{"id":150908,"date":"2022-12-07T16:22:01","date_gmt":"2022-12-07T16:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/red-sox-to-sign-kenley-jansen\/"},"modified":"2022-12-07T16:22:01","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T16:22:01","slug":"red-sox-to-sign-kenley-jansen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/red-sox-to-sign-kenley-jansen\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox To Sign Kenley Jansen"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Red Sox are in agreement on a two-year, $32MM contract with free-agent right-hander Kenley Jansen<\/strong>reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (twitter link<\/a>). The Wasserman client becomes the third free-agent reliever to sign in Boston this winter, joining righty Chris Martin<\/strong> and lefty Joey Rodriguez<\/strong> in what’s becoming a rapidly overhauled bullpen.<\/p>\n

Change was necessary in the Boston ‘pen, however, as Red Sox relievers logged the fifth-worst ERA in baseball (4.59) and ninth-worst FIP \u200b\u200b(4.13) \u2014 due in no small part to combining for the fifth-highest walk rate of any relief corps in MLB. The ninth inning, in, was a revolving door for the Sox in 2022. Nine different relievers recorded saves, and righties John Schreiber<\/strong>, Tanner Houck<\/strong> and Matt Barnes<\/strong> Finished the season in a three-way tie for the team lead, at eight apiece.<\/p>\n

Jansen, nine saves away from 400 in his illustrious career, should bring some much-needed stability to the situation. The 35-year-old’s velocity is down a couple miles per hour from its 2014 peak, but he’s managed to find plenty of success even as his deadly cutter has faded from an average of nearly 95 mph to a 92.2 mph average with the Braves in 2022.<\/p>\n

It was just a one-year stay in Atlanta for Jansen, who’d spent the prior 12 seasons of his big league career with the Dodgers, but the results were strong. Jansen saved 41 games and pitched to a 3.38 ERA with even better secondary marks: a 32.7% strikeout rate, an 8.5% walk rate and a 2.76 SIERA, to name a few. That walk rate, in particular, marked a pronounced rebound from an uncharacteristic spike to 12.9% in 2021, which now looks more like an anomaly than the start of a worrying trend.<\/p>\n

The 2022 season marked Jansen’s 13th season in the Majors, all of which have resulted in an ERA of 3.71 or lower (including nine sub-3.00 campaigns and four sub-2.00 seasons). He’s gone from virtually unbeatable in his 20s to \u201cmerely\u201d excellent in his 30s, but Jansen still possesses a 3.08 ERA in 292 innings since turning 30.<\/p>\n

more to come<\/em><\/p>\n

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