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:

	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
Arizona	Addison Reed	Oliver Perez	Evan Marshall	Brad Ziegler
Atlanta	Craig Kimbrel	Jordan Walden	David Carpenter	Shae Simmons
Baltimore	Zach Britton	Tommy Hunter	Andrew Miller
Boston	Edward Mujica	Koji Uehara	Junichi Tazawa
CHI (NL)	Hector Rondon	Neil Ramirez	Kyuji Fujikawa
CHI (AL)	Jacob Petricka	Zach Putnam	Matt Lindstom
Cincy	Aroldis Chapman	Sam LeCure	Manny Parra	Sean Marshall
Cleveland	Cody Allen	Bryan Shaw	Scott Atchison
Colorado	LaTroy Hawkins	Adam Ottavino	Rex Brothers
Detroit	Joe Nathan	Joakim Soria	Joba Chamberlain
Houston	Chad Qualls	Tony Sipp	Josh Fields
KC	Greg Holland	Wade Davis	Jason Frasor
LAA	Huston Street	Joe Smith	Jason Grilli
LAD	Kenley Jansen	Brian Wilson	Brandon League
Miami	Steve Cishek	Bryan Morris	A.J. Ramos
Milwaukee	Francisco Rodriguez	Jonathan Broxton	Brandon Kintzler	Jim Henderson
Minnesota	Jared Burton	Michael Tonkin	Glen Perkins
NY (NL)	Jenrry Mejia	Jeurys Familia	Buddy Carlyle	Bobby Parnell
NY (AL)	David Robertson	Dellin Betances	Adam Warren
Oakland	Sean Doolittle	Luke Gregerson	Eric O’Flaherty
Philly	Ken Giles	Jake Diekman	Jonathan Papelbon (SUSP)	Mike Adams
Pittsburgh	Mark Melancon	Tony Watson	Jared Hughes
St. Louis	Trevor Rosenthal	Pat Neshek	Seth Maness	Jason Motte
SD	Kevin Quackenbush	Dale Thayer	Nick Vincent	Joaquin Benoit
SF	Santiago Casilla	Sergio Romo	Jeremy Affeldt
Seattle	Fernando Rodney	Danny Farquhar	Dominic Leone
TB	Jake McGee	Brad Boxberger	Grant Balfour
Texas	Neftali Feliz	Neal Cotts	Shawn Tolleson
Toronto	Casey Janssen	Aaron Sanchez	Brett Cecil
Wash.	Drew Storen	Tyler Clippard	Rafael Soriano

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