Angels reveal unusual Spring Training pitching system originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The Los Angeles Angels and pitching coach Mike Maddux are not concerned with pitchers’ velocity at spring training.
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This spring, the AL West club is not using radar guns for live at-bats. The Athletic’s Sam Blum reports Maddux is focused more on the movement of pitches.
“Maddux said the movement on [Alek] Manoah’s pitches in his bullpens have been really good,” Blum wrote. “The Angels don’t have radar guns set up to measure velocity, Maddux said, but Manoah’s fastball averaged 93.3 miles per hour during his first spring training start at the Arizona Diamondbacks facility on Sunday.”
It’s quite odd for a Major League club not to use a radar gun at practice, but that’s clearly what the coaching staff prefers. Do the players feel the same way?
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The hardest throwers on the Angels’ pitching staff
Reliever Ben Joyce underwent season-ending surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder last May, but he lights up the radar gun (if there’s one present) with ease.
Joyce averaged 98.1 mph on his four-seam fastball in 2025 and once threw a pitch 105.5 mph for a strikeout.
Starting pitcher Grayson Rodriguez, acquired in an offseason trade with the Baltimore Orioles, averaged 96.1 mph on his fastball a season ago. The current ace of the staff, Japanese left-hander Yusei Kikuchi, was a few ticks below Rodriguez at 94.8 mph.
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