Angels on the right José Soriano you’ve had quite a rough ride but it seems you’ve arrived. He has been healthy for a few years and his results keep getting better. The timing of his exit puts the Halos in an interesting spot.
Soriano has always had good things. Even as a youngster, he was hitting in the mid-90s with his fastball and showing good secondary stuff while throwing Rookie ball. However, there were questions about whether or not he could use that arsenal. From 2016 to 2018, he threw 155 2/3 innings between Rookie Ball and Low-A. He had a 2.89 earned run average but his 19.3% strikeout rate and 12.7% walk rate did not suggest dominance.
He missed a few more at-bats in 2019 but also more walks. Then the injury odyssey began. He required Tommy John surgery in February of 2020. The pandemic canceled the minor leagues that year but Soriano was going to rebuild anyway.
The Pirates gambled on his arm, selecting him with the first overall pick in the Rule 5 draft in November 2020. Naturally, the hope was that he would recover from his surgery and get back on track. He began rehab in May of 2021 but it only took two sessions before his elbow discomfort returned. He also needed Tommy John surgery in June. At the end of the 2021 campaign, he was sent back to the Angels.
He sat out most of the 2022 season but made seven appearances in the minors late in the year. The Angels were motivated enough that they didn’t want to risk another Rule 5 pick, so they added him to their 40-man roster in November of that year.
The Halos used Soriano as a trade in 2023, an understandable decision for a guy who had successfully missed the last three years. He threw 23 1/3 innings in the minors and another 42 in the majors, bringing his total to 65 1/3 for the year. The big league results were good, as Soriano posted a 3.64 ERA. His 12.4% walk rate was high but perhaps some rustiness was understandable after missing so long. He struck out 30.3% of the batters he faced and hit grounders at a 51% clip.
Going into 2024, the Angels could have kept him in the bullpen but decided to try to start another. A few years later, that looks like an inspired decision. He stayed healthy in 2024 for the most part. Soriano had a brief stint on the injured list over the summer due to a stomach infection and returned to IL late in the year due to arm fatigue. However, he pitched in 113 innings over 22 appearances with a 3.42 ERA. His 20.7% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate weren’t surprising but he got the lows at a whopping 59.7%.
Soriano’s 2025 season was even better. The last season he played in IL he was right at the end of the season. He was hit by a returner and was put on the shelf on September 18 due to a concussion. He made 31 starts on the year and threw 169 innings. His 4.26 ERA wasn’t as impressive as last year but his average stats were pretty much the same. He had a 21% strikeout rate, a 10.8% walk rate and a whopping 65.3% ground ball rate.
Soriano’s velocity has been in the upper 90s throughout his big league career but he has thrown too much, resulting in a heavier profile. He was at the top of the leaderboard in that category with respectable jeans, with Andre Pallante a distant second at 59.1% last year.
Here in 2026, Soriano has changed his vocal mix and seems to have taken him to a new level. He threw his sinker 49.1% of the time in 2025 but that has dropped to 30.5% so far this year. That resulted in four seamers. Soriano threw that pitch just 8.6% last year but it’s up to 23.4% in 2026. To a lesser degree, he has also thrown a lot of splitters, sliders and curveballs.
That’s only four starts and 27 innings but Soriano has allowed just one earned run, giving him a paltry 0.33 ERA. Part of that is a .143 batting average on balls in play and a 100% slugging percentage, but it’s not entirely luck. Soriano is still getting grounders at a solid 60.7% clip but with a strikeout rate that has increased to 32%. His 2.33 FIP and 2.73 SIERA suggest that he will be showing significant improvement or even neutrality from the baseball gods.
It’s obviously big for the Angels. They need a few things to break even in order to compete this year, as they haven’t been good in a decade and actually cut the salary cap this year. That creates a need for some interior guys to step up and be great surprises. They got a lot of backlash Mike Trout. The former hope Oswald Peraza it’s off to a good start. Reid Detmers going from the bullpen to the rotation is going well so far.
Time will tell if that’s enough to make the Angels legitimate contenders. They are currently 10-10. Hanging around .500 is enough to be in the playoff race these days, with an expanded postseason field. In recent years, they’ve had strong starts that have fizzled out over time, as their lack of depth has often been exposed over the course of a long season.
If the Angels aren’t strong contenders when July rolls around, Soriano will be an interesting trade candidate. His Rule 5 odyssey was harmless to the Angels in a sense, in that they sent him back. However, he did get a year of major league service time while spending that season on the injured list. That means despite pitching just three seasons with the Angels, he entered 2026 with his service clock at three years and 121 days. So he is scheduled for free agency after 2028.
That doesn’t mean the Angels will have to move him this summer, but there will be controversy about it. The best pitcher with two or more seasons of club control can get a pull. Given Soriano’s injury history, it would make sense to sell more, before another injury tank raises his value.
This is the approach the Marlins have taken in recent years. They traded for two more seasons of Trevor Rogers for the Orioles, two years Jesus Luzardo for the Phillies, three years of Edward Cabrera to Mantshontsho and three years of Ryan Weathers to the Yankees. Those guys all had significant injury issues in Miami but were fired when the Marlins felt they could get good value. That trade caught the Fish Kyle Stowers, Connor Norby, Owen Caissie and a lot of hope still exists for children. Their farm is now ranked third in the league, and they may be building a young nucleus that will put them in good shape for years to come. In similar ways, MacKenzie Gore again Shane Baz were traded for large packages in the most recent short term, by the Nationals and Rays respectively. Gore had two years left in control of the club. Baz, who has signed an extension with his new team in Baltimore, had three.
This is a path that Angels tend to avoid. In general, they seem to be higher in their chances of conflict than outsiders. They have avoided rebuilding and haven’t made many big moves with a long-term focus. They often use their best draft picks on college seniors and then fast-track them to the top to try to help as quickly as possible. They had many opportunities to trade Shohei Ohtani with a big pack of prospects but he held on to him and couldn’t reach the playoffs either. They sent notable prospects to the 2023 deadline to find out Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo López and others but soon rebelled and put those guys on layoff a few weeks later.
As a result, there is not much hope for the future. Each of Baseball America, MLB Pipeline, ESPN and The Athletic consider the Angels one of the four worst farm systems in the league.
If the Angels aren’t in contention this summer, it would make some sense to sell more for Soriano, Detmers, Peraza, Zach Neto, Jo Adell and others, to set a long-term path. History suggests that, if they are around this summer, they will try to ride the wave in the postseason. For the sake of their fans, it would be great if that worked out, even though it has set them back in the past.
As mentioned earlier, Soriano’s move forward is a positive development for the Angels. The question is whether they will be able to take advantage of the opportunity. Making the playoffs for the first time since 2014 would be one way to do that. Setting yourself up for the future by building a sterile farm system would be another. The team has not been able to take any of these roads in recent history. I hope this time is different, somehow.
Images courtesy of Patrick Gorski, Imagn Images
