Angels Select Zac Kristofak

1:22PM: The Angels officially announced the selection of Kristofak’s contract. Right-hander Jimmy Herget was designated for assignment to make room for Kristofak on the club’s 40-man roster, while righty Jose Cisnero was placed on the 15-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation to clear a spot on the active roster.

Herget spent parts of three seasons in the big leagues with the Angels, pitching to a 3.28 ERA and 3.43 FIP in 92 total appearances. He was among the Halos’ most dominant relievers back in 2022 with a 2.48 ERA and 2.82 FIP in 69 innings, but struggled to a 4.66 ERA and 5.63 FIP in 29 appearances last year and hasn’t appeared in the majors this season. The Angels will have one week to either trade Herget or attempt to pass him through waivers. If Herget clears waivers and is assigned outright to the minor leagues by the club, he’ll have the opportunity to reject that assignment in favor of free agency.

As for Cisnero, the right-hander has struggled mightily in 14 frames with the Angels this season, pitching to a 7.07 ERA and 6.30 FIP so far this season after signing a big league deal with the club back in February. It’s not currently clear how long the 35-year-old veteran will be out of action, though it appears that Kristofak will take over his spot in the bullpen for the time being.

9:57AM: The Angels are set to select the contract of right-hander Zac Kristofak prior to this afternoon’s game against the Twins, according to FanSided’s Robert Murray. Anaheim’s 40-man roster is currently full, meaning they’ll need to make a corresponding move to accommodate Kristofak’s selection to the roster.

Kristofak, 26, was a 14th-round pick by the Angels in the 2019 draft. The righty had his first full season in professional baseball wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and struggled at the High-A level upon his return to pitching in 2021 with a 6.14 ERA in 44 innings of work. Since then, however, Kristofak has pitched well while ascending the minor league ladder and swinging between the rotation and the bullpen. He posted a 3.82 ERA in 63 2/3 innings of work in a repeat of the High-A level the following year and was promoted to Double-A ahead of the 2023 season, when he posted a 4.07 ERA in 42 frames.

Kristofak’s 2024 season has been an impressive one, as he’s pitched to a 3.38 ERA across six appearances (three starts) in his first taste of the Triple-A level. The right-hander’s strong results are especially noteworthy considering the fact that he’s pitched in the infamously hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, which tends to offer a much more difficult environment for pitchers. That being said, Kristofak has struck out just 13% of batters faced to this point in the season, a potential red flag that helps to explain his elevated 5.09 FIP.

That the right-hander is poised to make his big league debut in the coming days is a particularly incredible feat given his harrowing past. Kristofak’s mother was murdered by his father back in 2012, when Kristofak was just 15 years old. The 26-year-old spoke to The Athletic’s Sam Blum about the tragedy back in September, and fans of any team are highly encouraged to read Blum’s piece to learn more about Kristofak’s story.

“Making the big leagues certainly won’t change what happened,” Blum wrote in the article. “But reaching that level — putting on an Angels uniform with Kristofak sewn on the back — will mean something that perhaps only Kristofak and his mother could fully understand.”

Kristofak will now get that opportunity to debut for the Angels, with whom he could be an option both out of the bullpen, where southpaw Jose Suarez has struggled to a 10.13 ERA in 16 frames as the club’s primary long reliever, or perhaps even in the rotation alongside Reid Detmers, Tyler Anderson, Patrick Sandoval, Jose Soriano, and Griffin Canning.