the year Silseth has collected a 3.27 ERA across 41.1 IP and and with his recent streak of quality starts against the Yankees, Braves, and Mariners he’s looking to solidify his reputation as a top of the line starter. On the other hand Zach Neto has shown himself a team leader both with attitude and play; offensively he’s amassed 8 HRs and 14 doubles in 67 games while defensively operating as one of the best shortstop gloves in the game. The current MLB landscape sees teams getting younger every year, ultimately behooving the Angels to let their advanced prospects learn how to operate in the big leagues as soon as their talent call for it. There is clearly steam to the nationwide philosophy of calling up advanced prospects and letting them play it out in the Majors, making it no coincidence as to why the best things about the Angels 2023 season (aside from Ohtani) have been the talent of their young prospect callups. Any moves made to catch this team up to the current standard is worthy of praise considering how far behind the organization has fallen under watch of owner Arte Moreno
More organizations should be encouraged to give shots to their advanced prospect talents based on their skill set and not an arbitrary amount of time spent in the Minors. There is a good reason as to why teams like the Dodgers, Braves, and Astros seem to the run the league year in and year out. People may cry foul and offer the argument that the Angels are disrupting Schanuels development, but if anything offering him opportunity to see Major League at-bats only accelerates his ability to reach Major League form (for obvious reasons). If Nolan Schanuel can translate his high walk, high contact approach this lineup will be in the best place it’s been all year, especially considering close returns by Logan O’Hoppe and Mike Trout.
The rest of August will see the Angels match up against teams facing their own degrees of recent struggle, offering plenty of opportunity to jump back on the playoff horse. A streak of series wins could very well wash out the palate of a decidedly horrific first half of August and put the team in line for a competitive September. The biggest frustrations with the Angels have been their extreme underperformance despite the talent on this team, but in that same vein this is a team with enough talent to flip current fortunes in a major way. This upcoming stretch is going to be a dream come true as the Angels look to match up against a multitude of teams either below or within 5 games of .500. This Rays series is crucial as it will either reinforce this negative August stretch or give Angels ground to break out moving forward, so it only makes sense to add as much potential talent into this lineup as soon as possible even if it is just prospect talent. At the very least it will give Angel fans something worth watching amidst this late season collapse.
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ANAHEIM — In the wake of Reid Detmers’ brilliant performance on Wednesday night, Angels manager Phil Nevin said it marked a watershed moment for the 24-year-old left-hander.
“He turned into a pitcher tonight,” Nevin said, referring to the fact that Detmers didn’t have his best stuff and accumulated only five strikeouts while carrying a no-hitter into the eighth inning.
Detmers agreed.
“I wasn’t really going out there for strikeouts or anything,” he said. “I was just trying to get deep into the game. That was the whole mindset. It was more about sequencing and just keeping them off-balance.”
It was exactly what Angels starters have been unable to do for most of this disappointing season.
Even though all of the key pitchers returned from a team that ranked ninth in the majors in ERA in 2022, the Angels have crashed to 21st this season.
The knee-jerk explanation that many fans have found most convenient is that pitching coach Matt Wise is the problem.
Wise was not available for comment because of a club policy limiting the subjects their coaches can address with the media. A handful of members of the organization, from those above Wise to the pitchers below him, all staunchly defended the third-year pitching coach, even when offered anonymity.
“He’s been awesome,” Detmers said. “I couldn’t have asked for anyone better.”
Nevin pointed out that Wise was the pitching coach when the Angels’ ERA improved from 22nd two years ago to ninth last year.
“I love the rapport he has with the pitchers, the way they respond to him,” Nevin said. “There are some guys that have taken some steps forward. I understand some guys have taken some steps back, but I don’t put that on Matt. Yes, coaching is a lot of it, but at this level, you gotta be a man and figure some things out on your own to be a professional.”
Obviously, each pitcher is ultimately responsible for his own performance. Given that so many Angels pitchers have regressed, it strains credulity to believe it’s a coincidence.
When pitchers and staff members were asked privately for their honest opinions, they had some theories about the reasons for the team-wide pitching failure.
Most of them agreed on one count.
There has been an organizational philosophy – one that comes “from the top,” not from Wise, a player insisted – to concentrate more on spin, velocity and movement instead of command and working through game situations.
Essentially, the focus was the opposite of what Detmers did on Wednesday night.
The shift is personified by a switch in the staff member who is No. 2, behind Wise, in running the pitching staff. Dom Chiti, who began his coaching career in the 1980s, was replaced as the bullpen coach by Bill Hezel, who came from Driveline to take his first job in professional baseball. Hezel’s specialty is helping pitchers improve their velocity, pitch shapes, spin and mechanics.
Left-hander Patrick Sandoval said the Angels definitely went too far in emphasizing raw stuff early in the season, but it became more balanced with the other elements of pitching about a month into the season.
“We’ve structured the pitching here in a way to emphasize both, I think in a good way,” he said. “It’s just a matter of us going out there and executing in games, and that’s where we fall short, for sure.”
One of the reasons the Angels were emphasizing pitch shapes, the pitchers said, is that the team was looking for more strikeouts. This year’s shift ban, plus the Angels’ overall weaker defensive infield, prompted the team to try to avoid contact.
The problem with that approach, the pitchers said, is it means too many deep counts, and too many breaking balls. The Angels rank 29th in the majors in fastball percentage.
Although the Angels were successful last year while also ranking 29th in fastballs, one pitcher suggested that perhaps this year the game plans have gotten too predictable for opposing hitters.
Each day the pitching plan is the product of the work of five to 10 people, including the pitcher, one or two catchers, Wise, Hezel and a number of analysts.
The result of that plan, some pitchers suggested, is too often inflexible, not allowing for the myriad ways that situations can change during a game. A handful of Angels pitchers are not allowed to shake off the catcher, the pitchers said.
The catchers calling those pitches are also a part of that equation, and the difference in experience behind the plate has been dramatic this season.
Chad Wallach has started 112 games at catcher over parts of seven major league seasons. Matt Thaiss, who played other positions for most of his minor league career, has started 73 major league games at catcher. This season Thaiss has started 62 games, and Wallach has started 44.
Last year the Angels’ catching duo of Max Stassi and Kurt Suzuki combined for 1,783 major league starts behind the plate over 26 seasons. Suzuki retired and Stassi has missed the entire season because of a hip injury and a family emergency.
“That’s a lot of years catching experience,” Sandoval said. “To be able to pick their brains day in and day out is something I really miss.”
General Manager Perry Minasian acknowledged the impact of losing Stassi and Suzuki, although he said he’s been pleased with Wallach and Thaiss.
“It’s tough to replace guys like Stassi and Suzuki, especially when you’re trying to develop young pitching,” Minasian said.
Minasian, however, said he was unaware of the other organizational issues that pitchers cited.
He said when the season is over they will “evaluate everything and do a full autopsy on everything. Every year you try to learn from different things and make improvements.”
Minasian said he believes that each individual pitcher who has struggled has his own reasons, most notably youth.
“It takes time for pitchers to settle into the major leagues and be consistent and start rolling off quality years, year in and year out,” Minasian said. “We knew that risk heading into the season with a young group. There are going to be ups and downs. It’s a young, talented group that I feel like is going to continue to get better the more experience they get.”
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Rays (TBD) at Angels (LHP Tyler Anderson, 5-4, 5.28 ERA), Friday, 6:38 p.m., Bally Sports West, 830 AM
Angels pitching coach Matt Wise, left, catcher Chad Wallach, center, and starting pitcher Tyler Anderson head to the dugout before a game against the Chicago White Sox on May 30 in Chicago. Angels pitchers say Wise is not to blame for their struggles this season. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)Related Articles
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