Bullpen Report: April 30, 2014

Four rainouts and a few blowouts leave us with just a few items to discuss in this evening’s Bullpen Report.

–Greg Holland dished a (pretty) clean ninth-inning to notch his seventh save of the season in a 4-2 Royals victory over the Blue Jays tonight. He induced two quick outs off the bats of Josh Thole and Jose Bautista before surrendering an Edwin Encarnacion double to deep center. But Dioner Navarro flied out to left stranding Encarnacion at the keystone sack and ending Toronto’s comeback bid. The Royals’ closer ends April a perfect 6-for-6 in save situations with a 2.70 ERA (1.68 xFIP).

–Hector Rondon looked ready for his second save opportunity this season until the Cubs inexplicably tallied four runs — thanks to a few hits and a Joey Votto error — in the top of the ninth frame in Cincy. Rondon trotted to the mound in the non-save situation anyway and finished off the Reds on 18 pitches. Cumulatively, Rondon owns a 0.68 ERA (2.83 xFIP) in 12 trips to the bump (13.1 IP) with a 28.3% K% (7.5% BB%). Knowing that the right-hander’s last two appearances have each been in the ninth-inning — albeit both were non-save situations — and ended in victories for Chicago, I’d guess that he gets the ball the next time the Cubs are looking for a save. We know the Cubs are rarely in save situations — they have logged the second fewest save chances in the league (6), just one more than Tampa’s five — but Rondon is owned in just 18% of Y! leagues at the moment, making for a nice flier for those chasing saves.

-For the few of you that may follow me in my other endeavours either here at RotoGraphs or my own site, you probably are aware of how many times I recommend rostering middle relievers. It’s not for everyone, but middles are typically a good source of ratio support, they can pad your strikeouts, grab a scab win and even sneak in a save when a team’s regular closer is resting up.

When looking for middle relievers to consider, I simply do a sort of qualified relievers by K%. Entering tonight, three of the top six relievers in K% were non-closers and could be a fine add to your roster depending on your team’s needs. Dellin Betances (3% owned in Y!), Jordan Walden (5% owned in Y!) and Wade Davis (3% owned in Y!) are fanning 43.4%, 40.5% and 40.4% of the batters they face respectively. Walden owns the best ERA of the bunch (1.74) while Betances leads the trio in WHIP (0.98). Davis and Betances each have a win under their belt and Walden has picked up a save. None of them are perfect, but each of them have the ability to give your pitching staff some support if and when you need to run them out there. Definitely a strategy to consider if you’re pitching staff is weak or a bit banged up.

Quick Hits: Just as I was about to click publish, Kenley Jansen recorded his 10th save while cleaning up a mess created by Paco Rodriguez.

Closer Grid:

	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
Arizona	Addison Reed	J.J. Putz	Brad Ziegler
Atlanta	Craig Kimbrel	Jordan Walden	David Carpenter
Baltimore	Tommy Hunter	Darren O’Day	Brian Matusz
Boston	Koji Uehara	Junichi Tazawa	Edward Mujica
CHI (NL)	Hector Rondon	Pedro Strop	Justin Grimm	Kyuji Fujikawa
CHI (AL)	Matt Lindstrom	Daniel Webb	Ronald Belisario	Nate Jones
Cincy	Jonathan Broxton	Sam LeCure	J.J. Hoover	Aroldis Chapman
Cleveland	John Axford	Cody Allen	Bryan Shaw
Colorado	LaTroy Hawkins	Adam Ottavino	Rex Brothers
Detroit	Joe Nathan	Al Alburquerque	Joba Chamberlain
Houston	Raul Valdes	Chad Qualls	Josh Fields	Jesse Crain
KC	Greg Holland	Wade Davis	Aaron Crow
LAA	Joe Smith	Ernesto Frieri	Kevin Jepsen	Dane de la Rosa
LAD	Kenley Jansen	Chris Perez	Brian Wilson
Miami	Steve Cishek	A.J. Ramos	Mike Dunn
Milwaukee	Francisco Rodriguez	Jim Henderson	Will Smith
Minnesota	Glen Perkins	Jared Burton	Casey Fien
NY (NL)	Kyle Farnsworth	Daisuke Matsuzaka	Jose Valverde	Bobby Parnell
NY (AL)	David Robertson	Shawn Kelley	Adam Warren
Oakland	Luke Gregerson	Sean Doolittle	Jim Johnson
Philly	Jonathan Papelbon	Antonio Bastardo	Mike Adams
Pittsburgh	Mark Melancon	Tony Watson	Justin Wilson	Jason Grilli
St. Louis	Trevor Rosenthal	Carlos Martinez	Kevin Siegrist	Jason Motte
SD	Huston Street	Joaquin Benoit	Alex Torres
SF	Sergio Romo	Santiago Casilla	Jeremy Affeldt
Seattle	Fernando Rodney	Danny Farquhar	Tom Wilhelmsen
TB	Grant Balfour	Heath Bell	Joel Peralta
Texas	Joakim Soria	Alexi Ogando	Jason Frasor	Neftali Feliz
Toronto	Sergio Santos	Steve Delabar	Brett Cecil	Casey Janssen
Wash.	Rafael Soriano	Tyler Clippard	Drew Storen

[Green light, yellow light, red light: the colors represent the volatility of the bullpen order.]