Bullpen Report: May 4, 2016
• Well, it finally happened — Jeanmar Gomez finally blew a save. It wasn’t pretty either, as the righty was touched up for two runs on three hits and a pair of walks. The outing was ugly enough to bring his (SSS) xFIP from 3.27 to 3.81, which is actually not too far off last year’s 3.98 mark. We’ve mentioned here a couple times that Gomez is probably just good enough to hold onto the gig when things are going well, but he doesn’t have enough swing-and-miss stuff to avoid bad stretches where guys are making solid contact and putting the ball in play. He has been used a lot lately (8 times in the Phillies last 12 games), so maybe a day or two off will do him good. I expect he’ll get the next save opportunity, but we’ve kept him yellow even through the “good times” for a reason. I’ll slide Hector Neris (2.05 xFIP, 43% K%) ahead of David Hernandez (2.26 xFIP, 39% K%) based on his save a couple games ago (when Gomez was getting a day off). However, it wouldn’t be shocking if either of them (or even Andrew Bailey) saw run in the ninth inning for Philly at some point going forward.
• Jake McGee worked a 1-2-3 ninth inning for save number 7. He seems to have calmed down after his implosion against the Dodgers last week, so why am I writing about Jake McGee? Be wary. McGee’s only struck out four of the 44 batters he has faced this year. His fastball velocity is down 1.5 mph from last year and over three ticks from two years ago. SwStr%? Down. F-Strike%? Down. There are a lot of warning sirens here — I have very few shares of Jake McGee, but the one place I have him, I’m peddling him. The unfortunate thing? There is no Adam Ottavino lying in wait this year. Chad Qualls (the current second chair) hasn’t been awful, but he hasn’t been very good either. Boone Logan is the Rockies’ best reliever by peripherals, but a large part of that is because he’s facing lefties. Ottavino is starting to ramp up his rehab, but we won’t see him until mid-July at the absolute earliest (and it’s ambitious to think he’ll be lights out right away). Miguel Castro offers hope when healthy, but having to hit the DL with shoulder injuries in April scare me. There isn’t anyone lying in wait in Albuquerque, either, so maybe this is just a bullpen we don’t want to play with this year.
• Ross Ohlendorf pitched in the closest thing the Red have had to a save situation in a few games, coughing up a run while entering with a four-run lead in the ninth today. Ohlendorf is somewhat similar to Jeanmar Gomez — probably good enough to go on a run of mediocrity in the ninth, but posts somewhat pedestrian peripherals (4.09 xFIP last year, 4.30 so far this year), so he’ll likely never achieve a firm grasp. A couple bright spots to point out — both the fastball velocity and whiff rate are up a tad, so there’s reason to believe he could sneak past last year’s peripherals. Helping him is the fact that the Reds bullpen has been extra awful (above and beyond the norm) as of late. Tony Cingrani has the whiffs, but is walking nearly one out of every five batters he faces. Caleb Cotham’s somewhat uninspiring stuff has caught up to him the last few games. Perhaps the reliever who looked best for this team in the early going is Dan Straily, but he now seems to be one of the team’s most stable rotation cogs after only a few turns. Ohlendorf feels like the guy to own right now and I’m not sure I’d speculate too much behind him. Jumbo Diaz has a 9/1 K/BB in 5.2 innings in Triple-A and posted a 2.84 SIERA last year. To be honest, he’s the guy I’m buying in deeper leagues; he’s not even on the big league roster.
• Quick hits: Kevin Quackenbush just hasn’t had it early on for the Padres, so Ryan Buchter makes his debut on the grid. I’ll move Fernando Rodney to green for now, but that’ll go back to yellow the next time he doesn’t shoot arrows. Alex Colome has looked good enough to take hold of Tampa Bay’s closer job for now, we’ll see where he is when Brad Boxberger is ready. Huston Street is the guy when healthy in Anaheim, but Joe Smith is the guy when Huston Street is not healthy. He’s green until Street hits the rehab trail.
Closer Grid:
[Green light, yellow light, red light: the colors represent the volatility of the bullpen order.]
There are few things Colin loves more in life than a pitcher with a single-digit BB%. Find him on Twitter @soxczar.
Good to see Rodney get back to green, I think people are really sleeping on the fact that his ineffectiveness in early 2015 was a blip in an otherwise good-to-great run from 2012 til now.
Fernando Rodney? I’d feel safer holding a lead bringing Bobby Ayala out of retirement.
Hector Rondon will never record another save.
Why?
It’s hard to get a save when your team always wins by six runs.
Oh, haha, I thought it might be a more serious reason. I’m sure at some point the Cubs will win a game by 3 or fewer runs.
is the job going to be Boxberger’s once he comes back? or has colome pitched well enough to keep the job for the time being?
Colome has been excellent this year and could very well hold onto the job. However, the Rays management clearly trusts Boxberger as he already beat out Jake McGee for the closer role, despite McGee pitching very well when he was with the Rays.
Additionally, the Rays seemed interested to use Colome in an extended reliever role last year. Normally long relievers are an afterthought, but the Rays were treating the role differently. Their plan seemed to be to limit their back of the rotation starters to 5 innings as they had data to suggest that marginal SPs struggle the most when they go through an opposing lineup three times. Thus, the idea was to try to get 5 solid innings out of their SPs, then bring in Colome to be the bridge from the 6th to 9th innings. Colome can fill that long reliever role, whereas Boxberger cannot.
My best guess is that if Colome keeps pitching like he has, he will hold onto the closer role. I doubt they put Boxberger in closing situations immediately when he returns, and if Colome continues to pitch well it would be easier to simply maintain the status-quo than to change things up.
Or they could try to squeeze a dozen saves out of Boxberger and then sell him at the deadline … while other clubs are getting wise to the “hype a closer” trading strategy, it still has some effectiveness and the Rays might look to move him even if they’re contending … plus it keeps Colome’s price down when arbitration comes
Does a move of Colome to longer relief roles impact Erasmo? they seem to be feeding Erasmo a lot of early close spots and late tied appearances.
The fact that no closers are blowing up or getting hurt like previous seasons is really killing my strategy. I think by this time last year Ramos, Ziegler and Familia had taken over.
Doolittle’s usage and performance do not scream second in line. I think it would likely be the Axe at this point.
Yes, this is the only real quibble I have with the spreadsheet. Whenever you have a situation in red, it makes getting those next guys up right all the more important. Looks to me like the As are using Doolittle as an uber-situational lefthander of sorts. Which would keep him well away from getting saves.
I’d still expect him to move back to the 9th inning if Madson were unavailable for extended period.
Thank you for making changes to the spreadsheet. Some of us do use it pretty much blindly for stockpiling possible closers, given that we’re busy in our non-fantasy lives.
Walt Weiss has put wild thing Carlos Esteves in a couple high leverage spots lately. High 90s fastball.
Regarding there being no Adam Ottavino-type waiting to steal McGee’s job, what about Adam Ottavino? Seems like he’s on pace for a June return.
This was mentioned in the BR, but Ottavino is probably looking mid-to-late July in an optimistic scenario. He just started throwing a few breaking balls off a mound a couple weeks ago, and my assumption is that when he’s ready to go out on a rehab assignment, the team will use the full 30 days.