Frieri Capitalizing On Opportunity With Angels
It was a minor swap made earlier this month, but Ernesto Frieri has already been a major contributor to the Angels’ bullpen. Since being acquired from the Padres for Alexi Amarista and Donn Roach more than three weeks ago, the 26-year-old right-hander has thrown 11 hitless innings for the Halos. With Jordan Walden stumbling out of the gate, Frieri has quickly assumed right-handed relief ace work while Scott Downs handles things from the left side.
The late-inning, high-leverage work is a new experience for Frieri. While with the Padres from 2009-2010, only two relievers — Carlos Fisher (0.56) and Rich Thompson (0.61) — had a lower gmLI than Frieri’s 0.66 mark (min. 90 IP). He very rarely entered the game in a tight spot for San Diego, but that has more to do with sharing a bullpen with guys like Mike Adams and Luke Gregerson than it does manager Bud Black‘s lack of trust. It’s hard to get an opportunity when the skipper has guys like that available, but opportunity is abound in an Anaheim.
Frieri has always posted an exceptional strikeout rate (career 12.07 K/9 and 31.9 K%), but walks have been a bit of an issue (4.83 BB/9 and 12.8 BB%). His fly ball ways (just 23.0% grounders in his career) have resulted in a low .274 BABIP and, thanks to Petco Park, a low home run rate (0.56 HR/9). Frieri has taken that approach to the extreme in his short time with the Angels, with 23 strikeouts and eight walks in those 11 innings. He’s allowed exactly zero ground balls and as you’d expect with all those hitless innings, a .000 BABIP.
It’s a fun statistical line to look at but one you can’t really take seriously given the sample size. At some point Frieri will give up a hit and a run and then several more, and eventually the strikeout and walk rates will approach his career norms. That production is in the bank though and it’s helped the Angels win some games already. GM Jerry Dipoto deserves credit for being aggressive and shoring up one of his team’s weaknesses with a trade this early in the season. I’m sure even he’d tell you they didn’t expect this much out of Frieri.
How long do you figure it will be before he becomes the full-time closer?
I thought I knew how they were going to use Downs and Frieri, based on Downs coming in against lefties with 2 outs in the 7th and back in the 8th to get two more outs, where Frieri took over and got the 4 out save against more righties.
Then the other night Downs got the 9th again and it was against right handed hitters. Go figure. To be continued…
Frieri’s has induced a lot of infield pop ups it seems like. He did escape with a DEEP fly ball @Safeco over the weekend on Sunday but for the most part I’ve watched all his appearances with the Angels and NOBODY is making good contact. Interesting stuff here. Obviously he’ll eventually have to give up some hits and runs….but I still feel like the upside is there for a big big breakout year.
yeah, he’s the most extreme fly ball pitcher MLB has seen the last 10 years.
You rarely see that weird combination of tons of fly balls and tons of strikeouts
I’m not sure if it’s worth mentioning, but his velocity’s been up 1 MPH since the trade, and his pitch selection has changed a ton. It looks like he just stopped throwing his breaking ball as much, and moved to almost always throwing the fastball. Thoughts on this?
I looked at his pitch selection (but didn’t notice the velocity) when writing the post and it’s basically identical pre- and post-trade. Hard to read anything into it when he’s only thrown 100-something pitches for LAA.
look now
he is using his fastball almost exclusively. why bother with a change or breaker when no one can make good contact (or any contact for that matter).
he’ll still walk a batter, here or there, but you would too with that much movement.
I’m glad Frieri is getting a chance to shine with the Angels. It was always fun watching him pitch as his control usually was spotty but the strikeouts was always good to go.
Strange to see the Padres went out & get a closer in the off season when Frieri was already available.