2020 Angels in review: Matt Andriese

Matt Andriese began his season with the Angels in a swingman role, but found his way to leverage relief down the stretch.

Acquired in January from the Diamondbacks for pitcher Jeremy Beasley, Andriese’s first two outings were “starts,” though the first was an emergency relief appearance of Shohei Ohtani, in which Andriese pitched 5⅔ scoreless frames. In his next actual start, Andriese only recorded five outs while allowing four runs.

A few weeks of long relief followed, though he eventually worked his way into higher leverage situations down the stretch. In his final 10 games, Andriese posted a 1.65 ERA and 29-percent strikeout rate, picking up two wins and two saves.

Though mostly a fastball-changeup artist, Andriese reintroduced a cutter into his repertoire this season, for the first time since 2016. He threw the cutter only 8.2 percent of the time, and almost exclusively to right-handers, though batters were just 0-for-8 with four strikeouts on at-bats that ended with a cutter.

Andriese was especially effective against right-handed batters, holding them to just .169/.239/.262 with a 32.4-percent strikeout rate.

2020 particulars

Age: 30

Stats: 4.50 ERA, 4.28 FIP, 32 IP, 33 K, 2 saves

Salary: $1.395 million

Game of the year

Andriese’s longest outing was that first appearance, on July 26 in Oakland, but we’ll go with his two-inning save on September 13 at Coors Field. Andriese already saved the game the previous day, and in this one he struck out four of his six batters faced, preserving the Angels’ two-run win.

Roster status

Andriese was non-tendered by the Angels on Wednesday, making him a free agent.