Just days before pitchers and catchers report for spring training, the Los Angeles Angels scooped up one of the best remaining closers on the free-agent market, reportedly agreeing to a one-year, $10 million contract with veteran Kenley Jansen.
Source confirms: Free-agent closer Kenley Jansen in agreement with Angels on one-year, $10M contract, pending physical. First: @JonHeyman, @Joelsherman1
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) February 11, 2025
The move puts the future Hall of Famer back in Los Angeles but with the team across town. What does it mean for his fantasy value, the fantasy value of the rest of the bullpen arms, and what can we expect from Jansen this year? Let’s dive in.
What can we expect from Kenley Jansen?
Even if he’s not as dominant as we’ve come to expect, Jansen has remained as steady as they come. He has recorded at least 25 saves in 12 straight full seasons since 2012. That no longer comes with 60+ innings, but Jansen has settled in around 50 innings per season and continues to deliver at the end of games, converting 56-of-64 save chances in his two years in Boston.
Over the last four seasons, Jansen has leaned even more into his cutter. He threw the pitch 58% of the time in 2021, 64% in 2022, 77% in 2023, and 85% in 2024. The biggest change as a result of that has been him essentially eliminating his sinker, which he threw 22% of the time when he was in Atlanta in 2022. Back then, the pitch was fairly average across the board. It had a league-average zone rate, strike rate, and Ideal Contact Rate allowed. It did miss more bats than the average sinker but was also not a groundball pitch with just a 23.5% groundball rate and 59% flyball rate. It’s possible that his move to Fenway Park caused him to eliminate that flyball offering for fear of those turning into home runs over the Green Monster.
However, Jansen’s cutter remains elite. At 92.2 mph, its velocity is down slightly from 2023 but is in line with what he did in 2021 when he had a dominant year for the Dodgers. The cutter pounds the strike zone at a well above-average clip and also has a 14% swinging strike rate, which is above-average for relievers across the league. It is in the 83rd percentile in terms of CSW and 63rd percentile for ICR, so even if the pitch itself doesn’t grade out as well as it did in its heyday, it’s still more than effective enough. He adds a decent slider to it, which, even though it didn’t miss many bats in 2024, is a pitch he can command in the strike…