LA Angels sit back and let top FA target sign elsewhere again, miss on Carlos Rodon

Evan Desai

Carlos Rodon / Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports

Free agency began almost as soon as the MLB lockout ended, and the LA Angels picked up right where they left off right before the lockout started. They continued to let other teams pick up their top free agent targets. Before the lockout, it was Justin Verlander, Robbie Ray, and more. This time, it's Carlos Rodon.

Rodon was rumored to have interest from the Halos, and it only looked right. What else were they going to do? All the other top tier free agent starting pitching options had been gobbled up before the lockout. Unfortunately, it appears that the Angels may be done going after starters in free agency, though.

They don't have many options left. Many of the best starting pitchers available are injury-prone. It would be beneficial to bring Zack Greinke back, but he wants to go to an NL team. The Halos did sign Noah Syndergaard before the lockout, which was a nice signing, but their only other move was for the lowly Michael Lorenzen.

The LA Angels will now need to hit the trade market to fix the starting rotation.

The LA Angels have a solid first four starters in the rotation, but the back-end looks very questionable. Lorenzen is our fifth guy, and we don't know who will be the sixth (it appears it will come down to Jaime Barria, Reid Detmers, or Griffin Canning).

Lorenzen is a career 4.95 ERA pitcher as a starter, with a 6-10 record and 1.605 WHIP in 26 starts. It's unclear as to why Perry Minasian/Arte Moreno thought that he was the answer to this rotation outside of signing Syndergaard, but that's what it looks like they're going with.

The Angels have, however, been rumored to be interested in trading for some key starters such as Luis Castillo, Chris Bassitt, or Frankie Montas. Perhaps they will indeed attack this starting pitching need through the trade block. Their lack of urgency in free agency does, however, cast doubt on just how serious this front office was about improving this staff.

Evan Desai

Evan Desai has covered MLB with FanSided for 3 years, first as a contributor for FanSided's New York sports publication--Empire Writes Back--and now as the expert at Halo Hangout, the Angels publication for the network. He also runs Reign Of Troy, the USC FanSided publication, and has covered college sports since 2019--most notably USC and UCLA for the Pac-12 Network, University of Arizona and Grand Canyon University for Arizona PBS, and Arizona State University for Sports Illustrated's ASU publication. He has also run the Clippers FanSided publication in the past, Clipperholics, and has made two stops at NBC Sports.