The Philadelphia Phillies revamped their pitching staff earlier this season by releasing Taijuan Walker.
In the final year of a four-year, $72 million deal signed before the 2023 season, the Phillies determined that it was preferable to forgo the remaining funds than to let Walker continue pitching for them.
Walker was fired when Zack Wheeler recovered sufficiently to return to the starting rotation. That happened towards the end of April, and he is now preparing to attempt to return to the major leagues with a new squad.
According to Jeff Fletcher of the SoCal News Group on X, Walker has inked a deal with the Los Angeles Angels. He will not join the Big League club immediately, since he is scheduled to report to the team’s complex in Arizona.
Taijuan Walker joins the Angels.
Walker will seek to step up the tempo at Tempe Diablo Stadium, where the Angels hold spring training and the Arizona Complex League club plays. It will be fascinating to watch how he performs against that degree of competition and what he has to offer, since he did not play well with Philadelphia this season.
He was expected to deliver the team with consistent, inning-eating performance at the rear end of the rotation right away, similar to what he provided last year. However, the 2026 version of Walker was significantly different from the 2025 edition.
In five appearances and 22. 2 innings pitched, opponents tattooed him. He had a 9. 13 ERA and a -0. 7 bWAR. He had 17 strikeouts, 11 walks, and gave up eight home runs.
Opposing batters hit him with a . 353/. 417/. 657 slash line and a terrible 7. 0% home run rate. His 14. 8% strikeout rate was the lowest of his career, while his 9. 6% walk rate was the second worst, behind 2023 and 2024, when it was 9. 7%.
It is not an exaggeration to state that Walker was the least effective pitcher in baseball this season. His Baseball Savant page has a lot of dark blue, indicating that he is performing much below the league average level.
His pitching run value of -19 places him in the first percentile. His Fastball Run Value of -15 is likewise in the first percentile, and his Offspeed Run Value of -4 is in the fourth percentile. A Breaking Run Value of 0 is in the 39th percentile.
