Shaun Anderson, a right-hander, has been assigned, the Angels announced this evening. With Anderson gone, right-hander Caden Dana would be able to take his place in the team’s bullpen, according to Sam Blum of The Athletic.
Anderson, 30, made his major league debut with the Giants in 2019 after being selected in the third round by the Red Sox back in 2016. Despite pitching for parts of six major league seasons, he has never been very successful. The right-hander’s career big league ERA is 6.11 with a 16.8% strikeout rate and an 8.7% walk rate across 162 innings of work with the Giants, Twins, Orioles, Padres, Blue Jays, Rangers, Marlins, and Angels. Over the years, he has also struggled with the long ball; over his career, 13.5% of his fly balls have left the yard.
Although his 2023 KBO league season, in which he pitched to a 3.76 ERA in 14 starts for the Kia Tigers, gives at least some hope that he will be able to get outs at a higher professional level, it’s a difficult profile. Additionally, he has a 3.86 ERA in 349 1/3 innings pitched in Triple-A, which indicates that he can at least be a good minor league backup for a team in need of a pitcher. Anderson will have a week to decide whether to accept an outright assignment or test free agency after the Angels try to pass him through waivers or negotiate a deal involving him.
Dana, who is 21 years old, hasn’t accomplished much in the first two seasons in the major leagues. Between three starts last season and one multi-inning relief appearance earlier this season, he has already recorded an 8.78 ERA in 13 1/3 major league innings. Dana is a consensus top-100 prospect who dominated Double-A pitching last season with a 2.52 ERA over 23 starts (135 2/3 innings of work) and a 27.4% strikeout rate, despite those poor performances in his short time in the majors thus far.
Although Dana hasn’t been able to maintain it in Triple-A this season, it was still a really impressive performance. In eight starts and 38 innings pitched, he has a strong strikeout percentage of 24.6% but a 5.21 ERA. However, a lot of it is undoubtedly caused by the Pacific Coast League’s exaggerated offensive climate, and the Angels may have chosen to try to continue the right-hander’s development at the major league level in order to get Dana into a more pitching-friendly atmosphere. Although Chris Sale’s early years with the White Sox are arguably the most notable example, it wouldn’t be the first time a top pitching prospect made their major league debut as a reliever.
The large league club’s active promotion of Dana may also be influenced by its level of competition. After all, the team enjoyed a winning streak of eight games going into the weekend, bringing their record back up to.500. In a weak AL Wild Card field, they are only 1.5 games out of postseason place. It makes perfect sense for the Angels to want to take advantage of that chance aggressively after Mike Trout has been out of the playoffs for almost his entire career. In order to avoid having to build up to a full starter’s workload or pitch a third time through the order, Dana could be pushed to complete his development in the big league bullpen rather than the Triple-A rotation. This would allow him to get experience against big leaguers in a less hostile environment for pitchers.
