Bullpen Report: June 26, 2017

• Rough night for Craig Kimbrel as he only struck out one in a perfect inning for his 21st save. I’m a bit late to the game but I watched Fastball this weekend on Netflix which featured Craig Kimbrel and his heater quite a bit. While he was on the Braves when the film came out, he’s throwing even harder now (98.2 average mph on his fastball) and maybe even pitching better than ever, which says a lot. In 33.2 innings pitched this year, Kimbrel has 61 strikeouts against only five walks leading to a 1.07/0.43/1.12 ERA/FIP/xFIP pitching line. If you’re wondering if maybe SIERA is picking up something FIP is missing, well that’s at a cool 0.94. Kimbrel has broken advanced pitching metrics this year, again.

• No save situation in the desert (does anyone else remember dessert has an extra ‘S’ because an extra ‘SS apparently means it’s better?) but of some interest is Rubby de la Rosa who was called up when J.J. Hoover went to the DL. De la Rosa looks to be a full time reliever now after missing a lot of time last year with an injury to his elbow. Although he only threw 15.1 innings in AAA this year his 23/4 K/BB looks promising, small sample size warnings and all. It’s not uncommon for someone to improve their control when they move to the pen and as we all know it’s common for the velocity to increase. In tonight’s outing Rubby struck out two in a perfect inning and averaged 97.3 mph on his fastball, hitting 98.8 mph. If Rubby is striking out guys while throwing 98 with some new found control, he might jump the other de la Rosa (Jorge) on the Diamondbacks pecking order and join fellow converted reliever Archie Bradley for quite the formidable duo in the pen. I assume de la Rosa will be eased into the pen, not pitching on consecutive days but his stuff can be electric and it wouldn’t shock me to see impressive results.

• The Cubs scored three runs in the top half of the ninth to give them a five run lead and handed the ball off to Hector Rondon for an assumed easy ninth. After two hits and a walk, they called on Wade Davis but it was a bit bumpy. Nonetheless, four hits a walk and a wild pitch later Wade Davis was able to hold onto the lead 5-4. Even after a rough-ish outing Davis still has a 2.00/1.88/2.73 pitching line and it’s safe to say he’s still very green. Davis had some health concerns last year which lead to the cost of acquiring him being a Jorge Soler rather than Gleyber Torres + but he’s looked healthy all year and was throwing 97 tonight. Bearing a cranky elbow cracking up, Davis should continue to rack up saves with top tier-ish ratios.

• It will take injury for someone to leapfrog Cody Allen and/or Andrew Miller in Cleveland but Nick Goody is making a mini name for himself so far this year. In 30.2 innings Goody has an intriguing 1.17/3.46/4.13 pitching line and 34 strikeouts, albeit with a less than special 3.52 BB/9. He doesn’t have electric stuff but his 13.7% SwStr% proves his strikeouts are no fluke. Bryan Shaw has been a staple in the Indians pen for a while but Goody could make his way into some higher leverage innings.

Closer Grid:

	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
ARI	Fernando Rodney	Archie Bradley	Jorge De La Rosa	JJ Hoover
ATL	Jim Johnson	Arodys Vizcaino	Jose Ramirez
BAL	Brad Brach	Mychal Givens	Richard Bleier	Zach Britton
BOS	Craig Kimbrel	Matt Barnes	Joe Kelly	Carson Smith
CHC	Wade Davis	Koji Uehara	Carl Edwards Jr.
CWS	David Robertson	Tommy Kahnle	Anthony Swarzak	Nate Jones
CIN	Raisel Iglesias	Michael Lorenzen	Drew Storen
CLE	Andrew Miller	Cody Allen	Bryan Shaw
COL	Greg Holland	Adam Ottavino	Jake McGee
DET	Justin Wilson	Alex Wilson	Shane Greene
HOU	Ken Giles	Will Harris	Michael Feliz
KC	Kelvin Herrera	Joakim Soria	Mike Minor
LAA	Cam Bedrosian	David Hernandez	Blake Parker	Bud Norris
LAD	Kenley Jansen	Pedro Baez	Luis Avilan	Josh Fields
MIA	A.J. Ramos	David Phelps	Kyle Barraclough
MIL	Corey Knebel	Jacob Barnes	Carlos Torres
MIN	Brandon Kintzler	Matt Belisle	Taylor Rogers	Glen Perkins
NYM	Addison Reed	Jerry Blevins	Paul Sewald	Jeurys Familia
NYY	Aroldis Chapman	Dellin Betances	Tyler Clippard
OAK	Santiago Casilla	Sean Doolittle	Ryan Madson
PHI	Hector Neris	Pat Neshek	Luis Garcia
PIT	Felipe Rivero	Juan Nicasio	Daniel Hudson
STL	Seung Hwan Oh	Trevor Rosenthal	Matt Bowman
SD	Brandon Maurer	Brad Hand	Ryan Buchter	Carter Capps
SF	Mark Melancon	Hunter Strickland	George Kontos
SEA	Edwin Diaz	James Pazos	Nick Vincent
TB	Alex Colome	Danny Farquhar	Tommy Hunter	Brad Boxberger
TEX	Matt Bush	Keone Kela	Jose Leclerc
TOR	Roberto Osuna	Ryan Tepera	Danny Barnes	Joe Smith
WSH	Enny Romero	Matt Albers	Blake Treinen	Koda Glover

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