Bullpen Report: May 19, 2016
Unlike most Thursdays, tonight has been a relatively slow night around the league’s bullpens. So we’ll touch on just a couple of items that come to mind at the time of this writing.
As Colin noted in last night’s edition of the Bullpen Report, Jeremy Jeffress blew his first save of the season after he surrendered an earned run on a walk and a hit. But that’s not why Tyler Thornburg earned the call in tonight’s save situation for Milwaukee. Skip signaled for Thornburg because Jeffress took the bump five of the previous six days — the guy just needed some rest. Thornburg fanned two but also allowed two free passes in a 30-pitch effort to notch his first save of the ‘16 season (and in his career!). Jeffress’ is still green, but that shouldn’t take away from Thornburg’s early season success. Entering tonight’s outing, we saw a nice spike in velocity across each of his offerings, a huge spike in K-BB% (30.9%) and a healthy 11.5% SwStr%. SIERA (1.91) and xFIP (2.20) also think Thornburg has pitched better than his 4.32 ERA indicates. For those in holds leagues — he does have eight on the season — Thornburg should be considered, but is likely owned in most of those formats despite just 1% ownership in the Y! Game.
Speaking of holds, over the last two weeks Sean Doolittle has picked up a pair in four frames of work with a 69.2% K-BB%. Yep, you read that correctly — he’s fanned nine of the last 13 batters he’s faced and lowered his ERA on the season to 3.31 (3.95 FIP) with a total of five holds. His velocity appears to be trending upwards nicely and his swinging strike rate is at a career best 16.9% (SwStr%), but Ryan Madson has pitched well in the closer’s role despite blowing his first save on Tuesday evening. Doolittle is owned in more than 50% of Y! Leagues, but if by chance he’s available in your format, he should could be considered for the end of your bench or at least added to your watch list.
Quick Hitters: Thanks to a fine play by Joe Panik, Santiago Casilla finished off the Padres 3-1 in San Diego. Casilla surrendered just one hit and fanned two en route to his 10th save in 13 chances while lowering his ERA to 1.62 on the year (3.21 FIP). Roberto Osuna dished two full frames to notch his second win of the season while Joseph Biagnini picked up the extra-innings save for the Blue Jays.
Closer Grid:
[Green light, yellow light, red light: the colors represent the volatility of the bullpen order.]
In addition to contributing to the RotoGraphs blog, you can find Alan at his own site, TheFantasyFix.com and follow his nonsense on Twitter @TheFantasyFix.
You misspelled Matt Bush.
you think he’s next after Dyson?