Bullpen Report: April 5, 2015
• I had planned on bringing out the Bullpen Report for its nightly debut already today, but the vast majority of my time was involved in massive closer grid updates to cover all of the DLs/demotions of the last few days (sidenote: if you see someone listed on the big league roster below, but throwing meatballs in Triple-A, please leave a comment). But, whoa, A.J. Preller just downloaded his latest copy of Out of the Park Baseball 16 and needed to make some big splashes after importing his already crazy offseason from OOTP15 (more sidenotes: OOTP is like another level of crack if you like this site).
• Craig Kimbrel is packing his bags and heading to San Diego. While he’s far and away the marquee name scrolling across your Twitter feed, his value actually doesn’t change that much (relative to how high up on the trending list he is, at least). In San Diego, the righty phenom will move to a better park with a better team. That’s good. But when you strike out nearly four out of every ten batters you face, park effects aren’t enormous. That said, it is almost impossible to find a negative in this deal for Kimbrel’s value (he’s not facing the Phillies as much?), so those of you who drafted him as baseball’s number one closer are pretty happy about this change of scenery.
For the rest of the Padres bullpen, the trade completely tanks the value of Joaquin Benoit. Drafted him as your second closer? Whoops. Benoit should seamlessly transition from a mid-tier closer to a potentially top-tier holds man, but if your league doesn’t have a category that says “HLDs,” it is little solace for you. Perhaps bigger for super-deep leaguers, both Kevin Quackenbush and Brandon Maurer were optioned to Triple-A. I liked both as sneaky-good peripheral potential 2nd-half closers, but barring Kimbrel’s arm exploding in a ball of fire, that dream is dead.
• So who is going to take over in Atlanta? Well, if you’re in a standard league, I may not burn valuable draftees trying to scoop up Jason Grilli or Jim Johnson, both of whom may see save opportunities for one of baseball’s worst teams (if they aren’t MLB’s punching bag already). Grilli has been a favorite of mine over the last few years, but saw large declines in both his strikeout rate and SwStr% in 2014. His fastball velocity declined less than 0.5 mph, but the heater still dropped nearly a full run in linear weights (per 100 pitches). However, there’s no reason to think he couldn’t be moderately successful if he put up another low 3.00’s SIERA like he did last year (3.28) but he needs to keep age regression at bay.
Johnson also appears a former closer in the land of misfit relievers. After substantially outpitching his peripherals in 2013 and 2014, the wheels came off the wormburning bandwagon after a pre-season trade to Oakland. Johnson’s batted ball line (20%/58%/22%, LD/GB/FB) was remarkably identical last season (compared to 2014), but his free pass rate doubled from 6.2% to 13.3%. Approaching Carlos Marmol territory, his SIERA ballooned to 4.33. The good news for Johnson? Aside from his batted ball profile staying the same, his velocity has only declined slightly, implying that if he can find his control, he might be able to get back half of what he was a few years ago. Both veterans are huge gambles on a team destined to lose a lot of games. If you are in a deep league and are already save hunting, go Grilli first, but feel free to grab Johnson if you have the room. There is no obvious flamethrowing youngster behind them right now (not to say their won’t be), so those in dynasty leagues could at least think about Shae Simmons, but Tommy John surgery in February clouds his future.
• Some late moves: As mentioned above, Quackenbush and Maurer are headed to Triple-A. They would likely be the two best relievers on at least a few major league teams. Casey Janssen formally hit the disabled list in Washington, but he team seems to think he’ll be back in a couple weeks. While I am intrigued by Blake Treinen, Janssen would be the handcuff to Drew Storen if he proves he’s healthy. Sean Marshall hit the 60-day disabled list with a torn labrum. It’s sad, but I think there’s a real chance he’s thrown his last major league pitch. Dominic Leone was demoted to Triple-A on Friday. The righty was a trendy young, high-upside RP pick earlier this spring, but gave up 17 hits and only struck out five in seven innings this spring. He’ll have some time to work through his issues on the farm; perhaps we’ll be talking about him later in the season.
Closer Grid:
[Green light, yellow light, red light: the colors represent the volatility of the bullpen order.]
There are few things Colin loves more in life than a pitcher with a single-digit BB%. Find him on Twitter @soxczar.
In accordance with the request at the top of the column, Sam LeCure got demoted by the Reds.
See, this is what the Reds do to me when they don’t announce their roster until like 6 PM.
Thanks. Fixed.
What hath Sergio Santos done to piss off ye baseba’al gods?
Isn’t Parnell on the DL?
He is. Another team that made their final 25-man moves late (actually, NYM didn’t report until 11 PM ET!), but probably should have caught it. Fixed.
Mets seem to think Parnell (assuming no setbacks) should be back mid-late April.
Re: Grilli’s fastball, are you suggesting one relief pitcher season is enough to use any linear weight/100 stat as something predictive of a trend? I don’t mean whether there are other reasons not to like him, but just that one specifically…
I didn’t use it in a predictive sense, but rather, explanatory. It’s actually somewhat puzzling his LW dropped so much for the FB even though the velocity wasn’t that off. Could be command, could be movement, could be sequencing, could just be some BABIP-type luck.
I am not sure when linear weights (for RP) becomes predictive — a good question to look into.
Who’s the better AL Only flier, Kela, Miguel Castro or Roberto Osuna? Saves potential is always great, but K’s and ratio help are all I’m expecting.
For pure upside, I like Osuna. I am primarily basing that off the fact that Osuna was a heavily-scouted arm with multiple plus pitches. I am not sure he quite as the velo of Castro, but it sounds like the stuff is better and may play up in relief.
Kela cracked the grid b/c TEX had to send Tolleson, Scheppers, and Fuji to the DL. The raw stuff is there, but the control scares me, and he could occasionally be a WHIP buster.
Gotcha, thanks for the response.
Would you roll with Joel Peralta in LA or try and grab Grilli or Johnson? I waited (as I usually do) on RP’s and plan on playing the Waiver Wire/FA pool game with Closers, but it’s really hard to get a read on the Dodger situation.
On one hand I think Grilli or Johnson could grab the job and run with it until mid-season when they are likely traded for a bucket of balls if one or both of them pitches decently. With Peralta it seems almost assured that Jansen will be back by May or mid-May at the latest along with the fact that Mattingly has not exactly given Peralta any kind of strong endorsement as the fill-in until then.
Should I just wait it out and grab Peralta or Hatcher (the two that seem the most likely to capture the job until Jansen comes back) or dump Peralta and try and grab Grilli who seems to have a better shot at getting first crack at the job?
I don’t love the Dodgers situation, and as you mentioned, once Jansen comes back that well is totally barren. I don’t see any reason for the Braves not to roll with Grilli/Johnson for the majority of 2015.
I would rather roll the dice on Grilli, myself, out of those 3. While his numbers weren’t great last year, he could still provide above-average peripherals for a RP as long as he staves off complete age-related collapse. That said, none of the options are high-upside, so I wouldn’t lose any sleep regardless of what decision you make.
Consensus seems to be that the Bartender has the inside track to backing up Rodney in Seattle, and he is completely missing from the pecking order above.
If this is the thinking, I haven’t seen any published reports to this effect.
From the tea leaves angle, Farquhar is the superior pitcher and (like Wilhelmsen) has closing experience. Bartender also leaned HARD on a .204 BABIP last year; the underlying periphs were OK, but not great.
Thanks for this. Who do you prefer in a roto league with W,SV,K,ERA,WHIP? And why?
Chad Qualls or Joel Peralta?
I know you have Peralta as the main guy now but obviously the Dodgers’ situation is unclear. Looking beyond the short term, I wonder if Qualls could have more value? Not sure so would appreciate the advice.
Thanks.