Angels Pitcher Traded at Deadline Could Retire Immediately After Season

The trade that sent Kirby Yates from the Angels to the Pittsburgh Pirates was a small ripple in a turbulent season in Anaheim.

Yates knew he was closer to the end of his career than the beginning when he signed a one-year, $5 million contract last December. The Angels were hoping he could bounce back to his 2024 form (1.17 ERA, 33 saves in 61 games for the Texas Rangers) after a rough 2025 with the Los Angeles Dodgers (5.23 ERA, three saves in 50 games).

That didn't happen. Yates began the season on the injured list with inflammation in his left knee. He was 0-5 with a 3.95 ERA and only three saves in 31 games when he was traded to the Pirates at the Aug. 3 deadline.

The acquisition looks shrewd for the Pirates on the surface. Yates is 2-0 with a 2.19 ERA in 12.1 innings since the trade. (Kyle Robinson, the right-hander the Angels got in the trade, is is 0-2 with an 8.27 ERA in five starts for Double-A Rocket City).

Yates is now recovering from a shoulder injury that recently sent him to the injured list. The Pirates (74-73) are 4.5 games out of a wild-card berth in the National League, and must pass both the San Diego Padres (78-68) and Arizona Diamondbacks (78-69) to make the postseason.

Yates and his new team are both running out of time. Although it's the first shoulder injury the veteran right-hander has sustained in a decade, it comes at a delicate time in his career.

Yates, whose eldest child is 8, told MLB.com he is considering retiring after the season.

"They want Dad home as much as they possibly can," he told Aiden Stepansky. "So, I think we're getting to a point where we've had conversations before; it kind of hits you different when they tell you they'd rather have you home. So as a father, when you hear that it kind of gets you pretty good in the heart.

"And there's decisions to make here in the near future. I'm pretty positive in what I'm gonna do.”

If this season marks the end of the road for Yates, the bulk of his baseball career has been written.

Beginning with his 2014 debut with the Tampa Bay Rays, Yates went 32-29 with a 3.36 ERA and 101 saves in 516 games. He's worn the uniform of eight teams: the Angels, Pirates, Rays, Dodgers, Rangers, San Diego Padres, Atlanta Braves, and New York Yankees. He's made two All-Star teams (in 2019 with the Padres and 2024 with the Rangers) and collected downballot Cy Young Award votes after each of those two seasons.

Yates' two stints with the Angels — he made one appearance out of their bullpen in 2017 — were hardly the highlight of his 12 MLB seasons. Nonetheless, his three saves left him one behind Jordan Romano, Ben Joyce and Ryan Zeferjahn for the team lead through Thursday.

In a season where healthy and productive closers were almost impossible to come by for the Angels, Yates was as good as anyone.

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