Los Angeles Angels running out of options to add starting pitching

The Los Angeles Angels added Anthony Rendon and a couple of veteran starters, but they need a frontline arm to lead their rotation but they’re running out of them.

Billy Eppler and Arte Moreno made the best addition of the offseason in my opinion by signing Anthony Rendon to put him behind Mike Trout and in front of Shohei Ohtani in the lineup. But it wasn’t long until the Los Angeles Angels pivoted their focus to add to the rotation–their biggest remaining area of need.

At the time of the Rendon press conference, the Angels had a plethora of options: Madison Bumgarner, Dallas Keuchel, and Hyun-Jin Ryu were the headliners. But they instead signed Julio Teheran and traded for Dylan Bundy and missed out on all three of the starters previously mentioned.

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But if you really think that Billy Eppler wants to go into the season with the rotation as presently constructed, you are probably wrong.

Right now the rotation consists of Shohei Ohtani (for 1 start a week), Julio Teheran, Dylan Bundy, Griffin Canning, and Andrew Heaney. That is not going to be good enough in my mind to really compete for a postseason spot, especially when the Wild Card race is already shaping up to be very close at least on paper.

So, what are the Angels options? Well, they are slimming by the day.

Homer Bailey, Clay Buchholz, and Ivan Nova represent some options that could be innings eaters at worst, and Bailey showed that he has the ability to be a quality starter with the Athletics last year.

But after using a big portion of their money on who I think is the best third baseman in the game, the likelier scenario is that the front office goes to the trade route to upgrade the rotation.

Boston’s David Price is the first option that Angels fans might want to go for because he is the big name. But he would be paid north of $30 million for the next three seasons and I am not sure if the Halos want to do that when they have two players worth over $330 million right now in the middle of their lineup.

A cheaper option would be Cleveland Indians ace, Mike Clevinger, although he would cost the Angels at least one top prospect like Brandon Marsh. The Yankees want to trade J.A. Happ and his contract is not as high as Price’s so he could be another veteran that could be added to the rotation.

While it might seem there are a lot of options remaining, the Los Angeles Angels have already struck out on the biggest ones–and their amount of options are decreasing by the day.