{"id":706921,"date":"2026-05-23T21:27:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T21:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/706921\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T21:27:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T21:27:15","slug":"angels-sign-taijuan-walker-to-minor-league-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/706921\/","title":{"rendered":"Angels Sign Taijuan Walker To Minor League Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Angels have signed right-hander Taijuan Walker<\/a> to a minor league deal, according to Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register<\/a>. Walker was released by the Phillies earlier this season. He is a client of CAA Sports.<\/p>\n

Walker, 33, certainly made an impact in Philadelphia this year, and not in a good way. In five appearances (four starts), Walker allowed a staggering 23 earned runs and eight home runs in just 22 2\/3 innings. Almost nothing was going right for him, with Walker\u2019s strikeout rate, walk rate, and WHIP all trending in the wrong direction from last year. The Phillies, needing a rotation spot for the returning Zack Wheeler<\/a>, decided to release Walker on April 23rd.<\/p>\n

There is no financial risk in the Angels taking a flier on Walker. At the time of his release, Walker was earning $18MM in the final season of a four-year, $72MM pact with the Phillies. The Angels will only owe him the prorated league minimum for any time spent in the Majors, which will be subtracted from the Phillies\u2019 tab. Regardless of Walker\u2019s underwhelming recent track record, at least he won\u2019t cost the Angels a lot of money.<\/p>\n

Of course, his being cheap doesn\u2019t inspire confidence in Walker\u2019s ability to help the Angels. The righty had a 7.10 ERA in 83 2\/3 innings in 2024 and allowed two and a half home runs per nine innings. Walker split 2025 between the rotation and bullpen, with mediocre results in both roles. His 4.25 ERA was serviceable but came despite a below average 14.7% strikeout rate. Meanwhile, Walker\u2019s 3.15 ERA as a reliever disguised an ugly 11.8% walk rate, and his 5.14 FIP put his true talent two runs higher than his ERA. Even if Walker improves on his small sample from earlier this year, he\u2019s at best a No. 5 starter now.<\/p>\n

More to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Angels have signed right-hander Taijuan Walker to a minor league deal, according to Jeff Fletcher of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,1544],"class_list":["post-706921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-taijuan-walker"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116626013776424318","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}