Is Jeremy Affeldt ready for a breakout year? He had by far his best performance as a big-leaguer in Cincinnati in 2008 but still was no great shakes. He posted a WXRL of 0.19, this after a wretched ‘07 number of negative 0.65.
Fortunately there are a couple rays of hope in his ‘08 stats:
1) 80 Ks and only 25 BBs in 78.1 IP. Those are the lowest BB/9 and highest K/9 rates of his career, in an extreme hitter’s park, no less.
2) His home/road splits. He was hit hard in Cincy, most glaringly to the tune of 7 home runs in 42.2 IP. But everywhere else he was quite good.
And FanGraphs noted last month in a post titled “Free Agent Bargain: Jeremy Affeldt” that Affeldt’s raw stuff took “a pretty big step forward.” (Link tip from Baggs.) His fastball and curve got faster, which perhaps made him feel more comfortable throwing strikes. He got a lot of swinging strikes, too.
It actually gets better. Not only did he post a career high K rate, he also threw a lot of ground balls, more than 50%. If he can repeat that for two more years, and some of the fly balls that went over the fence in Cincy die in the echoing canyons of Mays Field, the Giants just got themselves a relief ace.
The same caveat I wrote earlier today about Juan Cruz applies here —spending multimillions on a guy now expected to be The Set-Up Guy for the first time is a risk. But the Giants have tamped down the risk by giving Affeldt two years, not three. (Could he really do no better than two years, $8 M??? Wow.) And as mentioned previously, he’s a Type B, not Type A.
In short, this was about as good a cost/benefit move the Giants could make for a free agent reliever. Affeldt might end up no better — and a lot more expensive — than Alex Hinshaw, but the signs of upside and the two-year commitment make the outlay a risk worth taking.
Affeldt was the first free agent to sign this year, and fellow lefty reliever Damaso Marte didn’t even test the waters, which makes you wonder: Are free agent dollars going to be in short supply this winter? Are agents telling clients to pounce on the first decent offer? Did the Giants really blow away the competition… or was there any to begin with? You’d think he could wait another week or two and see if a three-year deal materialized.
