Angels win arbitration case against LHP

The Angels have won their arbitration case against left-hander José Suarez, per Jon Heyman of The New York Post. The team filed at $925K with the lefty’s camp at $1.35M, but he will make the lesser figure this year.

Suarez, 26, qualified for arbitration for the first time this offseason. He seemed to be establishing himself as a viable rotation piece over 2021 and 2022. He appeared in 45 games for the Angels in that time, 34 of them starts, logging 207 1/3 innings while allowing 3.86 earned runs per nine. His 21.5% strikeout rate, 7.9% walk rate and 44.5% ground ball rate were all reasonably close to league averages.

But 2023 was undeniably a struggle. He allowed 26 earned runs in 24 1/3 innings to start the season, then landed on the injured list in early May due to a left shoulder strain. He didn’t return until mid-September and made five shorter appearances down the stretch. He had a 4.82 ERA in that brief return but his season-long ERA still finished at 8.29 thanks to his early struggles.

MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected him for a salary of $1.1M for 2024. That ended up being roughly the midpoint between the two filings figures, but arbiters have to pick one number or the other and can’t pick midpoints.

Since they opted for the team’s figure, it will result in some small short-term savings for the Halos while reducing the earning power for the southpaw. He is still slated for two more passes through the arbitration system and those future raises will be starting from a lower starting point. He will try to put the injury-marred season behind him and get back on track in 2024.

The Angels’ rotation mix should feature arms like Reid Detmers, Griffin Canning, Patrick Sandoval and Tyler Anderson, while Suarez will be battling for a back-end job with the like of Chase Silseth, Zach Plesac, Sam Bachman and others. Suarez is out of options so he’ll need to either earn a rotation job or be bumped to the bullpen, unless the Angels are willing to remove him from the 40-man roster altogether.

The club still has one more hearing to go, with outfielder Taylor Ward having filed at $4.8M while the Angels filed at $4.3M.