Alek Manoah's difficult comeback attempt has hit its lowest point yet. The Angels have released the former Toronto Blue Jays All-Star after a brutal season at Triple-A.
Manoah finished with a 1-7 record and a staggering 15.43 ERA across 35 innings this season.
Those numbers are almost hard to process for a pitcher who once looked like a genuine ace, a stark continuation of a decline that's been building for years now.
Manoah made an All-Star team with Toronto in 2022, posting a 2.24 ERA across 31 starts that season, before everything changed dramatically the following year.
His 2023 season collapsed to a 5.87 ERA, and he's never fully recovered since, bouncing between injuries, ineffectiveness and now multiple organizations without finding his way back to the majors.
The Angels gave him three outings at the big league level earlier this year, and even those were rough, posting a 9.82 ERA before he was sent back down to keep working.
A 15.43 ERA at Triple-A isn't just a bad season, it's the kind of number that raises real questions about whether a return to affiliated baseball at any level is still realistic.
Why this release feels like a real turning point
Manoah is still just 28 years old, technically in the window where careers can be rebuilt, but the scale of this decline has been steep, persistent and now spanning multiple organizations.
This isn't a single bad outing or an isolated slump anymore. It's a multi-year pattern that's proven resistant to every attempted fix so far.
It's a bit like watching a once-reliable machine keep breaking down no matter how many parts get replaced, the core issue clearly running deeper than any single repair.
Does this release mark the effective end of Manoah's professional career, or does age alone still give him a real path back if another organization takes a flier?
For Blue Jays fans, this latest update is a painful footnote to what once looked like a true homegrown ace, a reminder of how quickly a promising career can completely unravel.
Whether Manoah ever pitches professionally again now looks like a genuine open question rather than a formality.
Do you think Alek Manoah ever pitches professionally again after this release?
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