Heath Bell

I knew that Heath Bell was a pitcher who has had a lot of success in the minor leagues, but was somewhat unfairly criticized for his lack of success in the majors, but didn't realize to what an extent this was true, until I looked up his stats after reading a short comment about him at Rotoauthority this morning.

Bell has an ERA of 4.92 in 108 innings pitched, and that's the kind of number that tends to scare people off. On the other hand, he's struck out 105 and walked only 30 in those 108 innings, so his K/9 and K/BB are both excellent. In addition he induces plenty of ground balls (over 50% in 2 of his 3 major league seasons), so it appears that his bad ERA has been mostly the result of bad luck.

Even more encouraging are the numbers Bell has put up in the minors over parts of the past few years. In 35 AAA innings last year, he struck out 56 and walked only 8 in 35 innings. That's truly exceptional, and Bell should be able to put up an ERA about 2 full runs below his major league total so far. I will be using him as a big part of my middle reliever rotation.