Seemingly a throw-in in the Freese-Bourjos swap, Fernando Salas became an underappreciated part of the Angels bullpen turnaround. Not that anyone really noticed.
Does anyone realize that Salas had a career yer?
Salas became a thing in 2011 when he had a breakout campaign for the Cardinals, he then began to flounder. His walk rate and strikeout rate were all over the map the next two years and even earned him a trip an extended trip to the minors. But in 2014, Salas re-broke out. He had virtually the same strikeout rate (25.5%) that he had in 2011 and cut his walk rate down to 5.9%. His 3.38 ERA wasn’t as good as his 2.28 ERA in 2011, but it also wasn’t fueled by an incredibly low BABIP, like it was in 2011. For that reason, Salas was able to post a career-best FIP- of 82, besting his 2011 mark of 85.
The only area where Salas didn’t really excel was in his innings totals as he managed only 58.2 IP. That was due to mid-season shoulder issues that cost him a few weeks. He also wasn’t pitching in as prominent a role as he had during his heyday in St. Louis, so he just didn’t get the same opportunities when healthy.
If he was better than he was in 2011, why wasn’t he in a bigger role?
He closed for a good portion of the 2011 season and that was just never going to happen in Anaheim. He was just too far down on the talent totem pole. However, he did seemingly start the season much higher up on the depth chart than he finished it. That didn’t last very long though.
The biggest failing that Salas had in 2014 was his inability to prevent inherited runners from scoring. 9 of the 12 runner he inherited scored. That surely is a bit flukish, but it should also be quite telling that he only inherited 12 runners. After some high-profile failures early in the season, Scioscia appeared to lose any and all faith in Salas to get someone out of a mid-inning jam. If he couldn’t start an inning clean, he didn’t come in.
It is hard to say whether or not those inherited runner issues were just a fluke a symptomatic of a problem in his profile. After all, he had only allowed 32% of inherited runners to score before this season, which is only a little bit above league average.
Was getting Salas worth giving up Grichuk then?
While it is great that Salas was pretty good, it is less great that Salas wasn’t good enough to really be trusted in high leverage situations. That really makes it hard to determine if getting Salas was worth the price. It likely wasn’t a straight up swap, but getting Salas added to the Freese trade seemingly forced the Angels to include outfield prospect Randal Grichuk.
Given the dearth of quality prospects, that seemed like a bit of a waste. Six potential years of a quality power-hitting outfield prospect for the three arbitration years of a decent middle reliever could end up being pretty lopsided in the Cardinals’ favor. That Grichuk ended up reaching the majors and playing in the postseason for the Cardinals certainly didn’t help that perspective.
Granted, Grichuk wasn’t much good, but he also just turned 23 and has plenty of time to develop still. This doesn’t look like it is going to reflect well on Dipoto when we review this particular part of the trade a few years from now.
How come when I do a Google Image Search for Salas, half the results are of Ernesto Frieri?
Well, they do kind of look alike and wear similar numbers. Either that or Google Image Search might be kind of racist and think all Hispanic relievers look the same.
Final Answer
While Salas didn’t end up holding an important role in the bullpen, he was still an important part of the bullpen turning things around from the struggles of the last few years. The fact that someone who had the kind of success he did in 2014 and was near the bottom of the depth chart really goes to show how far the relief corps came over course of the last eight months.
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