Sources: Angels agree to deal with Jonathan Lucroy after disappointing 2018 season
Free agent catcher Jonathan Lucroy and the Los Angeles Angels agreed on a one-year, $3.35 million deal Friday, giving the active Angels a full-time catcher and Lucroy an opportunity to bounce back from a disappointing season, league sources told Yahoo Sports.
Lucroy, 32, struggled with the Oakland A’s last year, hitting .241/.291/.325 and not posting the elite framing numbers that three seasons ago made him such a valuable commodity on the trade market.
He joins an Angels team that already has signed starters Matt Harvey and Trevor Cahill, plus first baseman Justin Bour, to one-year deals. As the Angels try to position themselves to sneak into a playoff spot with Seattle and Texas primed for down years in the American League West and Oakland in line for a regression, they’re not hamstringing themselves with long-term commitments.
The hope is that Lucroy can show signs of his 2016 self, when he hit .292/.355/.500 after being traded from Milwaukee to Texas. He backslid in 2017 with the Rangers and followed that with an even more difficult 2018.
Angels general manager Billy Eppler was a longtime executive with the New York Yankees, who were among the earliest adopters of the power of pitch framing, the notion that a catcher is capable of turning balls into strikes and keeping strikes from being called balls with deft glove movements that fool umpires. Lucroy’s framing numbers, once among the game’s best, were below average each of the last two seasons.
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