Hunter Strickland
The Los Angeles Angels held onto a few rentals at the trade deadline. One was right-hander Hunter Strickland. He's having his best season in quite a few years, and since he is hitting free agency at the end of the 2024 campaign, could definitely find himself on waivers in August.
Strickland has tossed 51 2/3 frames with a 3.66 ERA, 4.29 FIP, and 1.006 WHIP. He's only allowed 7.3% of opponents to reach via free pass, and has an 1.22 HR/9 rate, but he has struck out a meager 20.4% of opponents. While he's allowed a decent amount of hard-hit batted balls with an 89.1 MPH average exit velocity, he hasn't allowed much quality contact, sporting a 6.8% barrel rate.
However, there are some remaining questions about Strickland's strong season's sustainability. He has just a .214 batting average on balls in play. His BABIP and left on-base rate over his last 19.2 innings (entering play on Friday) sat at .119 and 100%, meaning his course correction against the Mets felt long overdue. According to SIERA and xFIP, Strickland isn't pitching much differently than he has for his career. The veteran has a 4.13 SIERA and 4.77 xFIP this year, compared to a 3.99 and 4.51 mark for his career, respectively.
The Angels are well out of the American League West and even further out of the Wild Card race. A solid middle reliever isn't going to help their current situation, and given what the Angels did last year in August, it wouldn't be a huge surprise if they did it again by placing some rentals on waivers to shed salary.