Angels acquire César Ramos from Rays for Mark Sappington

Another trade has gone down as Jerry Dipoto is working extra hard on this Wednesday afternoon. This time the Angels will be sending prospect Mark Sappington to the Tampa Bay Rays and receive left-hander César Ramos. Ramos is in his second year of arbitration and is projected to earn $1.3 million, about what Hank Conger would have made, before being traded earlier this afternoon. 

Sappington struggled as a starter and was moved to the bullpen where he found more success. He finished his Angels minor league career getting as far as Single-A and had a 4.61 ERA.

Sappington had this say about his trade to the Rays and leaving the Angels,

As for César Ramos he comes over from the Rays after spending time as both a starter and reliever in 2014. He is left-handed but isn’t your prototypical LOOGY. He has the ability to face both righties and lefties with about the same amount of success. For his career right-handed hitting opponents .249 with a .338 on-base percentage, while lefties hit .241 with a .301 on-base average.

He has faced more righties than lefties, 627 plate appearances to 442, but has walked 46 less lefties than righties. I have not seen him pitch too often, but he could be the type of lefty that pitches around a righty in a tough spot to get to the left-handed hitter. We will find out for sure in 2015.

As for my gut reaction to this deal, again the Angels made a great move for the now. They are trading away a potentially good bullpen arm if Sappington turns out, but for Jerry Dipoto and the Angels, they want to win now and this is the best move to do that. This move could be the replacement for free-agent Joe Thatcher who spent 16 games with the Angels in 2014.