Bullpen Report: June 10, 2014

• J.J. Putz is off of the DL and back on the Diamondbacks bullpen. He threw a scoreless inning last night but he’s still behind Brad Ziegler as the Addison Reed handcuff. Reed had been diagnosed with a “tired arm” previously but he returned to the ninth inning in this afternoon’s game and struck out two Astros en route to his 16th save of the season. Reed’s fly ball tendencies and previous struggles this season should keep Ziegler on your roster a bit longer for speculative saves but the job is firmly in Reed’s hands.

• Late last night Chad Qualls picked up his eighth save of the season. The last time Qualls gave up any earned runs was on April 19th and since then he’s thrown 16.2 innings in 18 appearances with a 17/1 K/BB ratio. I wouldn’t quite call Qualls a relief ace but he’s an effective reliever getting saves on Houston. I have to eat my words a bit here because earlier in the season I said speculating and/or chasing saves in the early season Astros closer by committee situation might not be worth the trouble. Anyone who held onto Qualls has certainly been rewarded and with the Astros fielding a competitive team with their recent callups, there are worse teams to own a closer on.

• Speaking of worse teams…Jonathan Papelbon pitched around two hits for his up his 14th save (and 300th in his career) for the Phillies tonight. Papelbon has an impressive 1.48 ERA but his strikeout rate is on a four year decline while his walks have also increased since last year. His 91.3 average FB velocity would be the lowest mark of his career and it’s a safe bet to say his ERA will rise in the second half this season. Although he’s several years younger, Papelbon’s 2014 season is looking a lot like Joe Nathan’s 2013 – minuscule ERA in spite of fewer strikeouts, increased walks, declining velocity and very few home runs allowed despite very few ground balls. We have witnessed Nathan’s blow up this year and it wouldn’t be all that surprising to see something similar with Papelbon in 2015, if not before then.

• Trevor Rosenthal has largely been disappointing for the Cardinals this season. Although 17/20 on saves isn’t particularly bad, fantasy owners expected better than an ERA approaching four. Fortunately Rosie looked better this evening throwing 1.1 scoreless innings with one walk and two strikeouts for the save but if he wants to become the relief ace he was last year he will certainly need to approve upon his 4.99 BB/9. Still, even if Rosie doesn’t end the year as one of the best fantasy closers ratio wise, he isn’t in any imminent danger of losing the job and should at least continue to rack up save totals and K’s.

• The Rays did not have a save opportunity this evening but in a one run game Joel Peralta got the final two outs of the eighth inning with Jake McGee throwing a scoreless ninth. It’s tough to determine who will get the first shot at saves in their current committee based on this one outing but I’m confident in keeping McGee atop the list in the grid below.

• Jenrry Mejia has been a bit shaky lately so it’s nice to see him put up a clean inning in the ninth tonight. Although it wasn’t a save situation he threw a perfect inning with a four run lead and his job still seems relatively safe in Queens, even with Jeurys Familia and Vic Black lurking behind him.

• As some readers pointed out Shae Simmons is gaining steam in the Braves bullpen and he might have leapfrogged David Carpenter in the pecking order. Meanwhile, Jordan Walden was activated from the DL today and even if he isn’t immediately thrown into high leverage situations, I expect him to return to his familiar setup role soon enough.

Closer Grid:

	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
Arizona	Addison Reed	Brad Ziegler	J.J. Putz
Atlanta	Craig Kimbrel	Jordan Walden	Shae Simmons
Baltimore	Zach Britton	Tommy Hunter	Darren O’Day
Boston	Koji Uehara	Junichi Tazawa	Andrew Miller
CHI (NL)	Hector Rondon	Neil Ramirez	Pedro Strop
CHI (AL)	Ronald Belisario	Zach Putnam	Jacob Petricka	Matt Lindstrom
Cincy	Aroldis Chapman	Jonathan Broxton	Sam LeCure
Cleveland	Cody Allen	Bryan Shaw	John Axford
Colorado	LaTroy Hawkins	Adam Ottavino	Rex Brothers
Detroit	Joe Nathan	Joba Chamberlain	Al Alburquerque	Joel Hanrahan
Houston	Chad Qualls	Kyle Farnsworth	Josh Fields	Jesse Crain
KC	Greg Holland	Wade Davis	Aaron Crow
LAA	Ernesto Frieri	Joe Smith	Michael Kohn	Dane de la Rosa
LAD	Kenley Jansen	Chris Perez	Brian Wilson
Miami	Steve Cishek	A.J. Ramos	Mike Dunn
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	Shawn Kelley
Oakland	Sean Doolittle	Luke Gregerson	Jim Johnson
Philly	Jonathan Papelbon	Antonio Bastardo	Jake Diekman	Mike Adams
Pittsburgh	Jason Grilli	Mark Melancon	Tony Watson
St. Louis	Trevor Rosenthal	Carlos Martinez	Jason Motte
SD	Huston Street	Joaquin Benoit	Alex Torres
SF	Sergio Romo	Jeremy Affeldt	Jean Machi	Santiago Casilla
Seattle	Fernando Rodney	Danny Farquhar	Dominic Leone
TB	Jake McGee	Joel Peralta	Juan Oviedo	Grant Balfour
Texas	Joakim Soria	Jason Frasor	Neal Cotts/a>	Neftali Feliz
Toronto	Casey Janssen	Brett Cecil	Steve Delabar	Sergio Santos
Wash.	Rafael Soriano	Tyler Clippard	Drew Storen

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