Bullpen Report: September 27, 2017

Cody Allen is winding up his season in a bit of a funk. He did not manage to blow the Indians’ 4-0 lead against the Twins on Wednesday night, but he did allow the visitors to cut the lead in half on a Jorge Polanco two-run homer. Allen has now allowed a home run in three of his last four games, and over the three innings he pitched in those outings, he was credited with five earned runs.

Sam Dyson appeared to be cruising towards a successful finish to a bumpy 2017 season, but on Wednesday, he gave his fantasy owners reasons to have the jitters. Entering the bottom of the ninth with a 3-1 lead against the Diamondbacks, he coughed up a leadoff home run to J.D. Martinez, and in successive at-bats, allowed singles to Jake Lamb and A.J. Pollock. Three batters later, Dyson blew the save when Pollock scored on a John Ryan Murphy grounder, and then the Diamondbacks walked off on a David Peralta walk.

Even though Dyson had a streak of eight consecutive scoreless appearances prior to Wednesday’s meltdown, that string of outings was sandwiched by a pair of performances that yielded a combined eight runs. While it feels like an overreaction to bench Allen, who had been the top relief-eligible pitcher in terms of Roto value over the prior 30 days, per ESPN’s Player Rater, it is reasonable to pull the plug on Dyson in leagues with daily transactions and lineup changes. During his eight-game streak, Dyson posted a 73.9 percent ground ball rate but threw only 59.6 percent of his pitches for strikes. That, on top of the inconsistency that has marked his season, makes him a risky choice for the season’s final four days.

While Blake Parker‘s performance has not been as uneven as Dyson’s, he is a similarly treacherous choice for saves. In giving up Nick Delmonico’s walk-off home run on Wednesday night, Parker not only knocked the Angels out of the postseason picture, but he may have eliminated himself from some owners’ rest-of-season plans. He has allowed home runs in three of his last six appearances, and during that stretch, Parker has registered a 20.0 percent ground ball rate.

Blake Treinen and Matt Belisle are available in at least 60 percent of the leagues on CBS, ESPN and Yahoo, and both are well rested with favorable matchups ahead. Since a difficult stretch earlier this month, Treinen has strung together eight straight scoreless appearances covering 7.1 innings. The A’s finish up with four games at the Rangers, who owned a major league-worst .240 wOBA over the 14 days preceding Wednesday’s game against the Astros. The biggest obstacle to Treinen getting saves could be the Rangers’ failure to keep games close. They have been outscored in their last four games, 45-8. However, Treinen did get a pair of saves against Texas last weekend.

Belisle is the lesser-owned of the two closers. After the Twins finish their series with the Indians on Thursday, they get the Tigers at home for three games. While the Tigers have not been as punchless as the Rangers, they have gone seven straight games with scoring four or fewer runs.

As this is the final Bullpen Report of the 2017 regular season, this is our best chance to take stock of closer turnover. Assuming no closer loses his job between now and the end of the week, there will be nine closers who will have stayed in the role all season long: Allen, Craig Kimbrel, Wade Davis, Raisel Iglesias, Ken Giles, Kenley Jansen, Alex Colome, Greg Holland and, as we all predicted, Fernando Rodney. If I am a little less literal in defining “wire-to-wire,” we could add Roberto Osuna and Edwin Diaz to the list. Osuna missed the first week of the season with cervical spasms, while Diaz had a couple of brief hiatuses from the closer’s role.

Long-time elites like Jansen and Kimbrel will be worth a sizable investment on draft day next spring. Beyond that, it is a risk to count on most relievers to produce saves like they did the year before. Once again, this season proved that owners can find new saves sources throughout the season.

Closer Grid:

 

	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
ARI	Fernando Rodney	Archie Bradley	David Hernandez
ATL	Arodys Vizcaino	Jose Ramirez	A.J. Minter
BAL	Brad Brach	Mychal Givens	Darren O’Day	Zach Britton
BOS	Craig Kimbrel	Addison Reed	Matt Barnes
CHC	Wade Davis	Pedro Strop	Carl Edwards Jr.
CWS	Juan Minaya	Danny Farquhar	Gregory Infante	Nate Jones
CIN	Raisel Iglesias	Michael Lorenzen	Kevin Shackelford	Drew Storen
CLE	Cody Allen	Andrew Miller	Bryan Shaw
COL	Greg Holland	Pat Neshek	Jake McGee
DET	Shane Greene	Alex Wilson	Joe Jimenez
HOU	Ken Giles	Chris Devenski	Joe Musgrove
KC	Mike Minor	Brandon Maurer	Scott Alexander
LAA	Blake Parker	Yusmeiro Petit	Cam Bedrosian
LAD	Kenley Jansen	Brandon Morrow	Pedro Baez
MIA	Kyle Barraclough	Brad Ziegler	Drew Steckenrider
MIL	Corey Knebel	Anthony Swarzak	Josh Hader
MIN	Matt Belisle	Trevor Hildenberger	Alan Busenitz
NYM	Jeurys Familia	A.J. Ramos	Paul Sewald
NYY	Aroldis Chapman	David Robertson	Dellin Betances
OAK	Blake Treinen	Chris Hatcher	Liam Hendriks
PHI	Hector Neris	Luis Garcia	Adam Morgan
PIT	Felipe Rivero	Daniel Hudson	A.J. Schugel	Joaquin Benoit
STL	Juan Nicasio	Tyler Lyons	John Brebbia	Trevor Rosenthal
SD	Brad Hand	Kirby Yates	Phil Maton
SF	Sam Dyson	Hunter Strickland	Cory Gearrin	Mark Melancon
SEA	Edwin Diaz	Nick Vincent	Marc Rzepczynski	Tony Zych
TB	Alex Colome	Tommy Hunter	Steve Cishek
TEX	Alex Claudio	Matt Bush	Keone Kela
TOR	Roberto Osuna	Ryan Tepera	Dominic Leone
WSH	Sean Doolittle	Brandon Kintzler	Ryan Madson

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