Angels sign LHP Sammy Peralta to minor league deal after he clears waivers

What happened

The Angels have reportedly signed left-handed reliever Sammy Peralta to a minor league deal, per MLB Trade Rumors, after Peralta cleared waivers and declined a minor league assignment from the Rockies. The club announced the signing. Colorado had designated Peralta for assignment earlier this week, and the process moved quickly from there: waivers cleared, a Rockies assignment was rejected, and Peralta found a new home — one that is, technically, a familiar one.

This is Peralta's second stint in the Angels organization. He first joined Los Angeles on a minor league deal in May 2025, eventually reaching the majors during the final few weeks of that season. The reunion, then, required very little introduction.

Why it matters

Minor league deals are the quiet infrastructure of a major league roster — they don't touch the 40-man, they don't cost much, and they tend to attract exactly the kind of player whose recent track record is complicated enough to make a guaranteed big-league contract unlikely but whose stuff is interesting enough that someone wants another look. Peralta fits that profile.

His path to this signing ran through Milwaukee and then Colorado. The Rockies claimed Peralta off waivers from the Brewers in early April, and he made two appearances for Colorado before being designated for assignment. In those 2 2/3 innings, he allowed three earned runs. That's a small sample — the kind of number that tells you something happened but not necessarily what — and it ended with a DFA rather than a longer audition.

What made Peralta's brief Colorado tenure notable, at least on a personal level, was that his team debut doubled as his first career MLB start. Per MLB Trade Rumors, he served as an opener against the Rangers, with right-hander Tanner Gordon following behind him. For a reliever, a first big-league start as an opener is a particular kind of milestone: you're on the mound first, the lineup hasn't seen you, and the whole arrangement is designed to exploit exactly that novelty. Whether it worked is a separate question from whether it happened, and it happened.

The numbers

Peralta's major league résumé now spans two organizations and two seasons. With the Angels in 2025, he tossed 10 2/3 innings and posted a 7.59 ERA during the final weeks of the season. With Colorado in 2026, he appeared twice, covering 2 2/3 innings and allowing three earned runs. The aggregate is modest in volume and uneven in results — which is, again, precisely the kind of profile that lands a pitcher on a minor league deal rather than a guaranteed roster spot.

MLB Trade Rumors notes that Peralta carries a diverse pitch mix for a reliever, a detail worth flagging because it's the kind of organizational asset that tends to outlast a rough ERA line. A lefty with multiple offerings has developmental upside that a one-pitch arm does not, and that's presumably part of what the Angels are evaluating here.

Where the club stands

Los Angeles is 62-100 (.383), sitting fifth in the AL West, 19 games back in the division, and per the verified standings, the Angels have been eliminated from both the division race and the Wild Card race. They enter this signing on a two-game losing streak, with a Wild Card ranking of 12th and a figure of 22.0 relative to the cut line.

The schedule ahead offers no particular relief. On Sunday, June 28, the Angels host the Athletics at Angel Stadium, with Sam Aldegheri projected against Aaron Civale. The club then travels to T-Mobile Park for back-to-back games against the Seattle Mariners: Ryan Johnson is the probable starter Monday against George Kirby, and José Soriano is lined up Tuesday against Bryan Woo. Seattle is a division rival with considerably more at stake in these games than Los Angeles, which is the kind of scheduling context that makes a minor league signing feel less like a roster move and more like a quiet organizational note filed for future reference.

The club's position in the standings also reframes how roster decisions get evaluated at this point in the year. Wins and losses in late June matter less than identifying which players belong on next year's version of this team. A minor league deal for a left-hander with a varied arsenal fits that framework neatly — it's an evaluation opportunity dressed up as a transaction.

What we don't know yet

### Is Peralta expected to join the big-league club?

A minor league deal does not place a player on the 40-man roster, and the Angels have not announced any corresponding move that would create a path to the active roster in the near term. Per the reporting, this is a minor league assignment — which means Peralta would need to be added to the 40-man and called up before he appears in an Angels uniform at the major league level. None of that has been reported as imminent.

It's also worth noting that Peralta reportedly rejected a minor league assignment from Colorado before accepting one from Los Angeles. The material doesn't explain the distinction — different terms, a preferred organization, geography, or something else entirely — so the desk won't speculate. What the reporting does say is that the Angels announced the deal, and that Peralta has history with the organization dating to May 2025.

Whether his 2025 stint informed the Angels' interest here, or whether this is simply a case of a team knowing a player's stuff from prior exposure and liking what they saw, is not something the reporting addresses. The minor league deal is the fact. Everything else is inference, and the desk doesn't traffic in inference.

What to watch

The obvious thread to follow is whether Peralta works his way back to a big-league role with the Angels before the season ends. He did it in 2025 — joined on a minor league deal in May, reached the majors by the final weeks of the year. The 2026 version of that path is not guaranteed, and the reporting doesn't suggest it's expected, but the precedent exists within this same organization.

More broadly, the Angels are in the portion of their season where the minor league pipeline and the big-league roster start to blur in useful ways. September roster expansion — when active rosters grow from 26 to 28 players — gives clubs the opportunity to evaluate players who spent the summer in the minors, and a left-handed reliever with a varied pitch mix is exactly the kind of arm that tends to get a look during that window. Whether Peralta is in position to be that arm by September is a question the next few months will answer.

For now, the signing is what it is: a minor league deal, a second chapter in a familiar organization, and a left-hander with a complicated recent line trying to find steadier footing. The Angels announced it. The rest is still being written.