Every season, I try to determine how much closer turnover there is from the last drafts to the season’s end. For example, here is last season’s report.
I decided to verify the beginning of the season section before every manager disappears. For most of the selections, I used our Opening Weekend Bullpen Report. Here are the values I think are right but I don’t feel good about the ones in Yellow. Could people spend a minute looking over the Yellows and verify the names on their favorite team(s)? Thanks.
With the MLB trade deadline behind us and the dust still settling, it can be a bit tricky to sort out all the implications for every player moved in a trade this week. It becomes all the more difficult for relievers — both where they fit in the bullpen hierarchy on their new team and how their old team will handle the pecking order. This edition of the Ottonue Relief Pitcher Drip will be devoted to figuring some of those situations while also recommending some under-rostered pitchers who might find themselves in high leverage roles now.
The White Sox were one of the most aggressive sellers this season, trading away six members of their pitching staff including nearly every reliever who had earned high leverage work this year. Gone are Kendall Graveman, Reynaldo López, Keynan Middleton, and Joe Kelly. That means Gregory Santos is the most likely candidate to pick up save opportunities with Aaron Bummer a possibility as well. I covered Santos the last time this column ran in mid-July and his outlook hasn’t changed much since then. He’s still striking out a decent number of batters and his walk rate is still a pristine 5.0%.
The Royals shipped their closer Scott Barlow off to San Diego at the deadline which means Carlos Hernández will likely step in to handle the ninth inning duties. A failed starter with a hard, riding fastball and a nasty slider, he’s managed to hone the command issues that plagued him in longer outings. He’s cut his walk rate more than four points to just 7.4% this year while also pushing his strikeout rate north of 30%. That’s a definite recipe for success. Beyond Hernández, there really isn’t anyone else in Kansas City’s bullpen worth targeting.
In one of the bigger surprises this week, the Mariners traded their closer Paul Sewald to the Diamondbacks. Seattle already had their closer of the future Andrés Muñoz working the eighth inning ahead of Sewald which makes him the obvious candidate to work the ninth inning now. Matt Brash is almost universally rostered in Ottoneu thanks to his outrageous stuff so the overlooked high leverage reliever in Seattle’s bullpen is almost certainly Justin Topa. He had struggled with a laundry list of injuries with the Brewers, accumulating just 17 appearances across his first three seasons in the big leagues. Finally healthy, he’s been a solid option in high leverage situations for the M’s this year. His sinker-slider combo doesn’t produce a ton of strikeouts but he limits walks and keeps the ball on the ground which is a profile that plays well in Ottoneu.
Joe Kelly isn’t gaining an opportunity to earn more high leverage work because relievers ahead of him on the depth chart were traded away. Instead, he was the guy traded away. He’s joining a Dodgers bullpen that’s had plenty of issues finding consistent performers this year. It isn’t immediately clear where he lands in the pecking order since he’s only appeared in a single game for Los Angeles, coming in during the sixth inning after Caleb Ferguson ran into trouble. His brand of effective wildness is well known by now, though his strikeout rate is now at a career-high 32.3%.
The Cardinals were the other big sellers at the deadline, trading away two relievers from their bullpen. With Ryan Helsley sidelined indefinitely and Jordan Hicks now in Toronto, the obvious choice to work the ninth inning should have been Giovanny Gallegos. Instead, the man who received the first save opportunity on Sunday was JoJo Romero who also worked the ninth inning in a non-save situation yesterday. This is a situation that definitely bears monitoring. Gallegos has been receiving high leverage work in the Cardinals bullpen for four years now so it’s possible they’re trying out different options in the ninth inning to evaluate what they have to work with moving forward. Romero was a highly regarded prospect in the Phillies organization at one point. Both his slider and changeup have whiff rates over 40%, giving him two plus weapons in his arsenal.
Which did you take for your fantasy team? López and Graveman are the relievers on this list who currently have the black border around their names that signifies shared closer duties on the Bullpen Report (now streaming). Those who chose Reynaldo López were victory-dancing all around the living room on opening day as the 29-year-old Southside reliever recorded his first career save. It wasn’t a dominant performance by any stretch as the big righty gave up a monster home run, but to be fair, it was a Yordan Alvarez home run:
At the end of last season, I wrote about López’s incredibly low FIP and argued that it was unsustainably low due to an unrealistic HR/FB rate. His 2022 HR/9 in 63.1 innings of relief was 0.1, he only gave up one homerun all season. In his first appearance as a reliever in 2023, López made me seem like a smart guy. So that’s it, right? López is the same reliever he was last year, except now he’ll be eaten up by the regression monster. Not so fast. Check out his increased velocity so far in 2023:
That much of a velocity increase really stands out and it comes on top of the increased velocity he displayed last year as he transitioned more into a full-time reliever. López has always been a hard thrower relying on his fastball and while he throws a curveball and a changeup, it’s the changeup that has been his best secondary offering. He has never really leaned on the pitch too heavily, throwing it 3.7% of the time in 2022, but the pitch earned a 15.2% swinging-strike rate (PitcherList) last season. That’s better than the league average swinging-strike rate on changeups among relievers, 13.9%. Even it has seen increased velocity so far in 2023:
The last time I wrote about López I noted the increased velocity on each of these pitches and how that led to increased whiff rates. Now, López has added even more velocity and a big question is, can he continue to add velocity without sacrificing control? His strikeout rates have been on the rise and so has his command (K/BB), but how will the added velo and increased appearances in high-leverage situations affect his ability to command the strike zone?
He was put to an early test on Sunday (4/2) afternoon when he entered the bottom of the ninth with a five-run lead and things got shaky. After walking the lead-off man, César Salazar, López threw a wild one that let him take second:
Even though López got out number two on a Kyle Tucker fly ball, he gave up two rbi singles thereafter, balked a runner over to the third base, and made his manager bite his nails. Things finally came to a close with another fly ball, this time without leaving the infield. So, while increased velocity is great, López’s command doesn’t look locked in just yet and he has a history of high walk rates. In 2020, his BB% crept up to 12.4% in his 26.1 innings as a starter. The 2022 league average BB% among starters was 7.5%. That seems to always be the “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” for López; good, hard stuff, but touchy control. But, Reynaldo López is no longer a starter. Now, he has the freedom to focus his efforts on short, high-leverage stints, letting his velocity and stuff challenge hitters. For those of you who have fully converted to the ways of Stuff+, here are López’s early 2023 numbers:
stf+ FA – 148
stf+ SL – 133
stf+ CH – 108
While I don’t really know what those numbers mean after two full innings, they are all pretty high. I assume that’s good. As with all things, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. I’m rooting for López and if he’s available in any of my leagues, I’m adding him. White Sox manager Pedro Grifol has been impressed with Reynaldo López calling him a “special talent”, but he hasn’t named any reliever as the team’s closer in Liam Hendrik’s absence and that will likely be the case all season. Reynaldo López’s potential has always been there and if fantasy managers have the roster spot available and can keep close tabs on him, I believe he has a lot of strikeout and save/hold/win upside for 2023.
A few years ago, a guy named Jabari Blash streaked across the Fantasy Baseball firmament like a doomed comet. He had tremendous raw power, but was a three-true-outcomes guy with a vengeance, and most of those outcomes were strikeouts. His plate discipline, his glove, and his baserunning skills were such that he had to hit a lot of home runs to keep a major league job, and when he didn’t, first the Padres and then the Angels kicked him to the curb. We ourselves didn’t expect Blash to succeed, but we nonetheless took him in various deep drafts out of our sentimental recollection of a story we heard in our youths.
The tale goes like this: A young man’s fantastically wealthy grandfather dies. He leaves his entire estate to charity. To the young man, he leaves only some words of wisdom and advice. The key to success and happiness, says Grandpa, can be stated in a single word: BLASH. But to find out what the word means, the young man must do as the grandfather did in his own youth and seek out a certain guru who lives as a hermit at the top of a remote Tibetan mountain. After much travail, distress, danger, and expense, the young man scales the mountain and finds the guru. “Guru,” he says. “I have come from far across the sea to acquire the wisdom that you alone possess. What is the meaning of BLASH?” And the guru says, “Buy Low And Sell High.” Read the rest of this entry »
