Challenge trades don’t get made very much in MLB anymore. When they do get made, seldom do they work so that one team wins the deal in such lopsided fashion, yet that is exactly what happened when the Angels swapped Ernesto Frieri straight up for Jason Grilli.
How great did the Grilli-Frieri trade turn out to be?
It couldn’t have worked out much better for the Angels. They took the gamble on giving up a much younger pitcher with team control years left for an old reliever heading into free agency, but apparently one they thought they could fix. They did fix him. Ernesto Frieri? Yeah, not so much. While Grilli put up a 3.48 ERA and 2.15 FIP in his time with the Angels, Frieri somehow managed to get worse and posted a 10.13 ERA for the Pirates before ultimately getting designated for assignment. That’s pretty rough.
So the Angels got themselves a real relief ace then?
Not quite. Grilli got a lot better in a hurry once he put on an Angels hat, but he didn’t return back to his All-Star form. In his Pittsburgh heyday, he was fanning over 36% of batters, but even after he fixed his mechanical issues in Anaheim, he was only getting whiffs 25.4% of the time. The bigger improvement came from scaling his walk rate back down to 7.0%.
What really buoyed Grilli with the Angels was that he didn’t allow a single homer after surrendering four with the Pirates. That just doesn’t hold up for a reliever with such extreme flyball tendencies. Pitching in the Big A helps, but not that much. With a more normal HR/FB%, Grilli still would have been a good reliever, but nobody would’ve been thinking that he was awesome again (though I’m not sure how many people actually thought that).
Will the Angels bring Grilli back?
I suppose it is possible, but find it hard to believe that he won’t find more money and a bigger role elsewhere. Grilli might be ancient, but he carries that “former closer” label, so some team with a beleaguered bullpen could look to install him as a cheap short-term closer or reasonably priced setup man. The Halos just have too much bullpen depth and not enough payroll flexibility to throw more than three or four million dollars at Grilli. If the bottom falls out of his market in free agency, that could happen. Jason said that he really like the organization, so if all other things are equal, he could choose to stay in Anaheim. I just don’t think many other offers are going to be equal to the minimal offer the Halos would make him.
What is in Grilli’s hair?
Sometimes it looks really wet, other times greasy and other times kind of crunchy. Sometimes he has it straight but mostly it is kind of curly. I don’t know what’s going on there but I’m pretty sure it is gross.
Final Answer
Thanks, Pittsburgh! Suckers.
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