Bullpen Report: May 15, 2016

Tony Cingrani recorded his third save today coming into the game with the bases loaded and one out and a five run cushion. He retired the next two batters to lock down the save after blowing one on Wednesday. No official announcement has been made regarding his status as closer, but for now if you really need a closer, you can roll with Cingrani. How long he holds the role is another story as he has struck out 15 over 17 innings, but has also walked 10. His HR/FB rate is also way below his average, so if that normalizes, that can be a recipe for disaster accompanied with those walks. Personally, I’m staying away from this situation despite Cingrani seemingly having the 9th inning job because I am not sure how many save opportunities the Reds are going to have to make it worth risking my ERA and WHIP. Go after him at your own risk.

Speaking of announcing closer jobs, the A’s finally made it official by naming Ryan Madson their closer. Wonder if that’s like making a relationship official on Facebook? Anyway, this isn’t really a surprise. It should make Madson owners feel a little more comfortable knowing he will get most of the opportunities to close games barring something unforeseen. He earned his tenth save of the season today, and still has not blown a save. The ERA is great (1.08), but has a higher FIP (3.08). Additionally, his strikeout rate is down from his past years as a reliever and his walk rate is up. He’s also giving up a lot more line drives and less groundballs than his career averages. I’m not sure why that is and whether or not those numbers I mentioned fall back into his normal rates. If they do, he should be fine. If not, then the Oakland closer situation will get very interesting real fast. John Axford seems to be next in line if Madson were to falter, and I’m not too sure what to make of him either. Axford is giving up a lot more contact than usual, which is resulting in less walks and strikeouts making him more susceptible to big hits. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Sean Doolittle move into the 8th inning role again at some point.

Brad Boxberger pitched in High A today ,making his first rehab appearance. He pitched a scoreless inning giving up a double, a walk, while striking out one. He still needs a few more outings before being added to the major league roster, but he will be a welcome addition to a Rays bullpen that lost today in the ninth. After thinking Alex Colome was the clear guy to get save opportunities, Colome pitched in the 8th today against Oakland’s 4-5-6 hitters. I changed their chart to yellow because if they are working guys based on leverage, good luck predicting saves. Xavier Cedeno and Steve Geltz were charged with an earned run after Cedeno gave up a double and then Geltz gave up a two-run homer to Danny Valencia, as Geltz earned his first blown save of the year. If we start seeing Colome only pitching the 9th, we’ll move it back to green.

Shawn Tolleson was unavailable today after blowing the save on Saturday night. He wasn’t necessarily unavailable because of the blown save, but the Rangers are evaluating the situation. According to the article linked above, his Tolleson’s change-up has been less effective, and Pitchf/x data agrees. His value on the change-up last year was 0, but has gone down to -1.2 this season. His fastball has also not been as effective dropping from 1.7 to -2.9, so it may not just be the change-up. When looking at velocity, his fastball is right where it was last year, but the change-up has actually gone up by 1.9 MPH, which is typically not a good thing for the change-up. In today’s game, without Tolleson, the Rangers bullpen looked strong in the 8th and 9th inning (actually the bullpen looked good outside of Tom Wilhelmsen who gave up three runs). Jake Diekman, Matt Bush, and Sam Dyson combined to pitch 3 innings giving up no hits or walks, striking out one. According to MLB.com Gameday, Bush topped out at 98 mph, which is 3 mph harder than his last appearance.

Quick Hits: Jake McGee had a perfect weekend saving three games against the Mets in Colorado, almost tempting me to change the chart to green. The low K’s still worry me a bit. I also took a bit of a risk and moved the Rockies’ hard-throwing righty Carlos Estevez to next in line over Boone Logan who is more of lefty specialist. He pitched the 8th on Friday and Saturday, striking out four in 2 innings, while Chad Qualls saw no action. Walks may be a concern, but the Rockies are definitely setting him up to be a future high leverage reliever. I was also tempted to move Houston’s Will Harris up on the list because he did pitch the 8th on Friday and Saturday, which would be consistent with my Estevez move. I’m still not sure if he is over Giles and Neshek mainly because they put Harris in against the lower half of Boston’s line-up. Harris has a ridiculous 0.51 ERA (1.61 FIP), so a move up the list is not totally out of the question. What the heck happened to Kevin Quackenbush? Always a solid reliever, and someone I thought could take over San Diego’s closer job at some point, gave up a run for the second straight game raising his ERA to 5.50 (FIP: 5.58). This after going 9 appearances allowing only two hits and zero runs. His velocity is stable, but his fastball value went from 6.5 last season to 0.7 this season. K’s are way down and walks are up.Ryan Buchter and Fernando Rodney continue to impress for the Padres combining for two scoreless innings and four K’s.
Closer Grid:

	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
Arizona	Brad Ziegler	Daniel Hudson	Tyler Clippard
Atlanta	Arodys Vizcaino	Jason Grilli	Hunter Cervenka
Baltimore	Zach Britton	Darren O’Day	Mychal Givens
Boston	Craig Kimbrel	Koji Uehara	Junichi Tazawa
CHI (NL)	Hector Rondon	Pedro Strop	Justin Grimm
CHI (AL)	David Robertson	Nate Jones	Zach Duke
Cincy	Tony Cingrani	Ross Ohlendorf	Caleb Cotham	Jumbo Diaz
Cleveland	Cody Allen	Bryan Shaw	Zach McAllister
Colorado	Jake McGee	Carlos Estevez	Boone Logan	Miguel Castro
Detroit	Francisco Rodriguez	Mark Lowe	Justin Wilson	Bruce Rondon
Houston	Luke Gregerson	Ken Giles	Pat Neshek
KC	Wade Davis	Kelvin Herrera	Joakim Soria
LAA	Joe Smith	Fernando Salas	Jose Alvarez	Huston Street
LAD	Kenley Jansen	Pedro Baez	Chris Hatcher	Yimi Garcia
Miami	A.J. Ramos	David Phelps	Kyle Barraclough	Carter Capps
Milwaukee	Jeremy Jeffress	Tyler Thornburg	Michael Blazek	Will Smith
Minnesota	Kevin Jepsen	Trevor May	Fernando Abad	Glen Perkins
NY (NL)	Jeurys Familia	Addison Reed	Hansel Robles
NY (AL)	Aroldis Chapman	Andrew Miller	Dellin Betances
Oakland	Ryan Madson	John Axford	Sean Doolittle
Philly	Jeanmar Gomez	Hector Neris	David Hernandez
Pittsburgh	Mark Melancon	Tony Watson	Neftali Feliz
St. Louis	Trevor Rosenthal	Kevin Siegrist	Seung Hwan Oh
SD	Fernando Rodney	Brandon Maurer	Ryan Buchter
SF	Santiago Casilla	Hunter Strickland	Javier Lopez	Sergio Romo
Seattle	Steve Cishek	Joel Peralta	Nick Vincent	Joaquin Benoit
TB	Alex Colome	Erasmo Ramirez	Xavier Cedeno	Brad Boxberger
Texas	Shawn Tolleson	Sam Dyson	Jake Diekman	Keone Kela
Toronto	Roberto Osuna	Drew Storen	Brett Cecil
Wash.	Jonathan Papelbon	Blake Treinen	Shawn Kelley

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