{"id":470028,"date":"2026-02-12T10:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T10:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/470028\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T10:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T10:51:09","slug":"angels-bullpen-notes-joyce-stephenson-sandlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/470028\/","title":{"rendered":"Angels Bullpen Notes: Joyce, Stephenson, Sandlin"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Angels are counting on a number of pitchers to bounce back from injuries, as they seemingly didn\u2019t have interest in making any notable moves on the free agent front. Their bullpen consists of almost all reclamation types after the departure of Kenley Jansen<\/a> and with\u00a0Reid Detmers<\/a> moving back to the rotation. They signed\u00a0Kirby Yates<\/a>,\u00a0Drew Pomeranz<\/a>,\u00a0Jordan Romano<\/a> and\u00a0Brent Suter<\/a> to one-year deals at $5MM or less.<\/p>\n

Their highest-ceiling relievers are those coming back from injury.\u00a0Ben Joyce<\/a> throws as hard as any pitcher in MLB. It\u2019s easy to envision him as a potential closer when he can run his fastball to a staggering 104 mph. Joyce was capped at five appearances last year before suffering a shoulder injury. He underwent season-ending surgery in May.<\/p>\n

The flamethrowing righty threw a bullpen session on the team\u2019s first day of camp workouts (link via Jeff Fletcher of The Orange County Register<\/a>). It was his first work off a mound since the operation. Joyce and general manager Perry Minasian each said they\u2019re uncertain whether he\u2019ll be ready by Opening Day. It nevertheless seems he\u2019s making good enough progress that if there is a season-opening injured list stint, it\u2019s not an extended one. \u201cI\u2019d rather him miss two weeks than six months. We\u2019re going to take our time with guys that need it and kind of see where it goes,\u201d Minasian said.<\/p>\n

If Joyce isn\u2019t available,\u00a0Robert Stephenson<\/a> would be the presumptive favorite to close. Of course, that\u2019s conditional on him being healthy \u2014 no small caveat given how much time he has missed over the past two seasons. Stephenson missed all of 2024 after undergoing Tommy John surgery out of Spring Training. He was out of action until last May. The veteran righty made one appearance but went back down with a nerve issue in his biceps. He missed another three months, was active for about a month, then was shut back down for the season\u2019s final week by elbow inflammation.<\/p>\n

Stephenson told Fletcher and other reporters on Wednesday that he learned over the offseason that he had experienced symptoms of thoracic outlet syndrome. It doesn\u2019t appear he received a full-fledged TOS diagnosis, as he treated the issue with an injection plan but no surgery. Stephenson conceded he\u2019s \u201ca little bit behind everybody\u201d coming into camp but expressed confidence he\u2019ll be available for Opening Day.<\/p>\n

Considering Joyce and Stephenson each have health questions, it comes as no surprise that first-year skipper Kurt Suzuki isn\u2019t eager to name his closer. \u201cI think the benefit for us is we have options and we can be flexible. But in that ninth inning, I wouldn\u2019t put a name out there to be our closer right now,\u201d Suzuki said this week (link via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com<\/a>). Romano and Yates each have multiple 30-save seasons on their r\u00e9sum\u00e9s. While the Angels aren\u2019t lacking for ninth-inning experience, both pitchers were working with diminished stuff and had rough numbers in 2025.<\/p>\n

In one other bullpen health update, Fletcher reports that non-roster invitee\u00a0Nick Sandlin<\/a> underwent arthroscopic elbow surgery last October. The righty had finished the season on the injured list with the Blue Jays but the surgery had not previously been reported. Toronto non-tendered Sandlin after injuries limited him to 19 appearances. He has a 3.19 ERA in 211 2\/3 career innings and has a decent chance to pitch his way onto the MLB roster with a good spring. Sandlin tells Fletcher that he\u2019s scheduled to throw his first bullpen session this weekend, which presumably sets him up to get into Cactus League games if all goes smoothly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Angels are counting on a number of pitchers to bounce back from injuries, as they seemingly didn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[191412,49,48,14552,12415,462,104743,44469,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-470028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ben-joyce","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-jordan-romano","12":"tag-kirby-yates","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-nick-sandlin","15":"tag-robert-stephenson","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470028","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=470028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}