Writer Jayson Stark recently shared the following quote on Twitter: “It's amazing how far away spring training feels on Dec. 31...And how close it feels on Jan. 1.” It’s a quote that rang true for me, as for the first time this offseason I’m beginning to feel like baseball is just around the corner.
We’re now roughly a month away from pitchers and catchers reporting, which for the Angels’ sake hopefully means that we’re about to see a slew of signings. Despite my blog’s four-week hiatus over the holiday season, there isn’t a whole lot for me to catch up on. Here I’ll attempt to write a few words on the few signings that I missed.
Jordan Romano
From 2020 to 2023, Jordan Romano was one of the best relievers in baseball. During those four years, his 2.29 ERA ranked as the 10th best over at least 100 innings. If you increase the innings limit to 200, then he is behind only Devin Williams, Emmanuel Clase, and Jacob deGrom.
In 2024, Romano struggled through 13.2 IP before being shut down due to arthroscopic surgery to repair an impingement in his throwing elbow. The following year, Romano was healthy but had an awful season, finishing with an 8.23 ERA. On the surface, that’s obviously an unfathomable number, but there are some underlying metrics that support the potential for him to bounce back this year.
Romano’s xERA, which uses Statcast data to figure out what a pitcher’s ERA should be, was a much better 3.99. A large reason for this was Romano’s proneness to giving up hits in bunches. Romano left only 49% of opposing batters on base, which effectively meant that half the opponents he allowed on base would eventually score a run. Romano’s xFIP of 4.33 tells a similar story.
These aren’t elite numbers, but they compare favorably to many Angels relievers; one example is Kenley Jansen, who posted a 3.75 and 4.60 xERA and xFIP, respectively.
As Romano recovers from injury and learns to trust his arm, there’s reason to have optimism that at worst he could hover around a 4.00 ERA, with upside to get closer to his old dominant self. For $2 million, that’s good value.
Drew Pomeranz
Drew Pomeranz has had an unorthodox MLB career. Pomeranz was a top-five draft pick turned top prospect who, as pitchers tend to do, struggled in Colorado after being called up. He then had a couple of successful years in relief for Oakland before breaking out as a starter, earning an All-Star nod in 2016 for the Padres.
He was dealt to the Red Sox and kept having success before the wheels fell off his career in 2018. From 2018 to 2021, he posted a 4.61 ERA and struggled to stay healthy. He was out of the major leagues from 2022 to 2024, and at age 36, most people would have assumed that his MLB career was over. Instead, last year Pomeranz signed with the Cubs and was miraculously one of the best relievers in baseball.
If you look at pitchers with a minimum of 40 IP, Pomeranz had a top-25 ERA last year, which all of his peripheral stats supported. At 36 years old, he still had his stuff, and his K-BB% was the best of his career if you ignore the 2020 season where he pitched only 18.2 innings.
The Cubs initially started him out in a low-leverage role, but he kept climbing their list of trusted relievers, and by the end of the year he was pitching important innings in the playoffs.
The Angels are taking a $4 million bet that at 37 years old, Pomeranz has at least one year left in the tank. Pomeranz has pitched only 94.0 major league innings this decade, which should be a good sign for his durability, but as a 37-year-old with a long injury history, there’s obviously a ton of risk here.
If the bet pays off, the Angels are getting a quality reliever who the Cubs trusted to hold close leads in the seventh inning during the playoffs.
Kirby Yates
To date, the theme of this offseason for the Angels has been reclamation projects, and in Kirby Yates, they’ve signed yet another.
The Dodgers' bullpen was a complete mess last year, with evidence suggesting an organizational failure in coaching and game planning. Here is how the top of their relief corps fared:
Three top-tier relievers imploding in the same season is statistically improbable and suggests the Dodgers outsmarted themselves. To support this theory, look at a player familiar to Angels fans: Luis Garcia.
In 2024, Garcia was a reliable arm for the Angels before being dealt to the Red Sox. Boston tinkered with him, increasing his velocity and altering his mechanics; as a result, his ERA ballooned to 8.22. He then signed with the Dodgers and posted a 5.27 ERA before being released. Finally, he landed with the Nationals and finished the year with a dominant 1.60 ERA over 28 innings between Washington and Anaheim.
The Dodgers had limited Garcia’s sinker usage, but with the Nationals and Angels, he returned to throwing it roughly half the time. That adjustment essentially turned Garcia back into his old self overnight.
Regarding Kirby Yates, his profile shows similar small changes made by the Dodgers, most notably a three-degree shift in his arm angle. The Angels are betting $5 million that, like Garcia, Yates can rediscover his form by pitching like his old self. This bet is more realistic because the Angels are reuniting him with pitching coach Mike Maddux, who oversaw Yates’ 2024 campaign where he posted a 1.17 ERA and finished eighth in the AL Cy Young voting.
From 2017 to 2024, Yates posted a 2.52 ERA. If the Angels are getting that version of Kirby Yates, then they’ve just found their closer.
Wade Meckler
I initially wasn’t going to include Meckler in this article, but the more I consider this signing, the more likely I think it is that Meckler will be on our opening day roster.
Meckler is a left-handed bat who can play all three outfield positions. Given that the Angels currently don’t have a lefty outfielder, this makes Meckler a great fit. Most notably, it also gives the Angels the option to use a Teodosio/Meckler platoon in center field. Teodosio had a .755 OPS against lefty pitchers last year, while Meckler in Triple-A has had much more success against right-handers.
The biggest question is whether his offense from Triple-A can translate to the big leagues. Meckler only put up a .578 OPS during his short MLB stint back in 2023, but he has had much more success playing in Triple-A these past couple of years, albeit in the hitter-friendly PCL.
Meckler has Taylor Ward-esque patience, where he’ll take a lot of strikes looking for the right pitch. When he elects to swing, he has really good contact rates; however, this is paired with a below-average power profile. Given the Angels' lineup of high-slugging / high-strikeout hitters, I think with Meckler and Grissom the Angels have shown that they’re actively trying to get more contact hitters into their lineup. Across 2024 and 2025, Meckler’s contact rates in the minors have been around 80%, which is only bettered by Schanuel out of current Angels players.
It’s not the most exciting signing, but if it doesn’t pan out, then Meckler has the upside of having one minor league option remaining. I said at the start of the offseason that the Angels needed to sign a dirt-cheap fourth outfielder, and I’m fine with Meckler as that signing. If purely used as a platoon bat, he could be a nice piece.
Going cheap in the outfield now gives the Angels more freedom to spend on pitching and the infield. Between Trout, Adell, Soler, Teodosio, Meckler, Rada, Paris, and Lugo, the Angels have options in the outfield, whereas there are much bigger question marks left in the rotation and in the infield.
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