On the surface, Joe Jimenez secured his seventh save in eight chances last night. He survived loading the bases on three consecutive hits with two outs by striking out Trey Mancini. Delving into his splits since ascending to closing for the Tigers, Jimenez owns a 15:6 K:BB, 3.09 ERA, 1.71 WHIP and 5.10 xFIP in 11.2 innings since August ninth. He’s yielded a 53.1 fly ball rate and 17.6 home run per fly ball percentage resulting in three home runs along with a .292/.370/.521 slash line against. Less than optimal. Fantasy owners will take the production of seven saves over his last 13 appearances but should proceed with caution due to the inflated WHIP and xFIP predicting some regression to the mean. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I discussed the idea of picking up current dominant relievers in your keeper league who could potentially close next year. Cheap closers are gold in mono leagues, especially if they could hold onto the role all season. Now we’ll flip to the guys who could join the starting rotation next season, but aren’t currently. These are all young pitchers who have posted at least a 25% strikeout rate. The idea here is if you’re in a keeper league, you could pick up these pitchers, some of which have little current season value, for cheap and potentially end up with a starting pitcher heading into the season with solid upside.

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September Baseball got me like:

There are 60 players in MLB with at least 28 home runs this season. Zero of them are on the SF Giants. In fact, the Giants have not had a player with 28 home runs in a season this decade. A decade in which they won three World Series. pic.twitter.com/jxMXLjJWns

— Justin Mason (@JustinMasonFWFB) September 17, 2019

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It’s time to go over a few more games from this past weekend and today.  All the background information is available in this introductory article and I’m just going to continue grinding through games trying to find discrepancies and any useful fantasy information like the following.

Notes from the lines:

• Vegas is in love with John Means even though he’s struggled in the second half.
• The FanGraphs projection for pitchers coming off Tommy John surgery (e.g. Garrett Richards and Johnny Cueto) seem too optimistic.
• Marlins Pablo López and Elieser Hernandez have struggled in the second half.
• Zac Gallen’s projections seem off and he could be a sneaky upside option going into 2020.

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On Sunday, we saw Kenley Jansen and Kyle Gibson in unfamiliar roles, though in neither case was it necessarily a sign of things to come.

Given Jansen’s recent struggles, one could be forgiven for thinking that his appearance in the eighth inning of the Dodgers’ 3-2 win over the Mets on Sunday night could have been the first sign of a demotion from being a full-time closer. He entered the bottom of the eighth inning with the game tied, 2-2, and Jansen kept it that way. He needed only 10 pitches to retire Juan Lagares, Jeff McNeil and Pete Alonso, finishing up the inning by striking Alonso out on three pitches. In a break from his recent pattern, Jansen showed sharp command and control, demonstrating the latter by throwing six of his ten pitches in the strike zone.
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The Lopezi invasion starts with a decimation of your ERA and WHIP, with just enough pleasant surprises to keep you coming back for more.

AGENDA

1. TDG Invitational
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. SaberSim Says…
5. Less Reck

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If you’re in a keeper league who could potentially keep players picked up through the end of the season, or just enjoy discovering the newest crop of relievers with eye-popping strikeout rates, let’s discuss some possible future closers. I’m basically filtering for non-closer relievers with elite strikeout rates and not-terrible walk rates, suggesting they could become dominant closers in the future, or at the very least, earn some positive value in deeper mixed or mono leagues from their strikeouts and strong ratios alone.

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Baseball is beautiful:

Zack Britton, Butterfly Pitch. 🦋 pic.twitter.com/yRbKPuKfnz

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 14, 2019

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• James Karinchak, the newly called up reliever on the Indians with the fabulous strikeout rates made his seasonal debut last night against the Twins in a low leverage situation down in the 9th and he didn’t disappoint getting four outs with three via strikeout. In 27.1 IP across AA and AAA this year, Karinchak struck out an incredible 64 batters, and yes, you are reading that correctly. While I don’t expect Karinchak to post a K% near 60% in the majors, he will undoubtedly pile on the strikeouts and could find himself in high leverage work in Cleveland. Brad Hand has a long leash but he has had a few warts this season and while Tyler Clippard and Nick Goody have been pretty solid, they don’t have the ceiling as someone with Karinchak’s arsenal. If Karinchak is throwing multi-inning mini-Hader outings in the 7th and 8th innings in close games, I wouldn’t be shocked.

• Elsewhere in the Twins and Indians double header, Taylor Rogers was called on for a five-out save and struck out four batters en route to his 26th save. Rogers started out the season as a low key relief ace and he has since forced himself as a main part of the discussion. Although he’s a lefty, Rogers has become a shutdown reliever who can go multi-innings if need be and now sits at a 2.64 SIERA and 28.6% K-BB% which ranks 10th and 11th among qualified relievers in the MLB this year. Rogers should enter next season as the Twins closer and a top 10 option off the board. In the second game of the double header, there was no save situation but top pitching prospect Brusdar Graterol pitched two perfect frames with three strikeouts and received the first win of his career. Graterol has filthy stuff and could be a compelling end of season relief option for strikeouts before likely seeing more of the rotation next season.

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