The Angels have some interest in free agent southpaw Tyler Anderson, reports Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times (via Twitter). The 32-year-old is among the top remaining unsigned options on a rotation market that has been mostly picked clean.
That’s not to diminish Anderson, who’s coming off an alright season. The Pirates signed him last offseason, and he posted a 4.35 ERA over 103 1/3 innings there. Anderson didn’t work deep into starts, but he reliably took the ball every fifth day and posted decent results. He didn’t miss many bats or rack up a ton of ground-balls, but Anderson frequently got opponents to chase pitches outside the strike zone and make weak contact.
The rebuilding Bucs flipped the impending free agent to the Mariners at the trade deadline. Anderson had a solid run in Seattle before he was blown up for nine runs in two innings against the A’s in a late-September outing. That contributed to a mediocre 4.81 ERA during his Mariners tenure; overall, he worked 167 innings of 4.53 ERA ball last year, striking out just 19.1% of opponents but posting a stellar 5.4% walk rate.
The Angels have already signed Noah Syndergaard and Michael Lorenzen this winter, adding some upside to a rotation that could also include Shohei Ohtani, Patrick Sandoval, José Suárez, Griffin Canning, top prospect Reid Detmers and Jaime Barria. That has the potential to be one of the Angels’ best rotations in recent memory, but it’s short on reliable sources of capable bulk innings. Among current free agents, only Zack Greinke (168 2/3) threw more innings than Anderson did last season.
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