The Dodgers appear to have signed their #5 starter and his name is Brett Anderson. Follow him on twitter here: @BAnderson_30. His impending signing was initially announced by Buster Olney on twitter:
The Los Angeles Dodgers have agreed to a one-year, $10 million deal with left-hander Brett Anderson, with $4m in possible incentives.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) December 15, 2014
Anderson is a 26-year old left-hander who can throw a fastball, a curve, a changeup and a slider for strikes. Originally drafted in the 2nd round of the 2006 Draft, he quickly rose up the ladder. In 2008 he was ranked the 36th-best prospect in the Major Leagues, and 7th overall by Baseball America in 2009. Unfortunately, a lengthy injury history has slowed his progress. Go to Baseball Prospectus to see the ugly details.
Still, he remains an interesting player with significant upside potential. After all, when he's healthy, he's very good. Per Ron Cervenka's recent story at Think Blue LA:
Make no mistake about it, when Anderson is healthy he has been quite effective. In his career 81 starts over six MLB seasons he is 27-32 with a 3.73 ERA – not top-of-the-rotation stuff but excellent numbers for a fourth or fifth starter. In his 494.0 major league innings pitched he has a K/9 ratio of 7.0, a BB/9 ratio of 2.4 and a K/BB ratio of 2.90. But where Anderson is perhaps most effective is his ground ball rate of 55.4% (61% in his limited work in 2014).From what I understand, Anderson still needs to have a physical performed by the Dodgers, so this is far from a done deal (especially considering his injury-riddled 2014). So, stay tuned.
For more stories about Anderson check these out:
- Via Eno Sarris at FanGraphs, "Brett Anderson’s Breaking Ball: Slurve’s Not a Dirty Word."
- Via Dustin Nosler at Dodgers Digest, "Dodgers to sign Brett Anderson, it’s good to be rich."
- Via Ken Gurnick at MLB.com, "Source: Dodgers land lefty Anderson with $10 million deal."
- Via J.P. Hoornstra at Inside the Dodgers, "Dodgers sign Brett Anderson to one-year contract."
In celebration of Anderson's arrival to the Dodgers I made the above 2 fantasy cards for him. I used Anderson's own avatar photograph on twitter and the 1987 Topps Baseball card design. Which one do you like best - the normal photo or the photoshopped madness pic? BTW, I believe the photoshop pic was created by twitter user @Dezzerrayy and subsequently adopted by Anderson.
Below are the career stats for Brett Anderson, via Baseball-Reference:
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