The Los Angeles Angels are one of the many Major League Baseball teams who seem as if they either don’t care about winning or can’t figure out the secret as they enter every season with one of the worst pitching staffs.
They have now signed 29-year old Noah Syndergaard to join their starting rotation that so far consists of just Shohei Ohtani, who is the only pitcher on the roster who threw more than 100 innings last season.
Noah Syndergaard is coming off Tommy John surgery in March 2020. He threw 2 innings last season so he fits the profile for an Angels starting pitcher. The Angels starting pitchers have not ranked above 22nd in innings pitched since 2015. That’s a very long time ago.
Last offseason they addressed their pitching problem by signing third baseman, Anthony Rendon. Again, not sure if these teams want to win or just can’t wrap their minds around a way to do it.
We are going to ignore that Syndergaard’s last full season was 2019 where he recorded the worst ERA of his career because this isn’t about Noah. These are the moves Anaheim has to make in order to make the most of having Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani chained in the basement of their facility.
We should be wanting teams to take these risks instead of pointing out all worst case scenarios. We should want to see Ohtani pitch in the playoffs. We should want to see Mike Trout FINALLY have an at-bat with some fucking pressure on him. It’s cool that he’s putting up all these Barry Bonds-esque regular season numbers but the Angels are the first team eliminated from playoff contention and none of his ABs matter.
This is the largest contract the Angels have given to a pitcher since they signed CJ Wilson in 20fucking12. Perhaps this front office has finally discovered the secret of winning games: having a pitching staff.
Maybe they’ll get crazy and who knows…sign a 3rd pitcher???? TBD.
