Angels' aggressiveness with every prospect except top pitcher makes little sense

The Los Angeles Angels have a well-earned reputation for being extremely aggressive with their minor league prospects. The Angels brought up Zach Neto after just 48 games in the minors and they also famously called up Nolan Schanuel in the same year he was drafted. Even in the modern game of baseball where teams are pushing prospects faster than ever, LA still stands out from the crowd.

However, one player that hasn't gotten the fast-track treatment is top Angels pitching prospect Caden Dana. Despite the fact that Dana has looked great in 2024 at Double-A and the team's obvious need for starting pitching in the big leagues, the Angels have taken a much more cautious approach with him than other prospects for whatever reason.

As to why the Angels have chosen this path, that requires a bit more explanation and nuance.

Angels' caution with Caden Dana is understandable, but a bit over the top

It is too simplistic to say "prospects A and B got promoted quickly, so prospect C should get promoted fast as well." For one thing, both Schanuel and Neto were hitters that were also drafted out of a college whereas Dana is a pitcher that came fresh out of high school. However, the Angels' thinking presumably goes deeper than that.

According to Angels general manager Perry Minasian, LA is monitoring Dana's innings carefully because, as he put it, "we’ll go start by start. But we don’t want him to go from 68 innings to 180.” This does make sense to some degree as having Dana build up to managing a regular starting workload is important, but there is one part of this explanation that's conveniently left out.

It would be one thing if the Angels were managing Dana's innings altogether and sitting him every now and again in the minors. However, there is no indication whatsoever that they are doing that as he has made 16 starts and pitched 90.1 innings in the first half. If the Angels were being completely honest with the desire to limit Dana's innings, they probably would have dialed things back a bit in the first half, and they definitely did not.

Perhaps Minasian is giving more a nod to the fact that they don't know how Dana will perform in the second half and don't want to promote him until they know what he looks like with 100+ innings in a season on his arm. The more insidious explanation is that the Angels know that their 2024 season is going nowhere and don't want to start Dana's service time clock. The truth probably is some combination of all these explanations.

If Dana keeps pitching like he has all season long, though, the Angels are going to have to do something with him even if it means just bumping him to Triple-A.

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