Bullpen Report: July 26, 2017

If you had been stashing Anthony Swarzak or Ryan Buchter in the hopes that they would inherit some saves, this has not been a good week for you. On Tuesday, the White Sox dealt Swarzak to the Brewers for 25-year-old outfield prospect Ryan Cordell. This came the day after Swarzak teased fantasy owners by notching his first career save, preserving a 3-1 win over the Cubs. Swarzak now figures to inherit a setup role for the Brewers.

On Monday, Buchter joined Padres’ ex-closer Brandon Maurer and Trevor Cahill in getting dealt to the Royals for Matt Strahm, Travis Wood and 18-year-old second baseman Esteury Ruiz. Maurer will likely set up Kelvin Herrera, while Buchter will probably slot into a suddenly star-studded Royals’ pen in a middle relief role. However, their departure from San Diego creates all sorts of new closer possibilities. In the short run, Brad Hand figures to be the frontrunner to get saves (in fact, he got one Wednesday night against the Mets), but he, too, is a candidate to get traded to a team that needs to fortify the backend of its bullpen.

Andy Green told the San Diego Union-Tribune that Phil Maton, Kirby Yates and Carter Capps will be in the closer mix as well. Maton and Yates have both fared well this season, with Yates entering Wednesday with a 37.6 percent strikeout rate and 2.16 ERA (including one inning with the Angels) and Maton compiling a 14.9 percent swinging strike rate and 2.8 percent walk rate. Capps, meanwhile, has pitched well of late at Triple-A El Paso, as he works his way back from Tommy John surgery. Over his last nine appearances covering 12 innings, Capps has not allowed an earned run and has given up just three hits with 13 strikeouts and no walks.

It’s not easy to pick a potential closer to speculate on from both the White Sox’s and Padres’ situations, though for opposite reasons. It seems clear that Tyler Clippard will be getting the save opportunities for the White Sox, but it’s hard to trust someone who has an 11.05 ERA and a 2.18 WHIP over his last 14 2/3 innings. As for the Padres, any one of Hand, Maton, Yates and Capps would be worth owning, if only we could be sure they would get save chances with some regularity. If I had to settle on one, it would be Yates, who has been consistently dominant for two solid months, posting a 1.57 ERA with 39 strikeouts and four walks over his last 23 innings. It’s also a good sign that it was Yates who pitched the eighth inning on Wednesday, setting up Hand for his save.

The Phillies kept the string of trades involving setup relievers going, as they dealt Pat Neshek to the Rockies on Wednesday night. It is not yet clear where he will fall in the pecking order of Rockies’ relievers, but for now, I have left Neshek out of the Rockies’ portion of the closer grid below. With Greg Holland out for the next couple of days for paternity leave, I suspect it will be Jake McGee who gets to fill in for save situations.

It’s not just trades that are creating new opportunities for closer speculation. On Wednesday night, Santiago Casilla blew his sixth save in 22 chances for the Athletics by coughing up a two-run homer to Justin Smoak. Then he lost the game in the next plate appearance, as Kendrys Morales took him deep. Given that this was Casilla’s third blown save in his last five tries, one has to wonder if Bob Melvin is ready to try Blake Treinen in the ninth inning. He pitched a scoreless eighth prior to Casilla’s meltdown, and since coming over from the Nationals in the Sean Doolittle–Ryan Madson deal, he has allowed one unearned run in six innings with just two hits and one walk. As far as closers-in-waiting go, Treinen’s promotion from the setup role seems to be as close to a sure thing as is possible.

If you’ve been holding on to Brad Brach, waiting for the long-rumored Zach Britton trade, it may be all for naught. ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick reported that there has not been much demand for Britton, so he may not get dealt after all. If there is any hope for Brach and his owners, it’s that Britton has continued to struggle since his latest return from the DL. On Wednesday, Britton gave up two runs on three singles, and since his July 5 activation, he has allowed six earned runs in nine innings with four walks.

Kyle Barraclough was looking like a lock for August and September saves, but in being placed on the 10-day DL on Wednesday with a right shoulder impingement, owners may need to look elsewhere for A.J. Ramos‘ eventual successor. Barraclough will go for an MRI on Thursday, so we should have a better idea if he can make a quick return soon. Ramos is likely to be traded before the July 31 deadline, so if Barraclough appears headed for an extended absence, either Junichi Tazawa or soon-to-be-activated Brad Ziegler (back) could be next in line. With Ziegler having been on the DL for more than a month, Tazawa looks like the better bet to get the first crack at saves in the post-Ramos era.

I was intending to add Bruce Rondon as the heir apparent to Justin Wilson as the Tigers’ closer in the grid, as he had been steadily setting Wilson up in the eighth inning and had been on a nice run this month. I was even willing to overlook Rondon having allowed three runs against the Twins on Sunday, but he had another rough outing on Wednesday night. He came in for the ninth inning with the Tigers trailing the Royals, 13-2, and he not only gave up an RBI single to Eric Hosmer, but he followed that up by plunking Mike Moustakas. That led to the clearing of the benches and Rondon’s ejection.

So with two erratic performances behind him, it looks like we are back to Square One in figuring out who will take over when and if Wilson gets traded. Alex Wilson and Shane Greene are clearly candidates, and just maybe Rondon could still figure in somehow.

Note: The Twins-Dodgers game was still in progress at the time of this writing.

Closer Grid:

	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
ARI	Fernando Rodney	Archie Bradley	Jorge de la Rosa
ATL	Jim Johnson	Arodys Vizcaino	Jose Ramirez
BAL	Zach Britton	Brad Brach	Mychal Givens
BOS	Craig Kimbrel	Joe Kelly	Matt Barnes	Carson Smith
CHC	Wade Davis	Koji Uehara	Carl Edwards Jr.
CWS	Tyler Clippard	Dan Jennings	Gregory Infante	Nate Jones
CIN	Raisel Iglesias	Michael Lorenzen	Drew Storen
CLE	Cody Allen	Andrew Miller	Bryan Shaw
COL	Greg Holland	Jake McGee	Adam Ottavino
DET	Justin Wilson	Alex Wilson	Shane Greene
HOU	Ken Giles	Chris Devenski	Michael Feliz	Will Harris
KC	Kelvin Herrera	Joakim Soria	Brandon Maurer
LAA	Bud Norris	Cam Bedrosian	David Hernandez	Huston Street
LAD	Kenley Jansen	Pedro Baez	Luis Avilan
MIA	A.J. Ramos	Junichi Tazawa	Nick Wittgren	Kyle Barraclough
MIL	Corey Knebel	Jacob Barnes	Anthony Swarzak
MIN	Brandon Kintzler	Taylor Rogers	Matt Belisle	Glen Perkins
NYM	Addison Reed	Paul Sewald	Jerry Blevins	Jeurys Familia
NYY	Aroldis Chapman	Dellin Betances	David Robertson
OAK	Santiago Casilla	Blake Treinen	Liam Hendriks
PHI	Hector Neris	Luis Garcia	Joaquin Benoit
PIT	Felipe Rivero	Juan Nicasio	Daniel Hudson
STL	Trevor Rosenthal	Brett Cecil	Seung Hwan Oh
SD	Brad Hand	Kirby Yates	Phil Maton	Carter Capps
SF	Sam Dyson	Hunter Strickland	George Kontos	Mark Melancon
SEA	Edwin Diaz	Nick Vincent	Tony Zych
TB	Alex Colome	Tommy Hunter	Brad Boxberger
TEX	Alex Claudio	Jose Leclerc	Keone Kela
TOR	Roberto Osuna	Ryan Tepera	Joe Smith	Danny Barnes
WSH	Sean Doolittle	Ryan Madson	Matt Albers	Koda Glover

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