Is it safe for the Angels and their fans to trust closer Brian Fuentes? (I was originally going to add an “again” to that question but I really don’t think anyone ever trusted him) What once seemed unfathomable is now close to becoming a reality as the much-maligned closer has been on fire of late, not allowing a run in a month and just one base hit in his last nine appearances. It looks like Tito’s time might finally have come.
It might finally be OK to give Brian Fuentes some love. Or is it?
I never thought the day would come, but we could be entering an era where seeing Brian Fuentes enter the game won’t cause half the Angel fans watching to suffer a minor heart attack. I have no idea how this happened, but it certainly is a pleasant surprise… assuming that this isn’t just some kind of fluke.
It was once a rare sight to have Brian Fuentes work a clean inning, but he has somehow managed to do exactly that six times in his last nine innings of work. Prior to that span, Brian had only gone through an inning without allowing a hit or walk a grand total of six times the whole rest of the season. There is no doubt that this is his best stretch of work with the Angels since he signed prior to the 2009 season and I really want to get excited about it, but I am just deathly afraid that this is all part of some nefarious scheme to get us fans to let our guard down with him only to have him rip out our hearts at the worst possible time later this season.
Consider these facts. Despite his fine body of work the last few weeks, Fuentes still has a WAR of 0.0. In other words, he is merely a replacement level player this season, not something that exactly screams dominant closer. That is somewhat of an unfair metric though since it doesn’t take into account his recent hot streak, but it does serve to point out how bad he has been prior to June 20th.
If we take an even closer look inside his numbers, things start to get pretty scary. His ERA is down to a respectable 3.81, but his FIP is a less than respectable 4.49. Hmm, that points a lot more to Fuentes being lucky rather than good. Now check out his BABIP this year of .247 which is nowhere close to his career BABIP of .296 and suddenly you get an idea of how lucky he might really have gotten this season. That is part the frightens me to my core. If this is Fuentes with Lady Luck on his side, I’d sure hate to see him when that fickle bitch turns on him.
Don’t abandon hope yet though, there is good news here. First off, those numbers are for the season as a whole, not this recent stretch and we have to consider the idea that he is doing something different in the last month to make him more effective. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case either. His velocity hasn’t suddenly picked up at all which is pretty damning considering his velocity has been down overall this season.
If you were hoping his command improved, guess again. Over his hot streak, he is still throwing about two-thirds of his pitches for strikes, just like he has all season long. Nor has he been making more batters miss since he has eight punchouts in his nine innings of stellar work which is actually down a few ticks from his season K/9 rate of 9.85.
And if you still aren’t convinced, here is the final nail in the coffin: Fuentes’ BABIP is .072 in July. In other words, he has gone from being fairly lucky all season long to being EXTREMELY lucky the last few weeks.
Dammit.
So, let’s ask the question again. Is it safe to trust Brian Fuentes?
If you ask me, and I did ask me, I have no choice but to say no even though deep down I want to say yes but not even a juror from the OJ Simpson trial could overlook the mountain of evidence to the contrary.