Angelo Tonas

5-11 190

LHP

Georgetown

(Info above via Tonas’s 2022 season Georgetown profile)

Left handed pitching, especially out of the bullpen, is at a premium in all levels of baseball. And UVA will never be immune from that reality.

Case in point, the 2023 Hoos will return just three left handed pitchers with game experience. During the 2022 season, Jake Berry logged 56.1 innings in 20 appearances but 9 of those appearances were as a starter. Matthew Buchanan logged 28.1 innings in 17 appearances (just 4 as a starter) as a freshman last year. And Luke Schauer logged just 1.2 innings in 1 appearance in 2022 before missing the rest of the season due to injury.

Schauer’s availability will be a question mark heading into the season. So will that of redshirt freshman LHP Dean Kampschror as he did not pitch during the 2022 season.

Enter Georgetown grad transfer Angelo Tonas.

At Georgetown

Tonas arrived at Georgetown as a member of the Hoyas’ 2018 recruiting class from Hillsborough, California where he attended Sacred Heart Prep in Atherton, California.

During his Georgetown career, Tonas made 67 appearances with 58 of those coming in relief. He was most active during the 2019 and 2022 seasons where he made 24 and 30 appearances (all in relief) respectively.

During his time with the Hoyas, Tonas posted a 4-9 record with a 6.15 ERA across 115.1 innings pitched. Opponents batted .314 against Tonas during his Georgetown career. He also recorded 7 saves for the Hoyas during his time at Georgetown.

B7 | 4-2 GU
NO BIGGER ꓘ THAN THIS ONE!! @angelotonas #HOYASAXA pic.twitter.com/mMCZ2rG2bt

— Georgetown Baseball (@GtownBaseball) April 16, 2022

During the 2022 season, Tonas served as Georgetown’s functional closer as he led the team with in saves with the aforementioned 7. He accounted for 39.2 innings across 30 relief appearances where opposing batters hit .310 against him. Tonas had a 1-3 record with a career best 4.99 ERA in 2022.

Tonas walked 54 batters against 121 strikeouts as a Hoya. During the 2022 season, he walked 17 while striking out 46 batters.

During his freshman season in 2019, Tonas earned Big East All-Academic honors. He repeated that honor after the 2021 and 2022 seasons as well.

His 7 saves during the 2022 season were tied for second most in the Big East. His 30 appearances were also tied for second most in the conference.

B8 | 5-3 GU
We may have lied… NO BIGGER K THAN THIS!@angelotonas #HOYASAXA pic.twitter.com/aIRWNKAcMD

— Georgetown Baseball (@GtownBaseball) April 16, 2022

Against UVA

The Hoos hosted Georgetown for a midweek contest on April 20, 2022.

UVA won a fairly competitive game against a Georgetown team that defied expectations in 2022. The 6 to 4 Wahoo victory wasn’t decided until the Hoos scored 2 runs in the bottom of the 8th.

Tonas came on for relief in the 8th, recording the final two outs for Georgetown. In that 0.2 innings against the Hoos, he gave up 1 hit, no runs, no walks, and struck out 2 batters.

Summer 2022 MLB Draft League

During the summer of 2022, Tonas played in the MLB Draft League for both the Frederick Keys and Trenton Thunder.

Per his stats at Baseball Reference, Tonas made 1 appearance in relief for Trenton where he pitched 1.0 inning. In that inning, Tonas surrendered 1 hit, no runs, no walks, and struck out 1. His ERA with Trenton was 0.00.

With Frederick, Baseball Reference shows 3 appearances which were also all in relief. In those 3 appearances, Tonas pitched a total of 3.2 innings. He gave up 3 hits, 3 runs (all earned), 4 walks, hit 3 batters, and also struck out 3. He posted an ERA of 7.36 with Trenton. However, Tonas also picked up 2 saves in the 3 outings with Frederick.

Angelo Tonas LHP for Frederick strikes out a Trenton hitter to secure the Victory. Final Score Keys 10 Thunder 9. ⁦@mlbdraftleague⁩ ⁦@prepbaseball⁩ ⁦@FrederickKeys⁩ #KEYSWIN pic.twitter.com/cHdsdAblxW

— Tad Slowik (@TadSlowik_PBR) June 5, 2022

Scouting Tonas

Given that Tonas is a reliever that didn’t play at a major program, he has not received much coverage from the college baseball press. Essentially, there’s not a current scouting report available for him online.

However, based on some video clips and his stats, we can get an elementary read on what the Hoos have in Tonas.

First, it appears that Tonas hides the ball well in his three-quarters arm slot delivery. That deception likely plays an important role in his excellent strikeout ratio where he averaged more than a K per inning last season at Georgetown (10.4 K per 9 innings per Baseball Reference).

However, Tonas needs to improve on the number of walks he surrenders. That will likely be a focus this fall and over the winter heading into the 2023 season. Per Baseball Reference, Tonas issued 3.9 walks per 9 innings. Given that Tonas will almost certainly be a reliever at UVA, you’d like to see that number come way down.

2023 Contributions

The current state of the UVA pitching staff offers a big opportunity to anyone currently on the roster. Every conceivable role on the team is open from weekend starter to closer and everything in between.

Tonas profiles as a reliever for the Hoos given his usage over his career at Georgetown.

Given the dearth of healthy, proven left handed relievers on the roster, we can expect Tonas to get a lot of opportunities to establish himself as a dependable option. If he’s able to do so, he’ll be a mainstay out of the bullpen.

Based on his usage at Georgetown last season, it also would not surprise to see Tonas get some looks as a possible closer for the Hoos. Although, if he proves to be lights out in relief, he may have more value in a stopper or long relief role earlier in games.