Los Angeles Angels: Pitchers the Angels could sign alongside Gerrit Cole
By Jason Reed
The Los Angeles Angels’ agenda this offseason is to bolster the starting pitching, which was horrendous last season and held the team back.
The Los Angeles Angels starting rotation ranked second to last in ERA last season, only ahead of the Colorado Rockies. The Angels also ranked dead last in FanGraphs WAR, which perfectly showcases the team’s inherent problem: starting pitching.
As a result, it is no surprise that the Angels are chasing starting pitching and they are in the mix for the best pitcher on the market, Gerrit Cole. Cole is an Orange County kid and the homecoming narrative appears to be strong, as Jon Heyman reported that the New York Yankees are worried that Cole will prefer the Angels or Dodgers.
The Yankees drafted Cole out of high school in the first round and were reportedly offering him a $4 million signing bonus. He turned it down and instead stayed home and pitched in college at UCLA.
This does help ease the worries of the Yankees snagging Cole away from the Angels but this gives the Los Angeles Dodgers a stronger chance as well, which is concerning.
It would be a massive win if the Los Angeles Angels sign Cole, but the work would not be done. With Cole on the roster, the only reliable options in the starting rotation would consist of him, Shohei Ohtani, Andrew Heaney and Griffin Canning.
And even then, that is not oh-so reliable. Ohtani is coming off of Tommy John and we still are not completely sure if he can balance being a two-way player for an entire season.
Heaney was once a pitcher with a ton of promise but at some point, you kind of are who you are in the big leagues. And for Heaney, that is a guy who has an ERA in the mid-fours.
Canning is young and has electric stuff but he did not have as much success his rookie season as fans would have hoped. The chances of him being an above-average starting pitcher are still strong.
The Angels obviously need a fifth starter and they should look to extend past that as well. Even in adding one more pitcher, the Angels would be one injury away from yet again being short-armed. Look at the Dodgers: they have eight starting pitchers seemingly every year and that helps them counteract the natural occurrence of injuries throughout the year.
That raises the question: which starting pitchers would be nice additions alongside Cole and the rest of the Angels rotation? We are not talking about the big-name pitchers, these are guys that are middle-of-the-rotation guys that will help provide some depth.