Angels News: Zach Neto on the doorstep of 2025 debut, DFA'd reliever clears waivers

The Angels are the feel good story of the 2025 MLB season thus far, despite just losing their first series of the season to their division rival, and they are doing it all without one of their best players. Well, Zach Neto just cleared a massive hurdle before ending his rehab assignment and returning to the Angels. On Sunday April 13th, Neto played all nine innings of a Triple-A Salt Lake game at shortstop. He had not yet done that while with the Bees, the most innings in the field he'd played to this point was seven on April 8th.

Zach Neto on the doorstep of his 2025 Angels debut

Per Jeff Fletcher of The OC Register, "Neto is scheduled to play all nine innings in the field on Tuesday and Wednesday. [Ron] Washington has said he wants to see Neto play full games on back-to-back days before he’s activated..." Given that Salt Lake is off today, Neto will have to feel good following Tuesday and Wednesdays games in order to be activated on Thursday. Fletcher went on to say that Sunday April 20th is the limit for the amount of days Neto can spend on this minor league rehab assignment.

So far, Neto has played 11 games with the Bees with six as the shortstop and five as the DH. That does not include his handful of games during extended spring training either. The Angels have allowed the 24-year-old plenty of time to work through any potential discomfort in his shoulder, while also getting re-acclimated at shortstop after missing the entirety of big league spring training.

The schedule gets difficult for the feel-good Halos, as they just played the Houston Astros and are about to enter a three game series against the Texas Rangers. On Friday April 18th, the Angels finally return to Anaheim for a series against the red hot San Francisco Giants in what will be their first home game since April 6th. They will likely be without Neto for the majority of the series against Texas, so they could really use their shortstop back against the Giants if they want to keep competing at a high level.

Jack Dashwood clears waivers after he was designated for assignment

The Angels have retained yet another player they designated for assignment after Jack Dashwood cleared waivers. He will be sent back to Triple-A Salt Lake. So far this season, the 27-year-old has appeared in four games, pitched two innings, allowed 11 hits, 12 runs (all earned), three home runs, and has a 2:3 K:BB. Dashwood was the obvious DFA candidate when J.D. Davis' minor league contract was selected by the Angels, and the third baseman needed to be added to the 40-man roster while Yoán Moncada tends to his lingering thumb injury on the Injured List.

The Angels traded Michael Petersen to the Braves and lost Geraldo Perdomo to the A's after they were DFA'd, but other than that they were able to pass José Quijada, Kelvin Cáceres, and Scott Kingery through waivers and keep them in the organization. Dashwood joins that latter group now.

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