The Angels just sold high on Kevin Jepsen and their reward is the new left-handed half of their designated hitter platoon, Matt Joyce.
https://twitter.com/TBrownYahoo/status/544936597276594178
After years of mediocre and frustrating production, Jepsen had a breakthrough season in 2014 with a career-best 2.63 ERA and 10.38 K/9. He was an important part of the bullpen’s turnaround last year, but the Halos have a ton of quality relievers, so Jepsen was deemed expendable. It also helps that the faith in him repeating his performance was likely low.
In return, the Angels get Joyce who immediately slots into the DH platoon with C.J. Cron. Joyce is nominally an outfielder, but a poor one, that has hurt his overall value, but he’ll be free to DH a vast majority of the time now. He also will continue to face almost exclusively right-handed pitching. In six seasons of 261 or plate appearances, Joyce has never posted a wRC+ below 112 nor an OBP below .328.
Joyce is coming off a down season, however. That .328 OBP came in 2014 and was paired with a career-worst .129 ISO (he’s got a .191 career ISO). Joyce is on the wrong side of 30 now, so the Halos are taking a risk that 2014 wasn’t an anomaly but rather the start of his decline. It is a short-term risk though as Joyce is set to hit free agency after this coming season. Jepsen still has three years of team control left.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
