As the Angels sort through their bullpen picture this offseason, José Fermín keeps popping up as one of the more fascinating arms in the mix. The 24-year-old right-hander already showed real growth in 2026, trimming his ERA from 4.46 to 3.86 while working 53 games, striking out 62 batters in 53.2 innings after making 40 appearances as a rookie in 2025.
What makes Fermín so interesting is how sharply his arsenal splits into one pitch that can take over an at-bat and another that can undo the rest of the package. His four-pitch mix is built around velocity separation and movement, and the numbers make it clear where the strengths and problems live.
The headliner is his slider, and there’s no real debate about that. Fermín threw it 58 percent of the time in 2026, making it the engine behind everything he does.
Most big league right-handers work their sliders around 87 mph, but Fermín’s comes in at 90.5 mph. That extra gear helps the pitch blend off his mid-90s fastballs before it sweeps away from right-handed hitters.
He used it 70 percent of the time against righties and still went to it 44 percent of the time versus lefties.
The results were strong across the board. Fermín’s slider finished with a +6 Pitch Run Value in 2026 and helped power a Breaking Run Value that sat in the 81st percentile in Major League Baseball.
It also drove a 29.8 percent whiff rate, which ranked in the 82nd percentile, along with a 32.1 percent chase rate. When he needs a strikeout in a big spot, that’s the pitch.
The trouble starts with the sinker. Even with upper-level arm strength, Fermín’s primary fastball has been his biggest issue, and that stands out even more as other young Angels arms like Walbert Urena are finding success with the pitch. Fermín threw the sinker 30 percent of the time at 96.4 mph, which put him in the 81st percentile for fastball velocity.
But speed only goes so far if hitters keep squaring it up. The sinker posted a -3 Pitch Run Value in 2026, and that helped drag his overall Fastball Run Value to -6, which landed in the 15th percentile. The pitch does have 14.8 inches of arm-side tail and helped him generate a 46.3 percent ground-ball rate, but it also tends to drift into too much of the plate.
That contact has been loud. Opponents posted a 90.6 mph average exit velocity and a 42.9 percent hard-hit rate against Fermín in 2026, both of which ranked in the bottom 15 percent of the league. Hitters appear to gear up for the sinker because they know the slider is coming, and that leaves his 96-mph heater vulnerable to damage.
Behind those two pitches, Fermín has a pair of rarely used options that function more like show-me offerings. He mixed in a four-seam fastball at 96.6 mph just 7 percent of the time, and a 93.0 mph changeup at 5 percent. The changeup actually produced a +1 Pitch Run Value in 2026, which gives him a possible weapon against left-handed hitters if he leans on it more.
For Fermín, everything comes back to fastball command. If he can sharpen the location of that 96-mph sinker and keep hitters from barreling it, the slider gives him the kind of profile that can play in late innings. If the sinker keeps getting hit hard, though, he’s more likely to settle into lower-leverage work until the Angels find another answer.
With the Angels’ pitching staff moving in a new direction, Fermín’s next step will be worth watching in 2027. Joel Hurtado and Walbert Urena have both improved their sinkers in recent years, and Fermín could be next in line to make that jump. The club could also decide to lean more on the four-seam fastball and scale back the sinker.
Either way, the slider is good enough to keep him in the conversation. The question is whether the rest of the arsenal can catch up, or whether the hard contact on the sinker keeps him stuck in a smaller role.
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