Bullpen Report: August 29, 2014

Reds at Pirates: The Josh Harrison show included a triple in the bottom of the 8th that gave the Pirates the lead for a Mark Melancon save (#25).

The Reds didn’t need Aroldis Chapman on this day after Jonathan Broxton blew the hold in the 8th, but check out this tweet from our Jeff Zimmerman:

Another Random Leaderboard: What happens when a hitter swings at a pitcher’s certain pitch https://t.co/QtJ1lvEdvz …..

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) August 29, 2014

Open up the file, copy and paste it all into excel and sort by the last column, swingingstrikes. Using a 10-pitch qualifier, Aroldis Chapman owns the #1 whiff rate (his Changeup although he doesn’t use the pitch often and recently nixed it) at 94+%. He also owns the #14 whiff rate (his devastating Slider) at 71+%. His other coded pitches including the 101 MPH Fastball also induces a 50+% whiff rate. He still has a 51.8% overall K-rate which would one-up Craig Kimbrel’s 2012 MLB record of 50.2%.

Rockies at Diamondbacks: Addison Reed notched save #31 and is having a great season from a command perspective. Relative to last year, his K-rate jumped almost 4% backed up by the best contact and swinging-strike rate of his career. He also dropped his BB-rate by over 2%. The bad luck/park effect deflating his surface stats is a 14.7% HR/FB ratio (up 8% although a huge IFFB-rate kept the HR/FB ratio down last year). A Top 40 (for RP) 5.00 K/BB ratio is keeping him very valuable for fantasy leagues and saves, but the ugly Balls In Play breakdown (.57 GB/FB ratio) will keep the ERA inflated. I have no issues keeping him as a 3 category (SV, K, WHIP) closer next year with the potential to take a step forward at only 26.

Concerns-conschmerns:

Phillies at Mets: Jenrry Mejia earns save #20 striking out the side in the 9th. It’s the type of game I hope to see a lot of next year as a Mets fan: 7IP from the starter (let’s say Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard hopefully); a clean inning out of Jeurys Familia as the set-up man and Jenrry Mejia closing the door. He’s the 2nd youngest Mets pitcher to 20 saves still under 25 years of age. Clearly more successful as a reliever and under contract until 2019, Mets found their closer of the future. This was his 3rd straight scoreless appearance (4K:0BB and 1 H), but he’s only pitched 3 of the last 7 days due to physical ailments: back tightness and a calf issue. Hopefully he remains healthy until the offseason when he will under go hernia surgery. I’ll change the Mets from red to yellow within the grid below because it’s clear that it’s Mejia’s job. It’s yellow vs. green because of his aches and pains.

Quick Hits:

Cubs at Cardinals: The R2MM (Regression to the Means Monster) hit Pat Neshek today like a ton of bricks: Javier Baez doubled in 2 and then Jorge Soler drove himself and Baez in on one swing. I love all the random Cubbie tweets we see: you know – something along the lines of “OMG” and “Bryant-Baez-Soler-Russell-Alcantara-Rizzo-Castro” with a “Vogelbach” and/or “Almora” sometimes thrown in. Enjoy Cubbie fans. Enjoy. Seriously, I’m a disgruntled Mets fan living in Minnesota…enjoy.

Marlins at Braves: Craig Kimbrel earned save #40 tying him with Greg Holland for the Major League lead. The only thing you can whine about is that it’s his 2nd appearance in a row without a strikeout. He threw 10 pitches: 6 for strikes. Only 3 were swung at (no whiffs induced).

Yankees at Blue Jays: David Robertson racks up save #35 and 1 SO in 1.1 perfect innings. Oh look, a bar of soap.

Ah well…No Brad Boxberger or Ken Giles appearances today.

Ensure that you check out Jeff’s MASH reports for the status of Sean Doolittle and others.

Closer Grid:

	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
Arizona	Addison Reed	Brad Ziegler	Oliver Perez
Atlanta	Craig Kimbrel	Jordan Walden	David Carpenter	Shae Simmons
Baltimore	Zach Britton	Tommy Hunter	Andrew Miller
Boston	Koji Uehara	Edward Mujica	Junichi Tazawa
CHI (NL)	Hector Rondon	Neil Ramirez	Kyuji Fujikawa
CHI (AL)	Jacob Petricka	Zach Putnam	Matt Lindstom
Cincy	Aroldis Chapman	Jonathan Broxton	Sam LeCure	Sean Marshall
Cleveland	Cody Allen	Bryan Shaw	Scott Atchison
Colorado	LaTroy Hawkins	Adam Ottavino	Rex Brothers
Detroit	Joe Nathan	Joba Chamberlain	Al Alburquerque	Joakim Soria
Houston	Chad Qualls	Tony Sipp	Josh Fields
KC	Greg Holland	Wade Davis	Jason Frasor
LAA	Huston Street	Joe Smith	Jason Grilli
LAD	Kenley Jansen	Brian Wilson	Brandon League
Miami	Steve Cishek	Bryan Morris	A.J. Ramos
Milwaukee	Francisco Rodriguez	Will Smith	Brandon Kintzler	Jim Henderson
Minnesota	Glen Perkins	Jared Burton	Casey Fien
NY (NL)	Jenrry Mejia	Jeurys Familia	Vic Black	Bobby Parnell
NY (AL)	David Robertson	Dellin Betances	Adam Warren
Oakland	Eric O’Flaherty	Luke Gregerson	Dan Otero	Sean Doolittle
Philly	Jonathan Papelbon	Ken Giles	Jake Diekman	Mike Adams
Pittsburgh	Mark Melancon	Tony Watson	Jared Hughes
St. Louis	Trevor Rosenthal	Pat Neshek	Seth Maness	Jason Motte
SD	Joaquin Benoit	Kevin Quackenbush	Dale Thayer
SF	Santiago Casilla	Sergio Romo	Jeremy Affeldt
Seattle	Fernando Rodney	Danny Farquhar	Dominic Leone
TB	Jake McGee	Brad Boxberger	Grant Balfour
Texas	Neftali Feliz	Neal Cotts	Shawn Tolleson
Toronto	Casey Janssen	Aaron Loup	Brett Cecil
Wash.	Rafael Soriano	Tyler Clippard	Drew Storen

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