CHATHAM, Mass. — Everyone thinks they know everything about Angel Cervantes. Social media is both a modern boon and a burden. It gives them the right to pretend they do. The internet has removed all traditional gatekeepers to the spread of information, so anyone can weigh in on the UCLA hotshot with the toy triceratops. The one who can’t commit to anyone, or anything. The one who thought he was too good for the Pittsburgh Pirates, too good for the majors, too good to accept millions of dollars to throw a baseball before his 18th birthday.

The snake.

In the days after July 13, 2025, a lot of people made a lot of assumptions about Angel. It comes with being selected 50th overall in the MLB Draft, choosing to go to UCLA anyway, and becoming the first top 50 pick to go unsigned since 2021. They assumed it was all about money, and that he had no loyalty, as if the Pirates were the ones who he had held a longstanding commitment with; as if there were ever a deal for him to renege upon.

Signing with Pittsburgh would’ve been the path of least resistance. No one would have blamed him for taking whatever he got offered, certainly not UCLA head coach John Savage. “He goes in the 50th pick,” Savage says now, “you think he's gone.”

Angel Cervantes — the snake — could’ve gone anywhere at any point in his high school career, but he stayed at Warren High School. Angel Cervantes — the snake — could’ve gone anywhere at any point in his recruiting process, but remained committed to UCLA for two years without wavering once. Angel Cervantes — the snake — could’ve left Chatham at any point this summer, but he stayed and evolved into the best pitcher on Cape Cod.

That’s what his 1.14 earned run average says about him, anyway.

There are no questions about his commitment. “Angel's extremely, 100% loyal,” former Warren head coach Scott Pearson says. His decision wasn’t about the money, nor was it a dislike for the Pirates organization.

“Like, ‘Oh, he's a snake. Oh, he's a traitor,’” says his mother, Adriana, imitating the assumptions fans made about Angel. “You don't know my kid. How can you assume he's a snake?”

Angel’s heart was simply at UCLA. It was there for years before the draft, it was there the day after it, and it was there nine days after that, when he put his announcement out on X. “Go Bruins!!” it reads, featuring a graphic that removes any sense of ambiguity with the words STAYING HOME, written in all caps as if he were trying to scream the words out to the world.

Adriana tried to prepare him for the scrutiny that would come with it, but he saw all of the comments anyway. He still doesn’t regret his decision in the slightest. “It's just funny,” Angel says now, “because no one knows the true story.”

You know about the UCLA Bruins, who spent almost all of last spring as the nation’s team to beat. You might know about Jerry, the triceratops who became a viral sensation, so much so that he earned himself a feature in The Athletic. And, if you know both of those things, you must know how they relate to Angel Cervantes, who is both UCLA’s player and Jerry’s owner.

But you really don’t know what you think you might know about Angel Cervantes.

Do you?


The city of Colima, Mexico, is a big fish in a small pond. It’s the capital of the smallest of Mexico’s 32 states, and its metro area — boasting a population of 380,575 people, according to Mexico’s 2020 census — accounted for over half its state’s population that year. This is where Angel’s story begins, in a city that’s a bit too big for the state in which it resides.

But this house was certainly not. Angel’s grandmother, born María Galindo, grew up on a ranch just outside Colima, in a shack that had aluminum walls and a roof that, on rainy days, would leak into buckets they placed to catch the rainfall. The seventh of 19 children, three of whom died at birth, María didn’t grow up with many luxuries. Laundry was a full-day affair. They’d bring baskets of dirty clothes to the river and play in it as they washed their clothes.

“My mom said that she had the best childhood ever,” Adriana says.

María moved to America when she was 18, and became a seamstress in Southgate, California. She sent money back to Mexico, as did her siblings, and the house got bigger over the years.

Eventually, the Galindos had children themselves — over 50 of them — and those children had children. María, perhaps influenced by her own childhood, had just two, and her daughter, Adriana, had three. The Galindo diaspora try to reunite at that home each year. Everyone knows the family in Colima, because one of the uncles is a Mexican politician. Angel, the youngest of Adriana’s children, has a horse on their ranch. His name is Canelo.

“I haven't seen him in a minute,” Angel says.

It’s been hundreds of thousands of minutes. One of his uncles is watching Canelo now. The family hasn’t gone to Colima in about two years, because it’s harder to go nowadays. “It's not as safe as it used to be,” Adriana says, largely because of the cartel.

Angel still loves it. A part of him always will.

“It's always a fun time,” Angel says. “It's like my second home.”

María grew up in a religious family. Her faith pushed her through her humble beginnings, and Angel carries those same habits. That’s why, now, he says his grandmother is “basically his favorite person in the world.” He isn’t fully fluent in Spanish, and she isn’t fully fluent in English, but their connection transcends language.

Before every start, in person or through the phone, Angel receives a blessing from her. It’s been a ritual since he was little, as entrenched in his gameday routine as Jerry, who was born out of a photography project he did in his senior year at Warren. “It gives me the guidance and strength that I know I'll have, because of her praying down on me,” Angel says.

The sacrifices she’s made are not lost on him. Everything he does is for her.


Angel Cervantes was a big fish in a small pond. His hometown, Lynwood, California, is a city with a five-figure population, which might as well be nothing in Los Angeles County. It’s only losing more as the years go on. That population, which was 69,772 in 2010, decreased by more than 2,000 the following decade. “Not really much there,” Angel says now, working through his plyometric routine at Brewster’s Stony Brook Field, holding a blue weighted ball in his hand. He’s had it since his freshman year of high school. He hasn’t replaced it once.

If Colima is where Angel’s story began, Lynwood is where it continued, in a town that’s a bit too small for the talent that resides in it.

He learned to throw by playing catch with his grandfather. His first dedicated pitching coach was Adrian Chaidez, a former UCLA player who he began working with as a freshman at Warren. Growing up, Angel didn’t like pitching as much as hitting; he wears No. 99 whenever he isn’t in Chatham, and that number choice was inspired by Aaron Judge.

“I've just always seen people hit home runs as a kid,” Angel says. “So I always thought of myself, like, ‘Oh, maybe I'll be one of those guys one day.’”

It’s been over a calendar year since Angel has last hit — that’s the first time he can say that since his introduction to the sport. “Let's not give him any ideas here now,” Savage jokes, because he doesn’t want Angel hitting anymore. Against Angel’s own will, his arm has now become far too valuable for him to use it anywhere other than a mound.

The shift started in 2023, his sophomore year at Warren. His velocity jumped from mid-80s to low-90s. Schools began watching, agents started calling and everything he had ever wanted was suddenly within his reach. He hadn’t grown up with all the eyes on him, but he had everyone’s attention now.

“We didn't have as much money, couldn't go to all these events like everyone else could,” Angel said, referring to baseball showcases in his youth. “Always seeing on social media, ‘Oh, I always wanna go there, but I can't.’”

Once, in April of that year, Pearson pulled Angel into his office. “Angel, you’re gonna start blowing up like crazy,” he told him, before asking him what his dream school was. Angel said UCLA, and since Pearson had Savage’s number, he immediately called the coach.

Savage came to his next start. Angel committed two weeks after that meeting.

Then came his playoff start that year, where twirled a nine-inning gem in a loss to Huntington Beach High School. His pitch count crossed the century mark in that game, and — Pearson recalls, with incredulity in his voice — his 102nd pitch was 93 miles per hour.

“It felt really good, finally getting the attention that I worked for,” Angel said. “I wish it came sooner, but obviously, that's not how it works.”

After Angel’s sophomore year, Pearson retired due to struggles with high blood pressure. Angel could’ve gone to any school in the country, let alone California. He visited Orange Lutheran, South Hills, Cypress — each offering better teammates, better facilities, more exposure. His father, Angel Sr., says if he was in his son’s shoes, he would’ve been long gone.

“You didn’t have to ask me twice,” Angel Sr. says.

Cesar Martinez, the coach hired to replace Pearson, met with the Cervantes family in his office that summer. They wanted a series of promises: a promise to honor his pitch count, a promise to schedule strong competition and a promise to maintain a strong culture.

Martinez honored those promises. So Angel honored his commitment to Warren.

“He stayed loyal to his roots,” Adriana says. “He followed his heart.”



He owned the night, and only he could decide what he did with it, so Angel spent the evening of July 13, 2025, in María’s Southgate home with an intimate group of friends, coaches and family, waiting to see his name come across the TV screen.

It eventually did. Angel was drafted 50th overall by the Pirates, but they picked him without a deal in place. Later that night, Pearson pulled Angel, his parents and his grandmother into a room. He’s in tune with his faith like the rest of them, so he wanted to know if he could pray over them for whatever came next.

“Look, Angel, I don't know what the situation really came down to, or what you guys talked about,” Pearson told them. “Just know that God's rerouting you to where you need to be.”

After that moment, Adriana said she felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. But the following weeks only brought more stress for everyone.

Angel’s agent, Lenny Strelitz, called him “the perfect client.” Late in Angel’s senior season, the two discussed his bar for signability over dinner at Olive Garden. If he received a $3 million bonus, he told Strelitz, he’d sign. If he didn’t, he was perfectly fine going to school.

“Angel, more than most high school guys, was really happy with the situation, being close to home, UCLA and John Savage,” Strelitz said. “And it was not going to be an easy sign for anybody — meaning it wasn’t about the money.”

Heading into the draft, Pittsburgh had as good a chance to land him as anyone. Angel had his favorites, and the Pirates were one of them — “They treated me really well,” he says now — but they never crossed his threshold. His price wasn’t set because he loved money; it was set because he loved UCLA.

In 2025, the 50th selection came with an allotted slot value of $1.9 million. Two weeks after the draft, Pirates general manager Ben Cherington told reporters they understood there was a risk Angel wouldn’t sign, but they felt he was the best player available. He also said the organization believed they made “a very aggressive and fair offer for him.”

It wasn’t aggressive enough.

“I think (MLB teams) knew the ballpark,” Strelitz said. “They knew it had to be three (million).”

The morning after his selection, Angel asked Adriana to take him to Warren. That’s where life started going fast for him, and it’s also where he went when he needed life to slow down for him. “I would be there late at night, cutting the grass and edging and all that stuff,” Pearson recalls, “and he'd still be there.”

The 15-minute ride was almost silent. Adriana didn’t want to press the issue, and Angel didn’t either. He got dropped off, spent hours distracting himself with the teammates who would let him forget he was Angel Cervantes, and the draft was hardly discussed. When Adriana picked him up later in the day, she asked him where his head was.

Angel told her he wanted to go to UCLA. He was ready to tell the world then, but Strelitz told him to hold off while he negotiated. So he kept quiet, and his parents thanked everyone who congratulated them while also making it clear UCLA was still on the table.

Eventually, he got the go-ahead from Strelitz, and that’s when he put out the post that changed everything. “It was kind of classic Angel,” Savage says. With a few days to spare before the deadline to sign MLB Draft picks, he called Savage to announce he was heading to UCLA.

“It wasn't official, but he made it sound official,” Savage said. “I'm like, ‘Hey, man, I don't really wanna say too much. Because this guy can still sign, and we're gonna look really stupid if we throw a party here, and the party lasts 24 hours and he signs.’”

But the deadline passed with no deal, and Savage reacted accordingly. Pirates fans did, too, bombarding his comments with vitriol. One reply reads: “Wishing you the absolute worst going forward.” Another, with two snake emojis: “This is how u reward loyalty of taking you?” A third: “Unreal, goes to show you have no commitment to anyone who commits to u.”

That last comment has three replies. Only one is still visible:

“UCLA committed to him too my guy. He’s been verbaled since 2023.”



You want to know what Angel really thinks? If I did it once, why can’t I do it again? In Angel’s eyes, nothing’s a gamble when you’re betting on yourself, and he’s banking on the fact that, in three years, he’ll only be better when he’s eligible for the 2028 MLB Draft.

Because that’s what matters: getting better. It’s the reason he’s in Chatham, trying to build on a freshman year that began with mechanical issues — “I thought he'd regressed a little bit entering UCLA,” Strelitz says — and ended with Angel in UCLA’s weekend rotation. There were questions about whether he’d even come to the Cape, whether he’d thrown too many innings to risk injury, and yet here he is with the second-most innings of any Angler.

“He's getting what he needs to get out of Chatham,” A’s manager Dennis Cook said.

Angel’s made a lot of progress this summer, primarily with his cutter. He used it heavily in his July 11 start against Harwich, and the result was five innings of shutout baseball. After that game, he said his arsenal now boasts seven or eight pitches.

And his family got to see them all on the Fourth of July. Angel asked Cook to start on the holiday well in advance, completely unaware that his family planned to surprise him. He had simply heard Veterans Field would be packed for the game, and he wanted to put on a show.

So that’s what he did, tossing four innings of one-run ball, and it was still one of the worst starts he’s turned in for Chatham. Such is the standard that he’s established for himself. Savage came to watch him pitch on June 23, and he said that start — where Angel shut out Bourne for four innings — was his “B-game.”

“I wanna look at the box score and not know how he felt that day,” Savage says.

The Fourth of July might’ve been his “C-game,” if Savage were here to comment on it, but you can’t tell from the box score. Just how he’d like it. That night, his family cheered and clapped and did everything they could to make Angel feel their presence in the stands.

Adriana, flanked by María to her left and Angel’s girlfriend to her right, wore a custom-made Anglers jersey, with the name CERVANTES across its back. He had runners on the corner and two outs in the top of the fourth. “Let’s go Angel!” Adriana yelled out, seconds before Angel delivered his 2-2 offering to Orleans outfielder Tyler Myatt.

“Nice and easy babe, right in the glove!”

Myatt swung through it.

The night of July 9, they returned to Veterans Field to watch Chatham’s 4-2 win over Wareham. After the final out, they filed out of the stands, made their way onto the field and posed for pictures with Angel. This moment wouldn’t have happened if he had signed with the Pirates. There’s not a hint of regret in his eyes.

“I feel like it was a great decision,” Angel said eight days later, standing in the shade next to the first-base side dugout at Stony Brook Field. “I'm very happy with it.”

They’ll go home tomorrow, but María’s happy tonight. Chatham has treated her well. On the Fourth of July, she gave out some of the raffle tickets a well-worn $10 bill bought her. “These are your lucky ones," she said to each person who received them. They weren’t, but she had no reason to believe that. Fortune has smiled on her before. Five days later, she said her goodbyes. Only God knows how many times she’s said these very words to Angel.

“Dios te guarde,” María says. “Dios te bendiga.”

God will protect you. God will bless you.