The Angels announced Monday that they were making the following moves: Chris Rodriguez would be sent to AA ball and join the Rocket City Trash Pandas, Jaime Barría would be returned to AAA and be a Salt Lake Bee, and José Quintana is now healthy again and rejoins the pitching corps.
A few things stand out. First, it remains to be seen whether Quintana will remain a starter. The Angels 6-man rotation consisting of Ohtani-Canning-Heaney-Cobb-Bundy-Sandoval seems to be working for the time being, and I would prefer Bundy to get starts over Quintana. Additionally, one wonders if Rodriguez is being stretched out as a starter. He has struggled his past few outings, and perhaps having a more defined role would make sense for him, an opinion others on the site have articulated.
The Angels now seemingly have one open roster spot.
I guess Jose Quesadilla has been recalled from SL to fill that last bullpen slot . That means we now have 4 Jose’s on the roster and 5 lefties in the pen
https://twitter.com/JeffFletcherOCR/status/1407057814296698884?s=20
Q to the bullpen is my opinion
SLC in mine.
The Mine or the City?
Listening to Joe in the pregame radio, it sounded like he was putting Quintana on a Iast opportunity thing. He said that Sandoval has earned his opportunity. C-Rod is a big part of the plans. You are correct he may need to stretched out and maybe the sticky substance thing is a thing. Jake Faria parted ways since he didn’t get to start.
The Angels are sending 2 down but only activating 1. What is the other move?
Currently they have 4 lefties in the pen and 4 righties including A closer who only closes, a nightmare of a setup man, a sleestak and a bad Guardian (Lady in the Water reference) What right handed pitcher is going to preserve the lead and get us out of a jam in the 6th and 7th? Clearly none of the 4 above meet that criteria so unless we’re going to only march out lefties out of the pen in the 6th & 7th the next move has to be a RH relief pitcher.
C Rod has looked really bad lately. Like Q levels of bad.
I don’t think anyone has pitched themselves out of a rotation spot in Q’s absence but he’s making too much to be a Watson 2.0.
Maybe we could try it temporarily until he regains his “form?”
If however, he does not regain his form we might be dealing with another Matt Harvey.
Sucks for Barria. He was scheduled to start on Saturday in AAA. He missed his start because he was called up on Saturday, didn’t get to pitch in the majors, and is now being sent back down.
I’m sure the $3,500 and delicious sandwich spread he was given to come up here and rest for a while helped make it all better.
Wow, I didn’t believe it was really $3,500 for 2 days, but you might have actually undercalculated. The MLB minimum over a 162 game season is almost $3,500 per game, so he might have made close to $7,000.
Absurd that a MLB player makes more in 2 weeks than a AAA player on the 40-man roster makes for the whole season.
I believe it’s days, not games, but the sentiment is correct. A good chunk of change.
Additionally, sending him down today, not tomorrow, perhaps saved the Angels some money.
Arte: [fingers intermingling] “Excellent.”
$500,000 for about 6 months of work will add up pretty quickly on a per diem basis
Rodriguez getting “stretched out” makes sense…. What is the typical time frame for that process, already throwing multiple innings, starting in the past? Worried about his shoulder issue along with his back surgery. Sure doesn’t look as confident. Is his velocity the same? Or is he a recovering substance abuser, the sticky kind of substance?
let’s hope that Q was not quite healthy before but is now and that it’ll be reflected in his performances. He looked good in spring training, right? Until proved otherwise I’ll hold on to that thought.
I also wonder if it might not be a good idea to try our luck out with Q as a mid to late inning left handed specialist ? Potentially he could be a better option than Watson, or at least another/different option.
I say this for a couple of reasons, mainly because Q usually started games well. His breaking stuff is still pretty good. It seems he ran into most of his problems in the 3rd inning or later after teams got a chance to see him one time through the order. And when things went sour then went bad in a hurry. If his exposure was limited to one inning only it could be that he would flourish.
Thoughts?
Bundy has been the same way in many of his starts too, though. The wheels fall off when facing the order for the 2nd time. It kinda makes me wish we didn’t need to keep doing this 6-man rotation. If both Bundy and Quintana became relievers, suddenly the pitching staff seems decent. Of course if Quintana proves us all wrong and has a great start, then great.
Bundy is not a bad comp for Q. They both throw their fastball roughly half of the time but for each guy they average only 91.3 mph on that fastball. Both guys live off their breaking stuff. I think it is a good comparison.
And part of the reason they struggle a 2nd and 3rd time through the order (if they even make it three times through) is the fact they cannot rear back and rely on the heat to get them out of a jam. They cannot afford to make mistakes with their fastballs and if their control is even a little bit off they get rocked.
Start Bundy, have him pitch through the order, then bring in Quintana, have him pitch through the order…. it may take two pitchers to do it, but by Gah we will get that quality start.
That’s not a bad idea. We have an excess of guys up now so it could be pulled off…
Buzzie Approves of two pitchers to replace one
were they both 8-7?
6th man is too long between starts, I question the sharpness by waiting a week to face live pitching.
Long gone are the days of 4-man rotations and no pitch counts. No quick hook or 3rd time thru the rotation poop to hold the 1971 Orioles down. Just a great season which deserves tribute.
Dave McNally* – 30 starts, 21 Wins, 16 CGs, 227 innings
Mike Cuellar – 38 starts, 20 Wins, 21 CGs, 292 innings
Jim Palmer – 38 starts, 20 Wins, 20 CGs and 282 innings
Pat Dobson – 38 starts, 20 Wins, 18 CGs, 282 innings
*McNally actually sat out with a sore arm 6-weeks but still managed 21 Wins and 16 CGs.
Today’s game would destroy such capable pitchers as these. Even having one 20-game winner is a rare feat these days and there really is no reason we cannot have more CGs other than philosophy. One way to speed up the game is to avoid the bullpen.
Q’s numbers this year definitely favor a middle relief role . His L/R splits this year are drastic (vs RHB OPS .944 vs LHB OPS .532) and times facing opponent worsens after the first time around ( First PA .756 OPS vs 2nd PA .931 vs 3rd PA 1.000) Career wise he’s only made 7 relief appearances so not sure how he would adjust.
The problem ( I guess a good kind of problem) is they already have a much more effective LH middle reliever right now in Jose Suarez. The dude has been lights out this year in 7 game appearances while averaging almost 3 innings per appearance with about 3 days of rest between each appearance. Now considering 4 of of the 6 starters are RHP ( Ohtani, Bundy, Cobb & Canning) Does Joe think there is enough work for 2 lefthanded long relievers?
I could see both Q and Suarez being part of an effective bullpen. But we need a dominant multi inning right handed middle inning reliever and more effective LH/RH set up men n that wont melt down every time they are brought into a close game.
Good point about Suarez. But I keep wondering if he’ll be moved back to SP, which is where he started. . The modern game DOES require a good number of versatile and quality arms as moving pieces in the bullpen so it is not a bad problem to have.
Personally, I am not that high on Watson, so I ‘d be willing to try different arms in that 7th inning slot, one of which could potentially be Q.
Suarez is only 23 so it’s not if but when the Angels move him into the starting rotation. He’s definitely excelling in the current role that everyone had hoped CRod would fill with this team. I just don’t see the Angels putting Suarez back in the rotation unless they finally decide to jettison Bundy.
My only concern with Q is his BB/9 this year is atrocious at 7.0. This is much much higher than his career numbers which are closer to 2.6/9 He definitely striking out batters at a high enough rate but if the Angels think they have solved the walk issue, You may very well be right that Mr. Watson we no longer need you.