Bullpen Report: September 19, 2014
Phillies at Athletics: Ken Giles is the closer! This has already happened, but It’s my first BP Report since the Jonathan Papelbon grundle-grab, and I wanted to type it. I also wanted to type grundle-grab. Giles hasn’t had a save opportunity yet and his only 9th since was on 9/17. Sean Doolittle converted his 22nd save with 100% fastballs. Much of his success comes from throwing high, hard and historic which he did here:
I get two BP reports in a row so today i’ll focus a bit more on the game decisions and updates. Tomorrow I’ll get back to my normal per-pitch effect and component-comparison deal. I’ll also furnish an updated rankings list for your different league formats. I’m thinking the following:
5×5 (ERA,WHIP,W,K,SV)
6×6 (ERA,WHIP,W,K,SV + HOLDS)
5×5 Rate Stats Leagues (K/9, BB/9, HR/9, H/9, RA/9).
Any other formats? Shoot me a note in the comments section and maybe i’ll include it in tomorrow’s different rankings.
Indians at Twins: Glen Perkins has finally been shut down and Jared Burton will continue to consume closing responsibilities. While a MRI revealed no damage to his UCL (great news), he’ll be shutdown with a forearm strain and nerve irritation in his elbow. Strengthening and two months should do the trick. Burton got the win yesterday in 2/3 IP while Cody Allen blew his fourth save of the season through a Suzuki Double, Arcia Single and a botched double play ball.
Red Sox at Orioles: Edward Mujica got his 7th save of the season through three balls in play which is what we’ll continue to see from Mujica about 78% of the time (80% general contact-rate). Koji Uehara last pitched on 9/16 striking out the side. I just don’t see much motivation for them to make the swap at this point, but i’ll still swap him and Tazawa in the grid below. Zach Britton kept the game scoreless in the 9th and Darren O’Day continued his all or nothing month with a mistake and loss to David Ortiz. This says it all:
That red quadrilateral dead center? Yup, Ortiz capitalized.
White Sox at Rays: It looks like I have to swap Petricka and Putnam in the closer grid below. Jake Petricka blew the save on 9/15. Zach Putnam cleanly converted his last two saves since. It was shaky-shaky-strikeout-shakey-strikeout save #6 for Putnam yesterday. Maybe I’ll keep the grid as is for now. After he relieved Surkamp, he gave up a single to Escobar who then went to 2nd on a wild pitch. He then struckout Loney swinging, hit DeJesus with a pitch and then closed it out by striking out Kiermaier.
Brewers at Pirates: Mark Melancon (save #31) is good. He continued to play ground-out king – even when his strike was up in the zone:
Ramirez grounded to third; Davis grounded out to the Melancon; Overbay grounded out to short.
Blue Jays at Yankees: Adam Warren got the 1.2 inning save for the Yankees. I’m all that is man. I’m all that is Mets fan, but this was pretty great: new Derek Jeter gatorade commercial.
Nationals at Marlins: another perfect inning for Drew Storen (save #8), another you’re welcome from me originally noting he’ll be the closer once they removed Rafael Soriano.
Lastly, Reds at Cardinals: Mike Matheny pulled Trevor Rosenthal from his save chance yesterday. For some reason, this got me a little bullish on Matheny. I think back to all of the times in competitive Mets seasons where the managers left their closers in too long: Franco, Benitez, etc. Sometimes, as good of a closer as you have, you need to go in another direction depending on the situation. Just a quick positive note, Rosenthal’s velocity is clearly the highest it’s been all year this month.
Closer Grid:
[Green light, yellow light, red light: the colors represent the volatility of the bullpen order.]
Daniel Schwartz contributes for RotoGraphs when he's not selling industry leading thermal packaging. You can follow him on twitter @RotoBanter
Brian Morris done for year in MIA. Hatcher should go in there.
Marshall over Perez in AZ.
Giants should be in yellow.
I dropped Storen earlier in the year because the table had Clippard as first in line behind Soriano. If there are any other situations where the first in line isn’t the eighth inning guy, it should be fixed. First in line should be first in line, not eighth inning. For example, would Thayer really close in SD ahead of Vincent or would they keep him in his current role if Quackenbush/Benoit went down.
clippard was the main set up guy all year as he is now. i would have had to agree with the depiction until soriano fell apart and then storen was the hot hand. i can understand your concern. Appreciate the additional notes and can review/make changes in post tongiht/for the morning.
i changed SFO to green and think i’d keep it like that until there’s less clarity.
Makes sense. Keep up the great work!