Played some games for us

  • 2B Michael Stefanic
  • C Chad Wallach
  • 2B Jack López
  • RHP Andrew Wantz
  • RHP José Marte
  • RHP Adam Cimber

Got kind of close last season

  • OF Orlando Martinez
  • RHP Ivan Armstrong
  • RHP Travis MacGregor

Organizational depth

  • OF Jason Martin
  • CF Jake Marisnick
  • OF Imanol Vargas
  • CF Shane Matheny
  • C Tyler Payne
  • SS Elliot Soto
  • RHP Chase Chaney (16th round pick in 2018)
  • RHP John O'Reilly
  • RHP Tayron Guerrero
  • RHP Luis Ledo
  • RHP Ruben Castillo

It's a pretty mixed bag of guys.

I think out of the first group, only Marte warrants another look at the MLB level. Not sure how Wantz is doing with his injury. Chad Wallach was a career journeyman who could never hit but was a decent enough catcher to stick around the league a while. He was alright depth when O'Hoppe was out with the torn labrum, but he's now obsolete with the d'Arnaud signing. If Thaiss sticks around our farm, his avenue toward playing time shrunk even more. The mention of Jack Lopez anywhere here is immediately met with derision. Stefanic was amazing at not striking out in AAA, but that did not fully translate to the bigs and that was pretty much the only reason to keep him around. Cimber was fine for a month and a half and then the wheels completely fell off.

Orlando Martinez showed off his bat for a little bit, but he simply got buried by our organizational depth (we have that??), stuck behind our active roster outfielders (Ward, Trout, Soler, Adell, Moniak), then Campero, Teodosio, Jordyn Adams, Matthew Lugo, and Tucker Flint.

Ivan Armstrong got moved up to AAA pretty late in the season, but it seems like with the acquisitions of Brock Burke and Ryan Zeferjahn, along with the gaggle of relievers who will be fighting to be bullpen depth (Minacci, Michael Darrell-Hicks, Nick Jones, Seig, Yovan, Caceres back from injury) and a small group of converted starters (Suarez, Silseth, Davis Daniel), there's just no room left. Similar story for MacGregor, who was fine in AAA, but got buried as more arms came through. I think he will likely garner a new minor league contract somewhere else.

Everyone else is a relative footnote for the organization.

These are in addition to the recent DFAs/releases of Kenny Rosenberg, Ryan Miller, and Matt Thaiss, Guillo Zuniga. Lots of spots just opened up in the farm for all those recently drafted pitchers.

Source: https://www.milb.com/salt-lake/roster/transactions/los-angeles-angels

5 comments

  1. Eh kinda liked marte, low leverage guy, but it makes sense. Might try the TPs bullpen a bit, but i hope they re-sign Marte. Stefanic needed out of the system to find any chance of any kind of playtime, so good for him

  2. Wallach will always be the Big Chad for catching Reid’s no-no and hitting a big dong while he was at it. ❤️

  4. Nice breakdown. I’m most sad about Stefanic and Wallach. But no need for the latter now, hopefully. 

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