Adding Luiz Gohara is a Great Move For the Angels
Luiz Gohara was once a top pitching prospect in the Atlanta Braves system. He made his MLB debut in 2017 at age 20 and made 5 starts, posting a 2.75 FIP across 29.1 innings. After spending most of 2018 in the minors, he came back up to the big club for a much less good 19.2 innings over 9 games, mostly out of the bullpen.
Despite his struggles as a 21 year old, expectations were high for Gohara coming into the 2019 season, but a spring shoulder injury has prevented him from throwing a single pitch at any level this year.
What’s more, on August 2nd, to the surprise of many, the Braves released Gohara – a move that signals that the ’emotional issues’ that have dogged him so far in his career were a little too much for Atlanta to deal with.
After more than 3 weeks in free agency, the Los Angeles Angels have scooped up the now-23 year old Brazilian on a minor league deal with the hopes that he’s able to finish rehabbing his shoulder, get his act together, and contribute to the club in the future.
This is great move. The Angels pitching is, once again, garbage, and they are absolutely right to take a flyer on any high risk, high reward talent that comes their way, especially one that is essentially free to acquire like Gohara was.
This season, the Angels are 24th in the MLB in team ERA and 18th in batting average against.
In 2018, the Angels were 19th in the MLB in team ERA and 15th in batting average against.
In 2017, the Angels were 12th in the MLB in team ERA and 10th in batting average against.
Get the idea? Basically, the Angels are squandering the best years of the best baseball player we’ve ever seen (Mike Trout) because their pitching simply isn’t good enough, and they’re trending the wrong way.
Coming into this season, the Angels took a chance on another high ceiling, low floor guy in Matt Harvey. They gave Harvey $11 million and he gave them half a season of complete crap before they cut him. He’s now pitching in AAA for the Oakland A’s, though possibly not for long.
All that said, I liked the Harvey signing for the Angels and I still think it was a good idea. Sure, I wonder if their was really such a bidding war for Harvey’s services that they needed to give him $11 million, but it was a good gamble to take. The chances of Harvey regaining his All Star form were low, but they weren’t zero and even a league average starting pitcher would have been an upgrade from the current Angels rotation, especially after the tragic death of Ace Tyler Skaggs.
Adding Gohara is a similar kind of move except with lower costs and a longer delay until a possible payoff.
Here’s a quick run down of everything you need to know about Gohara, courtesy of Royals Review, who was making the case that Kansas City should sign the left after he was DFA’d by Atlanta:
Originally signed out of Tupã, São Paulo, Brazil in 2012 by the Seattle Mariners, Gohara spent his first four seasons hovering between rookie and A-ball in the system. In 2017, he was dealt to Atlanta for outfielder Mallex Smith and pitcher Shae Simmons. Listed as the #83 prospect in all of baseball in 2017 and the sixth ranked player in the Braves’ farm system, the Brazilian native was highly touted for his electric arm. Given a 70-grade on his fastball, the 6’3, 265 lb left-hander had the ability of sitting in the mid to upper 90’s consistently. He even touched triple digits on numerous occasions. Debuting at just 21 years of age later that season, Gohara cracked the Atlanta roster during the September call-up period. At the time, he was labeled as one of the hardest-throwing lefties in all of baseball. Managing to collect 29 1/3 innings over the course of five starts with the Braves in 2017, Gohara posted a 4.91 ERA with 31 strikeouts and a 2.75 FIP. Perhaps the most eye-popping stat was his control for a pitcher possessing the ability of flirting with 100+ mph with regularity. Walking eight batters in total, his strikeout to walk ratio was 3.88. Gohara kept the ball in the park with a 0.6 home run per nine, but offenses were able to knock him around a bit. Allowing nearly ten hits per nine (9.8), it was the right-handed bats that seemed to give the lefty trouble. But nonetheless, Gohara entered the 2018 season as one of the top up and coming pitching prospects in the National League.
Gohara might wash out – the Braves certainly think he will. But he might bounce back and he’s got so much talent that the chance he turns into something useful at the major league level is, relatively speaking, high.
If the Angels just got an average to above average pitcher, either starter or reliever, for the second half of the 2020 season, then this is a huge win for them. If not, it’s no real loss.
If you’re trying to build a winning ball club and you have multiple hundreds of millions of dollars tied up in not just Trout but also Albert Pujols, Justin Upton, and Zach Cozart, you have to be creative in building the rest of your roster. So far, the Angels have failed pretty spectacularly in assembling a pitching staff that allows them to compete in the strong AL West. But if their plan going forward is to hoard all the high-upside pitchers they can get their hands on, I’m for it. They might not hit on any of them – in fact, they probably won’t – but “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take – Wayne Gretzky” – Michael Scott.
-Max Frankel
Editor’s note: Max Frankel is currently the manager of a fantasy baseball team named ‘Luiz Gohara’.
