TEMPE, Ariz. — There are narratives that have come to define Alek Manoah’s career, and his years-long pitching plight.
The pitcher doesn’t buy them.
He does not dispute that he’s been on a journey that’s taken him from All-Star and Cy Young finalist to unceremoniously “fired twice,” as he put it, in a two-month span. His big league career, no matter what portrayal you choose to believe, is hanging by a thread. But his hard times were a blip, he believes. A moment, not a new normal, even if the narrative around his career suggests the opposite.
“I feel like some narratives can be created on their own,” he said at one point.
“I know there are other perspectives and narratives that can be out there,” he said at another.
So, standing outside the Angels clubhouse in Arizona, sweaty after finishing sprint drills, Manoah was asked directly: What are the narratives, and why are they wrong? Why don’t you agree with them?
“It’s like what you said,” Manoah responded, turning it back on the question itself. “That I haven’t felt good in a few years.”
“I just think that’s the cycle of baseball. It’s very, ‘What have you done for me now?’ There are a lot of guys that had a really good year two years ago, but because they had a bad year last year, a lot of people are writing them off for the rest of their careers.
“For me. It was a matter of, I had a down year.”
Manoah, 28, posted a 2.24 ERA over 196 ⅔ innings in 2022. He struck out 180 batters, sported a sub-1.00 WHIP, and was worth six WAR. With his big-man swagger, Manoah was a rising superstar for the Blue Jays.
That narrative he so dislikes, however, would suggest that there’s more to the story than just one down season for Manoah, who signed with the Angels on a one-year, $1.95 million prove-it contract. It’s been years of injuries, demotions, dips in fastball velocity and subsequently less effective off-speed pitches.
In 2023, Manoah’s 5.87 ERA and 14 percent walk rate led to a shocking, last-resort option to the Florida Complex League; with the organization sending many of its pitching coaches and experts to try and fix him.
Once a face of the budding core in Toronto, Manoah lost his fastball, his ability to throw strikes, and, eventually, his health. The assistance of the organization never fully materialized, and years later, the man that was supposed to lead Toronto to the World Series was instead watching them play in one on television.
“At the end of the day, it’s just baseball, right,” Manaoh said. “I’ve been through a lot of tougher s— in life besides baseball.
“Just keeping that perspective and understanding that, at the end of the day, struggling in baseball is a first-world problem. Trusting that every door that closes is closing for a reason. Every door that’s opening is ready to blossom.”
Manoah wants his comeback story to be an inspiration to others. But first he has to prove it on the field. The right-hander is brimming with optimism this spring. He believes a corner has been turned, and the Angels have essentially acknowledged a starting rotation job is his to lose.
It was a long and painful process for Manoah, who saw his average fastball velocity dip more than a full mile per hour in 2023. And with it, the four-seam pitch value went from +15 runs in 2022 to -12 runs in 2023, according to Baseball Savant.
His walk rate more than doubled from 6.5 percent to an stratospheric 14.2 percent. He generated whiffs just 21.8 percent of the time, well below league average. His first Florida Complex League start, after getting demoted that season, was an 11-run, 2.2-inning disaster. When he returned to the big leagues, he ended the season of then-Angels outfielder Taylor Ward, by hitting him in the face with a fastball.
“No, man,” Manoah said, when asked if there was a mental anxiety element to his strike throwing struggles. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve dealt with any of that.
“I think for me it’s more when, mentally, you don’t have your best stuff, I know for me, I’m going to go out and compete with what I’ve got.”
Manoah came back in 2024, but required Tommy John surgery after just five outings. True to form, it hasn’t been an easy return for Manoah. He likened it to driving a car that isn’t your own. You don’t have a good feel for the brakes or how it moves. But eventually, you figure it out.
That’s the stage that Manoah feels he’s reached now. He’s dropped a significant amount of weight — currently down to 285 pounds on his 6-foot-6 frame — addressing what was likely one of the root causes for his velocity dip and ineffective results. Plyometrics, movement exercises and cardiovascular work have been staples of his offseason.
He’s ready to “run through a brick wall” for the Angels, since they’re the team that believed in him. The Braves offered him a split contract, but the Angels, whose offseason has been one of taking on one reclamation project after another, were willing to make a full financial commitment to him.
A change of scenery, embracing a new coaching staff, teammates and front office, he hopes, will be a good thing. It’s not that he viewed leaving the Blue Jays as a prerequisite necessity, but there’s a net positive in going somewhere new. Some place he’s wanted.
“He checks all the boxes of a guy you want on your team,” said Angels pitching coach Mike Maddux. “He got railroaded by some injuries here and there, but now he’s on the way back. If we can recapture the health, he’s going to be really good. His mental approach and his teammate approach is superb.”
“He knows what success looks like. He knows what it feels like. He knows what it tastes like. I think the sky’s the limit.”
Maddux said the movement on Manoah’s pitches in his bullpens have been really good. The Angels don’t have radar guns set up to measure velocity, Maddux said, but Manoah’s fastball averaged 93.3 miles per hour during his first spring training start at the Arizona Diamondbacks facility on Sunday.
It’s a tick up from the low 90s velocity he was averaging during his otherwise solid Triple-A rehab stint late last season. He said that whatever velocity numbers he puts up in early spring bullpens will likely be higher during the adrenaline rush of an actual game.
“I look up, and it’s been two years since I’ve been in a big league game,” Manoah said. “It doesn’t really hit me hard. I stay to the routine, I stay to the work every day.
“I trust the injuries, and I trust some of the down stuff is only going to make my platform bigger. It’s going to make my voice a lot bigger for people that go through a lot of tough stuff.”
Alek Manoah seemed like he would be a foundational piece of the next great Blue Jays teams. (Vaughn Ridley / Getty Images)
Manoah watched nearly all of Toronto’s 18 playoff games on television. A month prior, he was DFA’d by the club that had drafted him, developed him into a star, and had even handed him the ball to start its first postseason game of 2022.
It was a team that had poured resources into fixing him. But years of injuries, struggles and failed comeback attempts led to an unceremonious exit. One that the Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins said in September was due to a “roster crunch” and having enough viable depth for the postseason.
“Those are all my friends,” Manoah said. “A lot of those guys I called my brothers. I rooted for them 100 percent. I wanted them to win it all.”
He said there were no mixed emotions in rooting on his friends, but in the same breath, he seemed to hint that missing it wasn’t easy.
“I was a very big piece of that process, getting to that World Series run,” Manoah added. “I wasn’t able to be there like I wanted to.”
That chapter, along with all its good and bad moments, is now officially over. A new one has begun, and with it, an onus on him to prove that the narratives out there about him are, in fact, wrong.
That his one “down year” is now officially, finally and fully behind him.