{"id":731456,"date":"2026-06-21T04:21:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T04:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/731456\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T04:21:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T04:21:12","slug":"angels-release-taijuan-walker-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/731456\/","title":{"rendered":"Angels Release Taijuan Walker – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Angels have granted right-hander Taijuan Walker<\/a> his unconditional release, according to an announcement from the team\u2019s Triple-A affiliate at Salt Lake. Walker signed a minor league pact with the Halos on June 11th, his second with the organization since being released by the Phillies in late April.<\/p>\n

Walker, 33, made two starts with Salt Lake this time around. Both lasted five innings, and Walker allowed a total of seven runs (six earned) while striking out just three batters and walking the same number. That brings him to a 4.91 ERA in 14 2\/3 innings over three starts at Triple-A for the Angels.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a microscopic sample, of course, but it\u2019s still not great for Walker given how poorly he\u2019s performed in recent years. Now a veteran of 14 seasons, Walker was worth 2.4 fWAR in 173 2\/3 innings for the Phillies in 2023. Since then, he\u2019s pitched to a 5.67 ERA in 230 innings while striking out just 15.6% of opposing hitters.<\/p>\n

At this stage, it wouldn\u2019t be surprising for Walker to engage in a cycle of signing minor league deals with opt outs, testing free agency, then either re-signing or joining a new organization in hopes of earning a big league callup. The latter is increasingly unlikely given Walker\u2019s ineffectiveness at Triple-A, to say nothing of his decline in recent years. He may eventually find a team desperate for innings eaters, but perhaps it\u2019s telling that the Angels, a team with a 4.64 rotation ERA that\u2019s tied for seventh-worst in the Majors, have passed on calling up Walker for a second time.<\/p>\n

The financial cost isn\u2019t an issue, as the Phillies are still on the hook for Walker\u2019s $18MM guaranteed salary this year. Any team that brings Walker up would only owe him the prorated $780K big league minimum, which would be subtracted from the Phillies\u2019 tab. That leaves Walker as a low-cost depth option who\u2019s struggled recently, but who may be young enough that a partial rebound is possible. He could look to sign with the Angels again and re-establish himself over a larger sample at Triple-A. As an alternative, Walker could look for opportunities as a reliever, embracing the role the Phillies gave him in the middle part of 2025.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Patrick Gorski, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Angels have granted right-hander Taijuan Walker his unconditional release, according to an announcement from the team\u2019s Triple-A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4,1544],"class_list":["post-731456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-taijuan-walker"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116786186370467795","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731456","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=731456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}