2015 Player Projection: Huston Street

Huston Street joined the Angels at the 2014 trade deadline to finally give the Angels some stability at closer for the first time since the K-Rod era. Now Street is out to prove that he is an elite closer and deserving of being paid like one.

What happened in 2014?
Huston Street was just terrific last season. It wasn’t his best season by fWAR, but it was in terms of ERA as he finished the year with a 1.37 ERA. Of course, over half of that terrificness was done in the uniform of the San Diego Padres as Street toiled as an elite closer for a lousy team. However, the Halos freed him by forking over a substantial amount of their farm system, which some called an overpay, and he was arguably better with the Angels (at least according to FIP) and elevated the Angels bullpen to one of the top groups in the league the final two months of the season.

[table id=73 /] *The MWAH projections are simply my best guess based off my own personal opinion and research (my wOBA calculation is approximate because my math skills are only “meh”)

What do the projections think he will do in 2015?
Nobody thinks Street will repeat his 2014 excellence. However, the projections are pretty disparate. Steamer is quite down on Street and projects him to basically be a replacement level reliever. That might be oversimplifying, but Steamer certainly doesn’t seem him as a reliever worthy of even being a late-inning reliever. ZiPS isn’t all that far off, though much of that seems to stem from an inflated HR/9 projection. CAIRO has him pitching at more of a career average level rather than the elite level he’s been performing at for most of the last three seasons.

Does the Monkey agree or disagree?
I’m buying this new-and-improved Huston Street that barely walks anyone and is able to keep his dingers in check despite his batted ball profile. When healthy, he is just a guy that doesn’t really make mistakes. My only concern is Street’s extensive history of suffering non-major injuries and making annual trips to the disabled list. The only times we really saw Street struggle last year was when Scioscia used him three or more days in a row. Hopefully Scioscia can resist the urge to overwork Street, but with the decreased relief depth, that might not be something Scioscia is capable of.

THREE OPEN QUESTIONS FOR HUSTON STREET IN 2015
1) Did the Angels really need Street when they originally trade for him?
Honestly, probably not. He was a luxury item for the 2014 Angels bullpen. Smith was just fine as closer. Jepsen was strong as a setup man, as hard as that is to believe. The Grilli-Morin-Salas trio was locking it down in middle relief. Street made that crop even deeper and elevated them to a top tier bullpen.

However, what I underrated at the time was that Street was more of a need for the 2015 Angels bullpen. They lost Grilli to free agency and because of the depth provided by Street they were able to trade Jepsen for Matt Joyce and still have a solid bullpen. They now have a good-but-not-great bullpen. Without Street, they’d either be just average with Jepsen and no Joyce in the lineup, or below average but with Joyce in the lineup. So, yeah, it turns out they needed Street after all.

2) Can he sustain the very low BABIP and ridiculously high strand rate that has helped him put up such strong numbers the last few years?
Well, he’s done the BABIP trick three years in a row and the 99% strand rate trick two years in a row, so there sure seems to be some staying power to them.

The suppressed BABIP looks to be the product of his exceptional command, but even then it might not be all that real. Even if you accept that it is, it doesn’t give him much margin for error should his command ever start to slip due to injury or some other factor.

The strand rate is an entirely different quagmire. There is definitely some luck there as 99%+ is just astronomical. However, Street allows so few hits and so few walks, there just isn’t much chance for teams to score off of him without a homer being involved. Seriously, he’s allowed 26 runs with 20 of the runs being scored by way of the dinger.

3) Should the Angels give Huston Street the contract extension he wants?
Objection, your honor. Asked and answered.

The Final Word (and GIF)
“CONGA!”

One area that we haven’t touched on yet is that Huston Street does have a little bit of home run issues. OK, a lot of bit home run issues. He’s only got a 0.88 HR/9 rate for his career, but this is a guy that surrendered 12 homers in the 2013 season despite calling Petco Park his home. He’s an extreme flyball pitcher, so that’s part of the issue, but he also lives in the strike zone. He only survives because he has pinpoint command. When that command abandons him, balls start flying out of the ballpark at a rate where opposing hitters might as well just form a conga line to circle around the bases.

Street remains in a good environment for his skillset though as the Big A is quite spacious and a disproportionate number of his road games will take place at Safeco Field and O.co Coliseum, both of which are cavernous ballparks. Let’s hope that’s enough to keep him from contracting dingeritis.