Alec Manoah was emerging as one of the best young pitchers in baseball when I first spoke to him for FanGraphs in April 2022. While pitching for the Toronto Blue Jays at the time, he had a 12-2 record and 3.05 ERA over 23 starts dating back to his Major League debut last May. And he only got better. By the end of the season, the burly right-hander was not only 25-9 with a 2.60 ERA, but he had allowed just 221 hits in 308 1/3 innings across 51 career starts. He was a budding star at age 24, finishing third in the American League Cy Young Award voting that year.
As Blue Jays fans know all too well, things went wrong. The Homestead, Florida, native limped through a tumultuous 2023 that saw his command and speed decline, and things got even worse the following year. Burdened by shoulder and elbow complaints, Manoah underwent surgery in June 2024 to repair his ulnar collateral ligament. The recovery was not exactly smooth. He threw just 38 1/3 innings last season, none of them in the Majors.
His once prosperous tenure in Toronto also came to an end, as did a brief stint with another organization. Manoah was claimed by the Atlanta Braves in late September and then signed a free-agent deal with the Los Angeles Angels in December. He is now in the early stages of what could be considered the Alek Manoah Reclamation Project.
The first results are positive. Last Sunday, Manoah took the mound against the Arizona Diamondbacks and threw two scoreless innings, throwing 25 of his 36 pitches for strikes and allowing just a few walks. Additionally, his four-seam fastball was clocked at 93-94 mph. Last season, his velocity was mostly between 89 and 92, meaningful ticks below the 93.9 mph he averaged in his 2022 All-Star campaign.
I asked the 6-foot-4 pitcher about his velocity rebound on Monday at Angels camp.
“I think it was because after TJ’s rehab I got a full offseason and was able to work on some minor mechanical adjustments,” Manoah said. “Keep putting that out over and over again.”
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He did not go into detail about his adjustments, but did provide a good overview of the objective. He also agreed when I said that it’s not always easy to get your mechanics back into full alignment when you return from Tommy John.
“That’s a big part of it,” Manoah said. “First of all, you play so much catch in your rehab, on flat ground, and a lot of it is light catch. Some inconsistencies can come from that.
“It was going into this last offseason, resetting and seeing where we were [and] where we want to be,” he added. “And then just trim some of the fat off the steak, basically. Simplify a bit. Stay on top of the ball. Participate in a good off-season long-toss program. Strength program. Making the body feel really good again.”
The slider was the 285-pound righty’s top weapon when he dominated Major League hitters circa 2022, so it wasn’t a surprise when he brought it up as a field-specific focus.
“The biggest thing I’ve been working on is slider consistency,” he told me. “After rehab, that may be the one pitch where it’s the hardest to have that flip-it-in-there-for-a-strike feel, or to be able to flip it in there for a two-strike. For me, it’s about having multiple variations of my slider, which I’ve always been used to. Getting that consistency with the variation is [a focus]. Working on that in the offseason, working on that in live BPs, in bullpens, everything, here in spring training.
His change is a different story. Monoah believes the pitch has actually benefited from the rehabilitation process, partly because he threw a lot of them during long toss. He thinks, or at least hopes, that things will go better than in recent seasons. As for the field itself, that hasn’t changed. Elbow health is the reason why.
“Same grip, same everything,” he said. “I’m not trying to deter the elbow again. Something new… [Dr. Keith] Meister was the one who did mine [surgery]and he sees a lot of… I mean, Meister can get in your elbow and see if you’re a changer or a slider guy. That’s actually pretty crazy. He talks about how the change used to be a speed change, and now it’s a motion tone. Throwing it to get movement can change something in your elbow, so I try not to do more. For me it just means changing the speed, throwing it forward and getting more and more confident with it.”
The extent to which Angels fans should have confidence in Manoah’s chances to reemerge as a quality big league starter — or perhaps even a big league starter — is open to debate. One thing is certain: if the Alek Manoah Reclamation Project comes to fruition, a new family member will cheer him on.
“I have a baby at home – 10 months old today – and we are happy and excited to have him in the stands for the first time this year,” Manoah said. “We’re in a good place. Maybe someday you can interview him.”
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