The Los Angeles Angels announced the signing left-hander Joey Lucchesi, with the announcement reported by Darragh McDonald of MLBTradeRumors.com via John Heyman of the New York Post.
Lucchesi was in came for the San Francisco Giants on a minor league deal until a few days ago when the Giants granted his release, although it’s unknown whether the pitcher triggered that move with an opt-out of his own.
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The 33-year old hurler has been a starter or swing man for most of his career, until last year when he pitched exclusively as a reliever. He pitched 38-1/3 innings for the Giants over 38 appearances, with an ERA of 3.76. Lucchesi throws in the low 90s with both his four-seam fastball and his sinker, and while he doesn’t strike out a lot of hitters at 18.8 percent, he does get a lot of ground balls at a 53 percent rate to go a solid his walk rate of just 7.3 percent.
Lucchesi was scheduled to get a salary of $2 million in arbitration, but the Giants non-tendered him and re-signed him to a lower deal that would have paid him $1.5 million, hence the possible use of an opt-out by.
For the Angels, Lucchesi represents a healthy, experienced receiver, and they don’t have a lot of those right now. They brought in several pitchers with an injury history, and with Robert Stephenson probably out for the year and Ben Joyce unlikely to pitch for at least the first week or two of the season, this signing represents something of a coup.
The bullpen competition is complicated, to say the least. According to McDonald, pitchers like Ryan Zeferjahn, Sam Bachman and Walbert Urena seem to be trending toward Opening Day jobs, but all three have options.
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The Angels do have to make a roster move to fit Lucchesi in, but they made a total of 11 of them this morning to add all sorts of players to the roster while sending others out. It’s a chaotic way of doing business this close to Opening Day, but it’s also typical of the way the Angels operate.
Lucchesi could also be featured in the swing-man role if the Angels like what they see. The back of the rotation is hardly established, either, with Grayson Rodriguez scheduled to open the season on the injured list and Alek Manoah scuffling. It’s going to take a while to sort things out, so there’s an opportunity here for Lucchesi.