LA Angels News: Carl Edwards Jr. DFA'd as LAA continues to shake up the bullpen

It's amazing what chaos can be derived from the absence of just one bullpen arm. Since promising young setup man Ben Joyce landed on the IL on April 12th, the Angels have found their bullpen in utter disarray as they struggle to find suitable replacements and continue to reshuffle the deck.

The first man up after the loss of Joyce was former undrafted free agent Michael Darrell-Hicks, who struggled over his two outings before finding a groove and recording three scoreless appearances over 4.2 innings. Unfortunately, a need to restock the pen with fresh arms led to Darrell-Hicks' demotion on April 23rd, as Victor Mederos and Carl Edwards Jr. were promoted while Ian Anderson joined Darrell-Hicks on the bus out of town.

Now, just a couple of days later, Edwards Jr. and Mederos' tenures with the Angels are over as Edwards Jr. is likely headed for the unemployment line while Mederos has been optioned to Triple-A Salt Lake. In their stead are two new arms, 26-year-old lefty Jake Eder and 23-year-old righty Jose Fermin.

Mederos and Edwards Jr. are out, Eder and Fermin are in as the Angels continue to remake their struggling bullpen

Not much has gone right for the Angels recently. The offense has gone dormant, the starting rotation has been shaky, and despite some brilliance from Kenley Jansen and Ryan Zeferjahn at the back end, the bullpen has been one of the worst in baseball, erasing any impact the two late-inning studs can provide.

Will Eder and/or Fermin provide the answers the Angels seek? Probably not. The primary reason for these two being called up is that both Edwards Jr. and Mederos were used to soak up multiple innings on Friday against the Minnesota Twins, pitching two and three frames, respectively, after Kyle Hendricks was knocked out after just three innings.

Eder is a typical minor league journeyman. Acquired from the Chicago White Sox for cash considerations on March 31st, he owns a 5.12 ERA over 246 innings in four minor league seasons.

Fermin, however, might be a diamond in the rough. While most international free agents sign deals at the tender ages of 16 or 17, Fermin was nearly 22 years old when he signed out of the Dominican Republic for the paltry sum of $10,000.

Since joining the Angels organization, all he's done is impress. His first taste of professional action came last year, where he posted a 3.15 ERA and 12.47 K/9 in 65.2 innings spread across multiple minor league levels.

This year with the Double-A Trash Pandas, Fermin has been nearly unhittable with a 16.88 K/9 rate and 1.13 ERA in six appearances and eight innings of work.

He's far from polished, and the jump from Double-A to the majors is quite the leap, but the potential is there. With everything that's gone wrong in the pen this season, why not give the late-blooming youngster some run and see if he can give the club the shot in the arm they desperately need as their recent skid has continued.

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