Los Angeles Angels Move Garrett Richards to the 60-Day Disabled List

Starting pitcher Garrett Richards of the Los Angeles Angels is not healing as planned, leading the team to move him to the 60-day disabled list.

The Los Angeles Angels have taken another hit to their starting rotation, as Garrett Richards will be out for longer than had been hoped. After sustaining a biceps strain earlier in April, the team had hoped that he could return relatively soon. Now, the Angels have moved him from the 10-day disabled list to the 60-day variant, per Connor Byrne of MLB Trade Rumors.

Should all go well with his recovery, Richards could conceivably return to action early this summer. This is, however, assuming a swift healing process, and the pitcher could miss even more time. Given the serious nature of this injury, the Angels may want to play it safe and allow him to spend more time working back to full health.

For Richards, this marks the second time since the start of last season that he has experienced a major arm injury. Just six starts into the season, a torn elbow ligament in his pitching elbow caused him to miss the rest of 2016. Although the righty chose not to undergo Tommy John surgery, the alternative of stem-cell therapy required a lengthy recovery process.

Now, the 28-year-old faces some serious questions about his durability. He has pitched just 38 innings over the past two seasons, a sign that does not bode well for such a young pitcher. While he managed to stay healthy for all of 2015, a torn patellar tendon in his left knee ended his 2014 season in late August. Before that season, he had pitched out of both the bullpen and the starting rotation over parts of three seasons.

When healthy, Richards can be a dominant arm for the Los Angeles Angels. Armed with a blazing fastball that averages over 96 miles per hour, the righty boasts a 3.56 career earned run average. His first full season in 2015 saw him post a slightly higher 3.65 figure, which advanced metrics felt was fitting. Richards achieved this performance by limiting the opposition's number of base this with a healthy dose of ground balls.

His best season actually came the year prior, when he posted a 2.61 earned run average over 168.2 innings. The injury-shortened campaign, as previously noted, earned a name for the 26-year-old, who at the time looked to be one of the more promising young pitchers in the American League. Extrapolating his 4.3 wins above replacement, according to FanGraphs, over a full season would have valued him as one of the ten best starting pitchers in all of baseball.

Clearly, it is easy to see why the Angels were willing to retain him through arbitration this past winter. With a current salary of $6.85 million, however, he may not be worth keeping should he not return well or at all. This could make him an intriguing free agent given that he only has one more year of team control remaining.