Bullpen Report: June 2, 2015
• Steve Cishek has been demoted to the minors to work on his mechanics. Specifically, he’ll be moving to Double-A Jacksonville where the Marlins are “hoping pitching coordinator Charlie Corbell (Cishek’s minor-league pitching coach) can help him find his groove.” The Marlins are trying to get Cishek back on track but considering the way A.J. Ramos is pitching, I wouldn’t bet on Cishek returning to the ninth inning quite yet. Ramos allowed three base runners in today’s outing but struck out two en route to a scoreless inning for his fifth save of the year.
• Tyler Clippard recorded his eighth save of the year, throwing a perfect ninth inning with two Ks. With Sean Doolittle back on the DL, expect Clippard to be closing for the rest of the year in Oakland. If the A’s decide to sell, Clippard could be on the move but so long as he’s in Oakland he will be seeing saves. As the amateur draft approaches, we are not too far from open trade season and we’ll do our best at the BR to keep track of the rumors and how save situations might be affected.
• Rough night for the back of the Reds pen. Jumbo Diaz blew the lead in the eighth allowing two earned runs while Tony Cingrani received the loss, allowing the winning run to score in the ninth. The other options behind Aroldis Chapman aren’t too appealing but J.J. Hoover and Ryan Mattheus could jump a slot or two in the pecking order.
• Quick Hits: Drew Storen was perfect in the ninth for his 17th save and John Axford secured his 10th save for the Rockies. Koji Uehara earned his 11th save of the season, putting some injury concerns behind him. Jonathan Papelbon earned his first win of the year after throwing a perfect ninth with two strikeouts. Papelbon carries a hefty price tag, but he should be involved in trade rumors over the next couple of months. Papelbon has actually pitched fantastic all season long with a 1.29 ERA and 2.29 FIP, which will certainly make him more appealing as a late inning option on a contending team.
Closer Grid:
[Green light, yellow light, red light: the colors represent the volatility of the bullpen order.]
When he's not focusing on every team's bullpen situation, Ben can be found blogging at Ben's Baseball Bias and on Twitter @BensBias
Toronto almost a full calendar month between save chances. The most recent “let’s push our lead to 4 runs late” courtesy of a catcher stealing home. Absurd…
That’s the biggest block of green I can remember seeing in this space. Only danger at the top and bottom of the alphabet, eh?
I’ve been thinking the exact same thing the last several days. And it wouldn’t be out of the question to turn those other colors to green right now.
Fernando Rodney struck again tonight. #FreeCarson
Carson pitched a crisp 8th inning with two Ks. The change has to be coming soon, Rodney has been terrible for weeks now.
I’ve been having a thought recently. Is McClendon’s stubborn insistence on sticking with Rodney actually better strategic baseball? Honestly I’m coming rapidly to the conclusion that Rodney should not even be on the team, but the recent usage pattern has been Smith in high leverage and Rodney in for the save. Is that not what us sabrmetrically oriented types have been advocating for? As a Carson Smith owners in fantasy I would certainly rather they close with Smith, but I have a hunch that what they’re doing is actually better baseball aside from the fact that Rodney quite literally cannot get anybody out and as far as I’m concerned should only come in for absolute mopup situations at this point. Maybe it would make more sense to go with Wilhelmsen again to close or something.
Tyler Clippard has an xFIP and a SIERA both over 5.00 so far this year. I think it’s questionable whether he will be closing games for the rest of the season for the A’s, even if they don’t trade him away.
Who else is gonna close then? There’s no sense in pushing up arb prices if you’re not competing.
His ERA is still solid and historically his ERA has usually been lower than his FIP and xFIP. His velocity is basically the same and while his contact percentage is up, it’s not that far off from previous years where he has posted good FIP and xFIP numbers.
We should expect some regression given that his peripherals are not very good right now, but at the same time we are looking at only 23 innings so far this year versus 140 innings in his previous two seasons in which he has been excellent.
The fact that he might be traded later this year probably improves his chances of being the A’s closer because removing him from the role would hurt his trade value (which IMO is stupid, but still a factor to consider).
MELANCON!!!!
Worth dropping Cecil on the sculation that Carson Smith will be closing soon?
Cecil hasn’t been in a save situation since May 4th and I’m wondering why that will change going forward, BlueJays look pretty bad.
speculation*
Tough to drop a current closer for a speculative one. I would think there’s another option to drop on your squad. Or, package Cecil in a two-for-one and pick up Carson if saves aren’t so crucial.
I probably should have added that we play with SV+H and K/BB with 4 RP spots.
I have Melancon, O’Day, Joe Smith, Gregerson, and Cecil (projected current usefulness is in that order). Carson would probably slot in ahead of Gregerson in my every day lineups.
It doesn’t matter now because while I was sitting here thinking about it, someone picked him up :p
probably not. The M’s manager has been stubborn on the closer issue, this travesty might last another two weeks.
word of caution: I decided to drop Axford earlier because the Rockies were either winning or losing by a lot of runs. Of course afterwords he went on to 5 saves more…:).
Not saying it will happen to Cecil, but he’s worth hanging onto just in case that does.
The Blue Jays aren’t awesome right now, but they are not terrible either. Can anyone remember a situation when a closer for a team like the Jays has gone this long without a single save opp? Crazy. I’m expecting things to balance out and Cecil to save 10 games in June.
would you drop Betances for Carson Smith? h2h league, have only grilli and perkins as other closers. Could also drop Shoemaker
Regarding Rodney. McLendon was booted from the game, so i don’t think he was concerned with Fernando blowing another save. Case in point. Seattle down 2 runs today with the basses loaded in the 8th. Rodney was up and warming up in the pen to close if they took the lead.