Bullpen Report: Friday, September 11, 2015
Guess who leads the league in holds? Tony Watson! He held his 36th tonight. Guess who leads the league in saves? Mark Melancon! He saved his 45th tonight. The back end of the Pirates bullpen has paid dividends for you if you held on to Melancon through his early season struggles, OR if you picked up Watson in hopes he’d get the closer gig. The Pirates pen has the third best ERA in the majors for 2015, trailing only the Royals and Cardinals. Yes, there are other measures, but the Pirates pen has definitely been stout. Joakim Soria has only brought a 13.4% K%-BB% to the table since he came aboard at the trade deadline, but he has seven holds after tonight.
I don’t think we can swear on this show, but Sweet Fancy Moses! Ten runs by the Orioles in the eighth inning? Sure the Royals have a playoff spot wrapped up, but that doesn’t matter for our fantasy endeavours. Herrera touched 99.5 mph but only generated one whiff on his 27 pitches. He was charged with four runs, three of them earned, and struck out two in his two thirds of an inning. Franklin Morales isn’t on the grid, but he gave up three hits and was saddled with four earned. Because he also drilled Chris Davis. Just watch the highlights. It has no bearing on your fantasy team probably, but they’re fun.
Just to reiterate what Colin said last night, Fernando Rodney is not a late-inning option right now. Rodney has had a great career. He’d strike every single one of us out on three pitches, if we could even stand in the box. He came on in the ninth in the nightcap of a doubleheader and drilled his first foe, and followed that up by surrendering a single to Jeff Francoeur. This allowed Hector Rondon to step out for a save sitch. He struck out two and racked up save number 28.
We talked about this last week, but Brett Cecil has been nails for the Blue Jays since the end of June. He set the Jays team record with his 26th consecutive scoreless appearance. Can Cecil, Aaron Sanchez, and Roberto Osuna be the HDH of the 2015 playoffs? I can’t wait to find out. Sorry, that doesn’t help your fantasy team at all, does it? The Jays pen has a 2.62 ERA in the second half, just behind the Giants. Their 0.97 WHIP since then leads the pack though.
Zach Putnam was activated from the DL today. He got one more out than any of us did, but also gave up three earned, walked three and surrendered three hits. He may not be entirely healthy.
Of Note: Shawn Tolleson would look pretty hot in the Dodgers pen right now. He used to be on the Dodgers. The Rangers plucked him off waivers on November 20, 2013, that’s right around Thanksgiving, so that’s a hilarious joke about plucking. Not in Canada though. We have Thanksgiving on your Columbus Day. We don’t recognize him I guess. I mean, not in that way. If Christopher Columbus was frozen like Ted Williams and brought back to life this weekend, would any of us actually recognize him if we saw him about the town? He’d be wearing normal clothes and not any old-timey stuff like he wore in fourteen hundred and ninety-two. So we wouldn’t. We probably couldn’t pick him out of a lineup of historical figures even. That’s the longest, worst and least effective path to a Thanksgiving joke as you will ever see in your life. A.J. Ramos(26) and Huston Street(34) earned saves on Friday.
Closer Grid:
[Green light, yellow light, red light: the colors represent the volatility of the bullpen order.]
Darren contributes to RotoGraphs when he isn’t watching the Braves or shoveling snow. Follow him on Twitter @shinesie.
In a h2h playoff starting next week, who do you like best for saves: Doolittle, Perkins, or Axford?