The Ben Joyce Era: How the Angels Are Overhauling the Bullpen After the Fire Sale

Out with the old, in with the new is the theme of the Angels right now. With former GM Perry Minasian fired largely due to his inability to craft a bullpen despite spending a ton of resources to do so, new GM John Mozeliak is taking his swing at the Angels relief unit.

The first step was obvious: get rid of the current group. In all, Chase Silseth, Kirby Yates, Brent Suter, and Ryan Zeferjahn were traded away last week. Now comes the more difficult task of finding quality relievers to turn the unit around.

The Return of the 105-MPH Arm

Ben Joyce was drafted in the third round of the 2022 draft to be the Angels closer of the future. Last season he was supposed to learn from stalwart closer Kenley Jansen then take over the job. Equipped with an 80 grade fastball that averages a click more than Mason Miller's, Joyce has the look and tools to be a big league closer.

However, injuries have been a constant in Joyce's career. A shoulder injury that required surgery kept Joyce off the mound for over a year. Now he is back and making adjustments to hopefully stay that way.

Prior to his shoulder injury Joyce used his blazing four seam fastball nearly 70% of the time. To alleviate the high-effort strain on his shoulder labrum, Joyce has integrated a lower-effort, heavy-sinking two-seam fastballs/sinker. While it sits slightly lower at 99–101 mph rather than his peak 104+ mph, it generates far higher groundball rates

Joyce is the big dog in the bullpen now. Health will dictate how long that lasts.

The 2021 'All-Pitcher' Draft Class Gets Its Audition

Both Luke Murphy and Brett Kerry were part of Perry Minasian's all pitcher draft in 2021. Kerry was selected in the fourth round and Murphy in the fifth. Both were high leverage relievers in college and ended their careers as closers in the SEC.

Not many organizations draft pure relievers that high but the Angels were desperate to build a bullpen while they still had Shohei Ohtani under control. Unfortunately for the Angels, a lack of organizational development scuttled their plans and both Murphy and Kerry struggled for a few years as professionals.

This season Luke Murphy broke out in a major way and got his call up to the big club. In 34 games he had a microscopic ERA of 0.71 with more strikeouts than innings pitched in AA. After previously struggling to limit walks, suddenly Murphy was mowing down hitters and great at limiting free passes.

Brett Kerry's stats in AAA do not look good at the surface level. However, he was pitching in the sky high stadiums of Salt Lake City and the Pacific Coast League so it is hard to take traditional stats at face value. What Kerry did provide the Bees is reliability. His 91 innings across 20 games proved his durability.

In two games at the MLB level, Kerry has pitched 8 innings and allowed 3 runs. As of now he is soaking up innings but if he keeps this level of production could be in line for a long relief role in 2027.

Samy Natera Jr. Emerges as the Left-Handed Anchor

Samy Natera Jr. was brought to the big club prior to the three mentioned above. After an impressive run in the World Baseball Classic it looked like the hard throwing southpaw could be on the MLB roster this season. Like with Murphy, walks were the one thing holding him back.

At the big league level Natera Jr. has performed very well. In 21 games Natera has pitched 25 innings, struck out 38 and posted an ERA of 2.16. He has walked 10 batters over that time and still needs to work on getting ahead in counts, but overall he is looking like a promising young arm. But thanks to the high number of K's, Natera Jr.'s WHIP is an outstanding 0.88.

The Verdict: This Is Exactly What a Rebuild Looks Like

Angels fans looking at short term results are looking in the wrong place. Giving young players an opportunity to sink or swim allows the organization (and fans) to see which players will be part of the next winning core.

In an ideal world each of the four young hurlers mentioned above will live up to their potential then be joined by fellow flamethrowers like Chris Cortez and Joel Hurtado to create a super bullpen. But an ideal world is not the real world.

There are reasons to believe in each one of these arms. But there are also legitimate concerns. The fun will be watching them succeed, fail, adjust, and play themselve either into our out of the Angels future plans.

Ultimately, it is more entertaining to play armchair GM and catch the beginning of something potentially really good than watch the tired path of inexpensive veterans get predictable results. The irony here is that if these arms pan out, John Mozeliak will have a leg up on developing the bullpen his predecessor could not thanks to arms left to him by Minasian.

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