The Los Angeles Angels are turning their eyes toward the future, promoting a pair of young arms to the majors this weekend. Right-handed pitcher Caden Dana will start Sunday’s game vs. the Seattle Mariners, the team announced. Meanwhile, lefty Samuel Aldegheri will become the first Major League Baseball player ever born and raised in Italy when he starts on Friday.
Dana, 20, has spent the season in Double-A, where he’s amassed a 2.52 ERA and a 3.77 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 135 innings. It’s worth noting that he’s already well exceeded his previous career-high in workload, the 68 innings he threw last year. As such, it’s unclear how many more starts the Angels intend for him to make.
CBS Sports ranked Dana as the second best prospect in the Angels system heading into the spring. Here’s part of what we wrote at the time:
Dana received nearly $1.5 million after being drafted in the 11th round in 2022. Rest assured, he wasn’t a “true” 11th-round pick. Rather, he was (and is) a strapping right-hander with a budding fastball-curveball combination who slipped because of signability concerns. Dana did walk four batters per nine innings in his first full professional season, and he doesn’t always get his arm up at foot strike. It’s possible he can clean that up a bit heading forward.
Aldegheri, 22, was obtained from the Philadelphia Phillies in the Carlos Estévez trade at the deadline. (The Angels added fellow starter George Klassen in that deal as well.) In 19 starts across three levels this season, he’s compiled a 3.59 ERA and a 3.27 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Aldegheri has a good breaking ball and could join Dana as a long-term part of the Angels rotation.
The Angels entered Thursday with a 54-79 record, which puts them in last place in the American League West, some four games behind the Oakland Athletics.
