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:

	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	Ross Ohlendorf	Tony Cingrani	Jumbo Diaz
Cleveland	Cody Allen	Bryan Shaw	Dan Otero
Colorado	Jake McGee	Carlos Estevez	Boone Logan	Miguel Castro
Detroit	Francisco Rodriguez	Mark Lowe	Justin Wilson	Bruce Rondon
Houston	Luke Gregerson	Ken Giles	Will Harris
KC	Wade Davis	Kelvin Herrera	Joakim Soria
LAA	Joe Smith	Fernando Salas	Jose Alvarez	Huston Street
LAD	Kenley Jansen	Pedro Baez	Joe Blanton	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	David Hernandez	Hector Neris
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	Cody Gearrin	Hunter Strickland	Sergio Romo
Seattle	Steve Cishek	Joaquin Benoit	Joel Peralta
TB	Alex Colome	Erasmo Ramirez	Xavier Cedeno	Brad Boxberger
Texas	Sam Dyson	Jake Diekman	Shawn Tolleson	Keone Kela
Toronto	Roberto Osuna	Gavin Floyd	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.]