LA Angels: Where to go now with Trevor Bauer reportedly out
By Nick Stevens
LA Angels need to get aggressive
If the LA Angels want to spend a bit more on the rotation (astronomical ask, I know), Jake Odorizzi is still available and has one of the highest upsides among the remaining options on the market.
Odorizzi logged just 13 innings last season, but he wasn’t sidelined by a shoulder or elbow injury. Odorizzi lost the majority of his 2020 season after taking a line drive off his chest, followed by blister issues. Injuries haven’t been an issue for him during his near-decade long tenure in the major leagues and aren’t a concern entering 2021.
Despite staying relatively healthy, Odorizzi has topped 170 innings just once. He won’t be an innings-eater type, but he is coming off an All-Star season as recently as 2019 while with the Minnesota Twins and you can expect him to be worth around 2.0 Wins Above Replacement across a full season.
He’s a very good option to put in the middle/back end of a starting rotation, which isn’t what the Angels need, but Odorizzi is one of the top available arms.
Teams looking to sign Odorizzi are certainly hoping he can return to his 2019 form where he struck out a career-high 27 percent of hitters and walked 8 percent, his lowest walk rate since 2016 with the Tampa Bay Rays.
With other needs on the roster and Odorizzi projected to land a deal in the range of three years and $40 million, he may be out of range for the LA Angels, but if he’s an option they want, the time to get aggressive is now or never.