ATLANTA\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The name was a surprise, but the pick should not have been.<\/p>\n
The bromide about teams picking the best available player rather than drafting for need does not apply to the Angels, at least not in the Perry Minasian<\/a> era. The Angels\u2019 front office must try to win now, with an ownership that does not believe in rebuilding, and without huge investments in major league free agency, international scouting or player development.<\/p>\n The Angels needed pitching. They drafted a college pitcher Sunday, in line with their no-margin-for-error strategy<\/a> of selecting top college players and pushing them into the major leagues.<\/p>\n Their pick: Tyler Bremner of UC Santa Barbara<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been an emotional year for Bremner, who lost his mother to breast cancer in June.<\/p>\n On the day after she died, he saluted her in a long Instagram post<\/a> that started this way: \u201cSaying goodbye to you has been the hardest thing I have had to go through in my life. Why did this evil disease have to come into the life of such a pure hearted soul. Somehow through all this pain, darkness, and suffering there is light.\u201d<\/p>\n The last four words: \u201crest easy my angel\u201d<\/p>\n When his name was called Sunday, Bremner thought of his mother.<\/p>\n \u201cI went to the Angels,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s weird how life works.\u201d<\/p>\n The Angels invited him to Anaheim for a private workout last week. In a draft in which the hype around college pitchers focused on three left-handers from the Southeastern Conference, Bremner said his advisers told him about an hour before the draft started that the Angels might pick him.<\/p>\n And, after the Washington Nationals took high school shortstop Eli Willits \u2014 the son of former Angels outfielder Reggie Willits \u2014 with the No. 1 pick, the Angels were on the clock.<\/p>\n They had their pick of any pitcher in the country. They could have grabbed one of the SEC pitchers, or Corona High phenom Seth Hernandez<\/a>. They went with the big right-hander from the Big West, with a fastball and a changeup that might already be ready for Anaheim.<\/p>\n The immediate expectation was that the Angels would cut a discount deal with Bremner, enabling him to collect a seven-figure bonus while enabling them to allocate more of their draft pool to swipe talented lower-round players away from college commitments. Bremner and Tim McIlvaine, the Angels\u2019 scouting director, danced around that topic on Sunday.<\/p>\n But, if you\u2019re the Angels, none of that scheming really matters if you don\u2019t hit on the second overall pick of the draft.<\/p>\n McIlvaine said Bremner\u2019s changeup gives him a go-to pitch, with a slider under development and a body that has yet to fill out.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot you can really dream on,\u201d McIlvaine said.<\/p>\n The Angels need him to be right, and they need Bremner as a starter. A two-pitch pitcher would make a fine major league reliever, and don\u2019t be surprised to see the Angels consider launching his major league career in that role later this season, if they stay afloat in the wild-card race. That could give them nine of their first-round picks on their active roster.<\/p>\n But you don\u2019t use a first-round pick on a setup man. The Angels drafted two other pitchers among the top 10 overall picks within the past five years, and Reid Detmers and Sam Bachman now are setup men. Under Minasian, who was hired after the 2020 season, the Angels have drafted one pitcher that has delivered more than 1.0 WAR: Ben Joyce, a potential closer but now an injured setup man.<\/p>\n And the Angels\u2019 second-round pick Sunday: an actual reliever, from the SEC. He is Chase Shores, who closed the College World Series clincher for Louisiana State and threw 47 pitches clocked at 100 mph or harder<\/a> during the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n As Bremner said, life works in weird ways.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at his second half of the year,\u201d McIlvaine said, \u201cI\u2019d put it up against anybody in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n In the second half of the season, his mother was dying.<\/p>\n \u201cShe came out to all the games,\u201d he said, \u201call the way to the point where her body wouldn\u2019t let her any more.\u201d<\/p>\n In his last two games, weeks before she died, he gave up one run in 13-\u2153 innings, walking two and striking out 23. That resilience was not lost on the Angels.<\/p>\n \u201cI think, funny enough, as she got worse, that\u2019s when I got stronger on the field,\u201d Bremner said. \u201cI feel I did a very good job of using that kind of negative energy and challenging it into pitching.<\/p>\n \u201cPitching angry, or pitching for her, or pitching for something bigger than myself, I feel like, in a way, it helped me on the field. But it\u2019s not easy mentally to wrap my head around what\u2019s going on off the field while trying to compete at a high level.\u201d<\/p>\n That made Sunday a very different, and entirely memorable, mother\u2019s day.<\/p>\n \u201cI know she is watching over me,\u201d he said, \u201cand I know she is so proud of me.\u201d<\/p>\n His mother, Jen, was born in Canada. The Canadians already are calling for him<\/a> to represent her home country in the World Baseball Classic next spring, to honor her memory after losing her to cancer. Another pretty good ballplayer plays for Team Canada for the same reason<\/a>, so you never know: Bremner could be teammates with Freddie Freeman next spring and Mike Trout next summer.<\/p>\n