Angels designate Michael Hermosillo to make room for pitcher

The Los Angeles Angels made a surprise move on Sunday afternoon in order to open up space at the team’s alternate training site.

In a season dominated by poor pitching, the Los Angeles Angels are still trying to figure things out and get back on track. Unfortunately, that means tough decisions have to be made.

Michael Hermosillo is the team’s latest sacrifice as the Angels designated the outfielder for assignment on Sunday afternoon. In doing so, they made room for left-hander Jose Quijada at the team’s Long Beach camp, per a team announcement.

In the age of COVID, teams are limited to just 60 total players between their main roster and their alternate training site. Whenever a player is moved out of camp, they have to be exposed to waivers for other teams to potentially claim. As such, teams gamble with who they bring in and who they try to push through the waiver line.

Such is the case for Hermosillo. After originally making the opening day roster out of camp, the outfielder was optioned to Long Beach in order to activate Mike Trout from the paternity list earlier this month. This time, he’s on the short-end of the stick as the team looks to add pitching depth while also protecting other prospects in camp.

While he only appeared in seven contests in 2020, accruing eight at-bats, two hits, and a pair of RBI. Hermosillo has appeared in each of the last three seasons, but his time has been limited and he’s hit just .188/.288/.287 over 101 career at-bats.

That isn’t to say that the Angels aren’t hoping to sneak him through waivers. The 25-year-old is a career .264/.361/.407 hitter in the minors and begun to show some moderate pop with 27 home runs over his last two minor league seasons. He’ll remain a useful fourth outfield option if the Angels can retain him.

Angels activate and add Jose Quijada to 60-Man Player Pool

With the designation of Michael Hermosillo, the Angels opened up a spot on their 60-man player pool and used that to activate left-hander Jose Quijada from the injured list.

Quijada, who the Angels selected off waivers from the Marlins in February, has been on the IL since the onset of summer camp with an undisclosed injury. However, we’ve come to understand those cases are typically tied to the COVID-19 virus.

The 24-year-old was an international signing for the Marlins in 2013 and has spent most of his minor league career working out of the bullpen. While not possessing overwhelming velocity, the left-hander features a three-pitch mix with a fastball (93.3 MPH), curve, and slider.

Quijada has shown a propensity to miss bats in the minors, averaging 10.2 K/9 over his career. That carried over to his MLB career as well, when he averaged 13.3 K/9 last season. Unfortunately, he also saw a large uptick in walks, issuing free passes at a 7.9 BB/9 clip. Overall, he threw 29.2 inning over 34 games, with a 5.76 ERA, a 2-3 record, and a whopping 10 home runs allowed (3.0 HR/9).

The Angels are obviously hoping to harness his strikeout ability and turn him into a useful reliever. However, it remains to be seen whether he can ramp up enough to make a splash in 2020.