Ranking the available free agent relief pitchers for the Angels heading into 2025

The Angels need relief pitching, and are ultra-aggressive so far this offseason--a perfect recipe to go all-in on back-end arms heading into 2025. The Angels actually have a solid track record of courting, trading for, and scouting relief pitching. They hit big on Ben Joyce, Carlos Estévez, Luis García, Brock Burke, Raisel Iglesias. Despite the results, they were at least able to sign bigger name relief pitchers like Robert Stephenson, Matt Moore (he was solid in 2023), Aaron Loup, and Ryan Tepera. Again, some of the free agent relievers did not hit, but it represents the Angels' willingness to spend on their bullpen and ability talk pitchers' into signing with the club.

Joyce is the presumptive favorite to man the helm as the Angels' closer in 2025 and beyond. Much like Mike Trout, the Angels need to load manage their fireballer to keep him on the field over the course of a long major league season. Joyce is an oft-injured player, which factored in heavily to him dropping to the third round of the 2022 MLB Draft. Joyce has not shown the ability to pitch back-to-back days, and the Angels have shown no inclination that they want to over-extend this prized gem.

That being said, the Angels very much need a bullpen arm who can accept a set-up role, and also step into the 9th inning on days Joyce is burned. Perry Minasian is highly valuing veteran players, and the relief pitching market is chock-full of effective, older back-end options.

Some of the relievers have too much league-wide interest and will receive too much money to consider the Angels a feasible option. That certainly includes Tanner Scott and Jeff Hoffman. Others will likely want to play for contenders and/or maintain a full-time closer role like Kirby Yates, Kenley Jansen, and Paul Sewald. The Angels need cheaper, swing-men to bolster their bullpen.

Here are the free agent relievers the Angels should consider signing

1. David Robertson

Robertson will be entering his age-40 season next year, but has been able to pitch at least 63.2 innings in each of the last three seasons. His 72 innings pitched last season for Texas were the highest mark of his 16-year big league career, and his 34 holds were tied for the third most in the entire league. ESPN's Kiley McDaniel projected his next deal in the 1 year, $11.5 million range.

His go-to pitch is his cutter, and it was so nasty last season that his fastball run value was in the 97th percentile last year. His 33.3% K% was astoundingly high, as well as his 5.5% barrel%. Robertson is a North-South pitcher that would compliment Ben Joyce well in a set-up role. He should have a solid amount of teams looking to sign him, but he is exactly the kind of pitcher the Angels need. Durable, effective, veteran presence, and can close if needed. Perhaps the Angels can seal the deal with Robertson by selling him on more closing opportunities.

2. Clay Holmes

Holmes is exactly the type of reliever the Angels could use--a set-up man who can close when Joyce is unavailable. He had 54 saves the past two seasons with the Yankees before being moved out of the full-time closer role. His K% was above average, but ideally you want a back-end arm to be in the highest tier of strikeouts. Holmes' K% was in the 67th percentile, which is passable for sure. His calling card is his ability to get groundballs, as his 64.6% groundball% was in the 100th percentile.

Holmes is absolutely filthy. He has a turbo sinker that averaged 96.6mph. He compliments his sinker with an extremely depthy, upper-80s slider, and a gigantic low-80s sweeper that has tremendous depth and horizontal movement.

Holmes will be 32-years-old on Opening Day, and should receive more years on his contract than many of his other contemporaries on the market. Perhaps the Angels are too scarred by Stephenson, Loup, and Tepera to go all-in on Holmes, but he is a durable option who could add experience and high velocity into a bullpen that desperately needs it.

3. Danny Coulombe

The 35-year-old shockingly had his option declined by the Baltimore Orioles. Coulombe was one of the league leaders in K-BB%, a mark that is essential for back-end relievers. Among pitchers who threw at least 20 innings last year, his 25.2% K-BB ranked 22nd in all of baseball. His .147 batting average against was seventh. He did a great job of missing barrels and getting ground balls as well.

He only threw 29.1 innings last season, but was able to throw 51.1 the season prior. He does not throw that hard, his four seam and two seam are both in the low-90s. However, his most used pitch is his cutter, which is extremely unique. It is a true cement-mixer, with great depth and bite coming from his high 3/4 arm slot.

Coulombe will be cheap, and it never hurts to have another left-handed arm. His metrics and results were good enough to warrant a serious look this offseason.

Finishing Thoughts

As of now, the Angels currently will deploy Joyce, Burke, Quijada, Hans Crouse, and Ryan Zeferjahn for certain. Their long reliever is still in question but they have a litany of internal options there (Davis Daniel, most notably). One thing to consider-- perhaps the time is ripe to use Chase Silseth and/or Sam Bachman as full-time relievers next season to keep them on the field, boost their velocity, boost the bullpen's velocity (which they desperately need), and raise their value moving forward. They have guys like Caden Dana, George Klassen, Sam Aldegheri, and Ryan Johnson waiting in the wings, so they could take their top arms from the 2021 MLB Draft and have them make a full-time switch to the 'pen.

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