Angels add pair of pitchers to 60-man player pool

With pitching always in the question, the Los Angeles Angels added another pair of arms to their 60-man player pool this week.

The Los Angeles Angels continue to focus on pitching depth as summer camp gets underway. The continued to be the case this week when the team claimed right-hander Jacob Rhame off waivers from the New York Mets. However, the Halos wouldn’t be done there.

In separate announcements on Wednesday and Thursday, the Angels have issued two more invites to summer camp, with right-hander Adrian De Horta and left-hander Adam Seminaris being added to the team in Anaheim.

The team has seen a revolving door of arms already in July, with four pitchers being added to the injured list this week, necessitating additions for depth purposes.

After initially announcing the first 55 players in their 60-man player pool on June 28th, the Angels have continued to chip away at the openings. With the additions of Rhame, De Horta, and Seminaris, and the official invite to first-round pick Reid Detmers after he signed, the Angels now have 59 of the 60 available spots taken.

That number may actually be smaller depending on whether or not some of the arms on the injured list are there for COVID reasons. Those on the injured list due to coronavirus do not count toward the 60-man limit. However, it is worth noting that any player removed from the 60-man pool (except to be placed on the injured list), must be subjected to waivers.

Seminaris was the team’s fifth-round selection in the 2020 MLB Draft and becomes the second member of that draft class to receive an invite to summer camp, joining the aforementioned Detmers. It will be a homecoming of sorts for the Long Beach State alum, with the Angels using Blair Field as the team’s secondary training facility this season.

While wins were hard to come by at Long Beach State, Seminaris managed to put up a 3.58 ERA, a 1.226 WHIP, and an 8.0 K/9 over his three years of college baseball. That included an eye-popping start to the 2020 campaign, where he went 1-0 with a 1.23 ERA, a 0.545 WHIP, and a 14.7 K/9 before the shutdown. Like Detmers, he gets by with lower velocity, but the solid command of three plus-rated pitches that could make him a quick mover in the minors.

De Horta was an eighth-round pick of the Padres in 2013 and came over the Angels as a minor league free agent prior to the 2018 season. He was previously in camp with the Angels in March, but had not been included in the initial player pool. The right-hander saw time at three different levels last season, going a combined 0-2 with a 5.33 ERA and a 1.556 WHIP. While he missed bats to the tune of 13.1 K/9 in 2019, he also had his share of control issues, walking 5.7 hitters per nine innings pitched.

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Neither pitcher is expected to make the jump to the major league roster in 2020, but with the lack of a minor league season, they won’t miss any development time either. They also give the Angels some live arms for intrasquad games at Blair Stadium.