Both LA teams already active in free agency
Eduardo Rodriguez signed with the Detroit Tigers on Monday for a five year contract valued around $77-80 million dollars. Rodriguez of course, was a big part of the Red Sox rotation, but if you look at his simple stats, you can tell Rodriguez didn’t have the best year in 2021.
His ERA was a staggering 4.77 with only 157 innings pitched. He also owned a 1.39 WHIP, which is higher than league average. If you look deeper into the advanced analytics, you can see that Rodriguez wasn’t as bad as a lot of people thought. He owned 185 strikeouts, had a great 9.95 strikeouts per 9 innings and had a 2.46 fielding independent pitching.
The signing of Noah Syndergaard is super intruiging as he is coming off of one of the most major surgeries a baseball pitcher can have, Tommy John Surgery. Sydnergaard has only pitched two innings in the past two years, due to the shortened 2020 season, but that did give him a good time to rehab with the Mets not being competitve.
The Los Angeles Angels swooped in signing “Thor” to a one year, $21 million dollar deal. It is a pretty risky deal financially, but since it is only one year it isn’t a huge risk if he can regain his 2016 form and become an ace in the making again at only 29 years old. The last time Syndergaard pitched a good amount was in 2019, when he pitched just shy of 200 innings.
The Tigers’s signing of Eduardo Rodriguez is a great signing for a very young team who has a bright future and are also linked to one of the biggest free agents of the winter, Carlos Correa. With just over $15 million a year for a nice serviceable pitcher, it’ll help having a veteran presence. Is Rodriguez by any means a top 10 pitcher in the game? No, not at all, but he will help lead the very young core of pitchers Detroit has coming up in the future.
I’m going to give this signing an 8.5/10.
The Angels signing of Noah Syndergaard is a very good signing in my eyes, It’s not the biggest risk in the world, as Los Angeles has struggled with their pitching. With the Angels having a great offense returning with Mike Trout in 2022, and having the probable 2021 MVP in Shohei Ohtani, the Angels will be looking to contend in 2022, with the likes of Dylan Bundy in the rotation, Thor will be looking to take an ace role with the Angels.
I’m going to give this signing an 7/10 due to the fact I think they maybe did pay a little much, but I do enjoy this signing.