The Angels must make some tough roster decisions

It is the time of year for the Angels when tough roster decisions have to be made.  The Angels have four main prospects who will eligible for the Rule 5 Draft in December if they are not added to the 40-man roster.

The Angels will have to make some adjustments to their 40-man adjustments in order to protect these prospects or risk losing them in the Rule 5 Draft. The Rule 5 Draft allows all major league teams to put in a claim for a player that is left off the 40-Man Roster.  The only stipulation if you choose someone in the Rule 5 Draft they must stay on the team that claims them must keep them on the major league roster all season. If they do not do so, the player has to be offered back to his original team.

To be eligible for the Rule 5 Draft you either had to be signed before they turned 18 and been with their current team for five years or signed before they turned 19 and have been with their current team for four years.  The goal of the Rule 5 draft is to keep any MLB team from having too many minor league prospects that might be able to play their way to the majors more quickly in another organization,

For the Angels there are four notable names on this list infielder Jose Rojas, infielder Jahmai Jones, infielder Leonardo Rivas, and pitcher Hector Yan. Yan, Jones, and Rivas are all on the Angels top 30 prospects.

Jahmai Jones –

Jahmai Jones is the highest ranked prospect that could potentially be left unprotected as he is rated 6th in the Angels system.  Jones was drafted as an outfielder in 2015. He has been switched to second base in hopes of giving Jones a quicker path to the majors.  So far he has gone only as far as Double-A.

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This season was a disappointing on for Jones as he hit only .234 with fie homers and 50 RBIs.  He also had a paltry OBP of .308.  Overall in three and a half seasons Jones has hit .258 with 96 stolen bases with 35 homers and ,202 RBIs.  The Angels still like Jones and would like to keep him especially with second base being a spot of need for the Angels. They could risk it and leave Jones unprotected in thinking that no team would want to claim him.

Hector Yan –

Yan is a young left-handed pitcher with a tremendous talent.  Yan has a 94 to 96 mile per hour fastball, but he also throws a curve, change-up, and a split-fingered pitch. Yan had a tremendous 2019 season the best he has ever had in the minors since he was signed by the Angels out of the Dominican Republic.

Yan went 4-5 this season with a 3.39 ERA in Low Single-A Burlington.  Yan had a 1.16 WHIP with 148 strikeouts in only 109 innings and opponents only hit .190 against him.

Yan had numerous strong outings this season including going five innings of shutout baseball with 10 strikeouts.  He also was a part of a combined no-hitter on August 27th against Beloit.  Just like Rivas it may be hard for a team to keep Yan on the roster all season being that he has not pitched above Low Single-A.  However with the electric stuff Yan has a team might be willing to take a flyer on him and his potential.

Jose Rojas – 

Rojas has been talked about a lot and has been hitting a ton everywhere he has gone in the Angels minor league system.  Rojas was drafted out of Vanguard University in 2016 in the 36th round.  He was born in Anaheim and went to Anaheim High School.

Jose Rojas has batted .292 with 64 home runs and has driven in 279 runs batted in with a .350 OBP.  This year was Rjas’ best ever hitting .293 with 31 homers and driving in 107 runs, but yet he did not get called up at the end of the season.  The Angels have a glut of infielders especially at third base which is Rojas’ natural position.  The Angels did have Rojas play in the outfield and first base to maybe give him the opportunity to maybe make the major league roster.

The Angels may try to protect him as he is a player that will most likely be chosen in the Rule 5 draft as he has played at the highest minor league level in Triple-A this season.  Players like Rojas are the very reason the Rule 5 Draft was created to give them a chance to get to the major leagues somewhere.

Hopefully the Angels will decide to keep Rojas as he could be a good player to have in the majors.

We will just have to wait and see what the Angels do in regards to these four players.