Angels News: Luis Rengifo's injury, Spring Breakout roster update

The ides of March are here, but the Angels are providing plenty of content as the shine of spring training baseball is wearing off and fans are eagerly anticipating the regular season. One of the biggest mysteries coming out of Tempe is Luis Rengifo's status for Opening Day, as the Angels are wrapping their utility man in bubble wrap as he is dealing with a nagging hamstring injury. His questionable status for Opening Day could turn a four person race for two spots, into a four person race for three spots.

“In a couple days, we’re gonna get him in a game, if he passes the tests in the next couple days,” Ron Washington said. “Hamstrings are fickle. It could feel good today and you can make a move and just get ugly tomorrow.” The Angels' GM, Perry Minasian, added in: “Luis is feeling better. Obviously, he’s had a rough spring in the sense that he hasn't been able to play that much. It's been minor things, knock on wood. There's still plenty of time left.”

Rengifo missed most of the second half of 2024 due to a wrist injury, experienced an illness that delayed his ramp up a couple weeks ago, and thus has been relegated to only one game played in camp thus far. Not what you want, although it's not the biggest deal in the grand scheme of things. Like with Zach Neto, nothing in spring matters all that much as long as Rengifo can show up and show out in the summer.

Scott Kingery, Ryan Noda, Christian Moore, Tim Anderson, and maybe even J.D. Davis are looking to round out the Angels' Opening Day roster. It feels like Noda and Anderson will crack the roster as of now. If Rengifo does miss Opening Day, it feels extremely probable that Kingery would officially make the team as a super-utility man off the bench for the Angels.

Moore or Anderson would need to get added to the 40-man roster first, but it seems likely that Sam Bachman's inactivity in spring training will cause him to be sent to the 60-Day in the coming days or weeks. If that move happens soon, who the Angels add to the 40-man will indicate who will make the team between Moore and Anderson. Anderson has started more games than Moore, as the former has often been starting with the latter backing him up mostly. That is probably a signal as to how the Angels are evaluating the two candidacies.

Ryan Johnson stays in major league camp, Caden Dana heads to the Spring Breakout game

The Angels' Spring Breakout game against the Cubs will take place on March 15th, and Ryan Johnson continuing to dominate in spring training games has caused the Angels to keep him around for further looks. Subsequently, he will not take place in the prospect showcase and will be replaced by Caden Dana instead. Dana, the Angels' top pitching prospect, was optioned down to Triple-A and is out of the running for a major league roster spot. Like with his MLB debut last year, Dana showed a flash of dominance but there were more outings where he was hit around pretty hard. The 21-year-old clearly has a lot of things he needs to work on this season at the minor league level.

Johnson, who the Angels drafted in the compensatory round of the 2024 MLB Draft with the pick they received for losing Shohei Ohtani in free agency, is turning heads...in the sense that he resembles Jimmy Herget in many, many ways. Will he actually break camp with the team without even pitching in a single minor league inning? Very likely not. Would anyone put it past the Angels to add him anyway? Heck no.

Johnson has already beat out Dana, Bachman, Víctor Mederos, and Sam Aldegheri thus far. Next up: fellow non-roster invitee Shaun Anderson and Michael Petersen (who's on the 40-man), who have also looked pretty solid in an Angels uniform. If he looks better than those two, then there could be a race for three bullpen spots between Johnson, Garrett McDaniels, José Suarez, Hans Crouse, Chase Silseth, and Reid Detmers (assuming Jack Kochanowicz wins the 5th spot in the rotation). McDaniels feels like a lock, so the team can retain the asset. Detmers feels like a lock too, given the history. The case for Johnson is that Crouse has an MiLB option remaining, Silseth can also be optioned plus has been up-and-down results-wise, and Suarez has cleared waivers before and could do so again!

Everyone is rooting for Johnson to force the Angels to make an incredibly difficult decision right before Opening Day. Keep it up, Ryan!

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