Los Angeles Angels pitcher Reid Detmers will begin the 2025 season in the bullpen, Ron Washington recently announced via Bill Shaikin of The Los Angeles Times.
“Reid Detmers will open this season in the Angels bullpen, Ron Washington said. Jack Kochanowicz will be the fifth starter,” Shaikin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Adding pitching has been a priority for the Angels in recent seasons. Mike Trout is set to lead the offense once again, but LA has needed reliable pitching over the past few years. It wasn’t all that long ago that Detmers appeared to be a future star in the rotation.
In 2022, the left-handed hurler pitched to a respectable 3.77 ERA across 25 starts. He added 122 strikeouts in 129 innings on the mound. Had the Angels finally landed their ace of the future?
Detmers took a step in the wrong direction in 2023, turning in a 4.48 ERA in 28 starts. His 2024 campaign ended up being a disaster, as Detmers was limited to 17 starts and recorded a lackluster 6.70 ERA.
Still, Detmers is only 25 years old. The Angels clearly have not given up on him based on their decision to keep him on the roster, but removing him from a starting pitching role is surprising.
Reid Detmers still features potential. What exactly has gone wrong for Detmers over the past couple of seasons?
Angels’ Red Detmers trying to bounce back
Detmers surprisingly isn’t consistently surrendering more hard contact. According to Baseball Reference, Detmers recorded a 38.6 hard-hit percentage against in 2022. That mark jumped to 41.4 percent in 2023, but landed at 39.3 percent in his disastrous 2024 campaign.
The culprit was fly-balls. See, Detmers’ fly-ball percentage against was 26.4 percent in 2022 and 27.5 percent in 2023. In 2024, however, the percentage of fly-balls Detmers was giving up sky-rocketed to 33.5 percent. The result? Detmers turned in a home run percentage of 4.6 after recording marks of 2.4 percent (2022) and 3.0 percent (2023).
Perhaps turning to a pitch with sinking action on a more consistent basis will help matters. Working on his command of the strike zone and being able to consistently live at the bottom of the zone will also improve the situation.
The fact of the matter is that there is still reason to believe in the Angels pitcher. Opposing teams could try to buy low on Detmers. In all reality, the Angels should give him another opportunity in the starting rotation at some point. Perhaps that is part of their plan. Detmers may be able to build some extra confidence in the bullpen before potentially returning to a starting pitching role.
There is also a chance that he will excel as a reliever and remain in the bullpen. However, given the Angels’ need for starting pitching, they shouldn’t give up on Detmers’ rotation chances yet.
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