![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/kirby-yates-pitcher-300x200.jpg\"\/)
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Yates gives the Angels yet another veteran reliever with some closing experience who\u2019s in need of a rebound \u2014 in his case, ahead of what\u2019ll be his age-39 season. The Halos will hope to finally get a full workload out of Robert Stephenson<\/a> in the final season of his three-year, $33MM contract. They\u2019ve also signed former Jays closer Jordan Romano<\/a> and veteran reliever Drew Pomeranz<\/a> to low-cost, one-year contracts this offseason as well.<\/p>\n If healthy \u2014 a major caveat, given the injury history in question here \u2014 Yates could be the best of the bunch. The two-time All-Star led the NL with 41 saves back in 2019 and has twice posted full seasons with an ERA shy of 1.20, including as recently as the 2024 season with Texas.<\/p>\n Since an age-30 breakout with the Padres, the late-blooming Yates has pitched 355 innings with a 2.84 earned run average, 97 saves, 65 holds and only 13 blown save opportunities. He\u2019s fanned a whopping 35.1% of his opponents along the way (backed by a huge 15.7% swinging-strike rate) and walked 9.6% of the batters he\u2019s faced. Coincidentally enough, the Angels were the team from which the Padres claimed Yates off waivers. They\u2019d picked Yates up themselves via waivers the prior October. He pitched only one inning as an Angel and was tagged for two runs.<\/p>\n Yates now returns for a second stint with the Angels. The signing reunites him with veteran pitching coach Mike Maddux, who was Yates\u2019 pitching coach with the \u201924 Rangers. Yates saved 33 games and posted an immaculate 1.17 ERA with a 36% strikeout rate that season.<\/p>\n That performance was enough to land him a hearty $13MM guarantee on a one-year deal with the Dodgers. But while Yates landed the first World Series ring of his career, the marriage didn\u2019t go particularly well. He was thrice placed on the injured list \u2014 twice for hamstring strains and once due to a lower back injury \u2014 and pitched only 41 1\/3 innings. The veteran righty\u2019s 5.23 earned run average was one of the worst marks of his career, and his 92.8 mph average four-seam velocity was his lowest since 2013. Yates still punched out an excellent 29.6% of his opponents, but he was doomed by home runs, yielding an average of 1.96 round-trippers per nine frames.<\/p>\n While Yates has typically been excellent when healthy, he\u2019s had his share of injuries. He pitched only 4 1\/3 innings in 2020 due to bone spurs in his elbow. He signed with the Blue Jays in free agency that offseason but never pitched an inning for Toronto. He required Tommy John surgery at the end of spring training. From 2020-22, Yates pitched only 11 1\/3 innings in the majors.<\/p>\n The Angels will bet on Yates\u2019 track record and hope for better help. Between Yates, Stephenson, Romano and Pomeranz, they certainly aren\u2019t lacking talent at the back end of the bullpen \u2014 but there\u2019s a clear lack of consistency and durability. They\u2019ll hope to add flamethrower Ben Joyce<\/a> to that mix at some point this season, though his timetable for a return from last May\u2019s surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder remains murky.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not entirely clear where the Yates signing takes the Angels\u2019 payroll. RosterResource projected<\/a> them for a payroll around $172MM this morning, but that was before the Angels and Anthony Rendon<\/a> agreed to defer the payment of the final year and $38MM<\/a> on his contract for a reported three to five seasons. Details surrounding that still-fresh arrangement have yet to surface in full, but it\u2019s clear that the Angels are quite a bit south of the roughly $206MM payroll figure at which they ended the 2025 campaign.<\/p>\n Ari Alexander of Boston 7 News<\/a> first reported that Yates was signing a one-year deal with the Angels. Jon Heyman of The New York Post<\/a> had the $5MM guarantee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"January 6: Los Angeles officially announced the signing on Tuesday evening. Their 40-man roster count climbs to 38.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,12415,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-392856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-kirby-yates","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}