LA Angels Thursday News Crash

RANCHO CUCAMONGA — Statistics are part of the history and fabric of baseball.

They can tell a story, but sometimes they don’t tell the whole story.

Left-hander Talon Haley has fairly pedestrian numbers for the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes.

He is 1-3 with a 5.37 ERA and a 1.52 WHIP, none of which are that eye-opening.

But the Angels’ 11th-ranked prospect according to Baseball America has struck out 77 batters in 58 ⅔ innings in his first professional season and his journey just to get to this point in his career is the most remarkable thing of all.

“Hopefully (my story) can encourage people,” Haley said. “That God’s got a plan for you.”

The setbacks for Haley began before high school.

“I guess even since I got into kid pitch, I had a weird inflammation in my elbow. They’d say, ‘take a couple of weeks off and you’ll be good.’”

But he wasn’t good. He was told he could potentially pitch in the Southeastern Conference after high school, but don’t expect much of a career beyond that.

But Haley, a product of Lewisburg High School in Olive Branch, Miss., wouldn’t accept that.

It wasn’t until the Haley family went to Dr. Jeffrey Dugas of Andrews Sports Medicine in Birmingham, Ala., that they finally got some answers.

Haley had a bone abnormality where his growth plate had grown into his ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his pitching arm. The UCL wasn’t torn, but it was why he was experiencing pain. Unfortunately, to repair it, they would need to tear it and replace it, i.e. Tommy John surgery.

While not the career-killer Tommy John surgery once was, it does require at least a year of rehabilitation.

Haley, whose birthday is in January, and would’ve originally been in the high school class of 2024, repeated the eighth grade, allowing him to potentially play four years in high school.

Except the Tommy John surgery wasn’t his last setback.

He returned to pitch his freshman season, but while doing so, found a “weird bump” on the side of his neck. Doctors did a biopsy and he was diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

What followed was 21 rounds of chemotherapy and 15 rounds of radiation. So of course, he had to take a break.

But he did not and kept playing.

“Baseball was my outlet. When I was on the mound, I wasn’t a chemo kid. My mindset was, ‘I’m going to beat this.’ So I should go do the thing I love.”

So in the summer after his freshman season, he would typically have chemotherapy on a Wednesday, travel Thursday and play a game on Friday. He even taught himself to be right-handed so he could be a right-handed throwing outfielder during his treatment

“Honestly, from the time I was diagnosed, I felt God was telling me I was going to be OK,” he said.

And if Tommy John surgery and cancer weren’t enough, Haley’s dedication was tested yet again. Playing during his cancer treatment perhaps contributed to his next setback, a tear in his UCL that required an internal brace procedure that forced him to miss the second half of his junior season.

He returned for his senior season and wowed the scouts. He had a 0.48 ERA, striking out 92 in 43 ⅔ innings.

Haley, whose mother is a teacher, had committed to Vanderbilt for college.

“I learned to take school pretty seriously. I had to make sure the academics were there. I knew Vanderbilt would prepare me for my goal to play professional baseball,” Haley said.

Haley wasn’t drafted until the 12th round by the Angels in 2025, which on the surface might indicate there was concern about his health. But in order to entice him to go pro instead of go to Vanderbilt, it took an $897,500 bonus for Haley to sign. While Haley was the 13th player the Angels drafted, he got the fifth-highest bonus.

Although Haley wanted to start his pro career right away, the Angels held off on having him pitch last summer. It wasn’t until instructional league in the fall that he pitched, then officially started his pro career this spring.

Quakes manager Dave Stapleton, himself a former big-league pitcher, first met Haley in instructional league last fall and has been impressed.

“Obviously, the first thing you notice is his maturity and he showed a knowledge of the game from the pitching side,” Stapleton said. “Spring training was the same thing.

“(You) see the stuff he’s been through in his young life. He has a right to be able to say, ‘I’ve been through a lot.’ As far as on the mound, the competitiveness comes out. You start to see it and all of a sudden you’re saying, ‘Wow this is pretty special.’”

Along with that maturity, Stapleton is seeing that Haley is a student of the game.

“He’s being locked in during a ball game when other guys are pitching, seeing what other pitchers are doing,” Stapleton said.

Being in his first pro season, there is no rush for Haley to be promoted, but he’s feeling more and more comfortable. Stapleton isn’t looking for specific results to prove Haley is improving and Haley isn’t either.

“I’ve gotten better every game,” he said. “I’ve found ways to not rush myself. (Last start) I felt I could throw all five pitches for strikes.”

The fact that he’s throwing any pitches for strikes and as a pro prospect, is remarkable by itself, considering how far Haley has come.

https://www.ocregister.com/2026/07/20/quakes-pitcher-overcomes-injuries-cancer-and-is-now-angels-11th-ranked-prospect/