Crooked Pitch

The Los Angeles Angels just signed Brian Fuentes to a two year, $17.5 million deal which fills their need for a closer.

Last season in Colorado, the 33-year-old lefty saved 30 games with a 2.73 ERA. In 62.2 Fuentes struck out 82 and walked only 22.

Fuentes got better as the season rolled on in 2008. He had a 3.41 ERA in the first half and a 1.84 ERA in the second half. He also increased his strikeout rate fanning 45 in 25.2 second half innings in relation to 37 strikeouts in 37 innings in the first half.

In addition to Fuentes getting better in the second half, he also showed marked improvements from 2007 in some key areas. He increased his K/9 from 8.22 to 11.78 while reducing his BB/9 from 3.38 to 3.16. Most of the time those kinds of swings are recipes for success for a relief pitcher. Fuentes also dropped his HR/9 from 0.88 to 0.43. These improvements all came while his hit rate took a beating. In 2007 Fuentes was a bit lucky with a 25.5% hit rate. In 2008 his hit rate climbed into the unlucky level of 31.7%. If he gets a normalization back toward his career mark of 29.8%, you could see Fuentes’ numbers get better in 2009.

Fuentes’ stock certainly rose with this announcement in the fantasy world. He’ll see more opportunities to earn saves pitching for the Angels. And, if his stats keep trending in positive directions, you could see him break into the top 10 area of the closers ranking list.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 10:34 pm and is filed under Fantasy Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.