The Angels are set to pick a catcher contract Logan Porter7News’ Ari Alexander reports. He signed a minor league contract with them five days ago after choosing free agency over an outright assignment with the Giants. Porter hasn’t even suited up for a game with the Halos’ Triple-A affiliate, but will jump right into the big leagues after catching the backup. Sebastian Rivero he left last night’s game with an apparent hand injury.
Porter, 30, is joining his third major league team. He has brief experience in the majors with both the Royals and Giants, having amassed 47 plate appearances. Porter is just a .184/.326/.289 hitter in that span, but he’s a .244/.359/.389 hitter over parts of five Triple-A seasons. He’s hitting hard but has walked at an impressive 14.4% clip in over 1200 Triple-A plate appearances.
Porter also gives the Angels a sound defensive backup at starting catcher Logan O’Hoppe. He threw out an average of 22% of the runners who attempted to steal from him in the minors (33% from last season) and drew quality frame marks with below-average marks for his blocking skills, according to Baseball Prospectus.
The Angels have used four different catchers in 2026. Porter will be the fifth, joining the quartet of O’Hoppe, Rivero, Travis d’Arnaud again Omar Martinez. He has a full slate of minor league options left, so the Angels don’t really need to assign him an assignment when d’Arnaud and/or Rivero get healthy. The Halos will need to open up 26-man and 40-man roster spots for Porter, but that should be straightforward. His choice of majors seems to point to an IL journey for Rivero, and rightly so Jack Kochanowicz could be switched to 60-day IL after Tommy John surgery this week.
