Archive for Closers

• As expected, the Astros looked towards Luke Gregerson with their first save chance of the year and he rewarded the team with a clean save, throwing a perfect inning along with a strikeout against the Yankees. Ken Giles threw in the eighth allowing a solo shot to Didi Gregorious but otherwise looked effective, striking out two. Giles’ velocity (96.4 mph) was in line with last season and I would expect him and Gregerson to comprise a darn effective end of game tandem moving forward.

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• It seemed like a safe guess that Ken Giles would be closing games in Houston after the Astros gave up some real talent (Mark Appel, Vincent Velasquez and others) for him this offseason but A.J. Hinch announced that Luke Gregerson will be the closer to start the year. Baseball wise this might be a solid decision, especially if Giles can be used more freely in the seventh or eighth innings in higher leverage situations.  Gregerson is no slouch though, having saved 31 games in 36 tries last year with a 3.10/2.86/2.71 ERA/FIP/xFIP line. For what it’s worth, Hinch said that Gregerson will be the “primary closer”, which doesn’t suggest a committee but Giles could see save opportunities as well.

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• Well it didn’t take long for us to have our first closer controversy in 2016 as John Gibbons announced that Roberto Osuna will be their closer on Opening Day. After trading Ben Revere for Drew Storen this offseason, it was assumed that Storen would be in the driver’s seat for the closing gig in Toronto but 2015 rookie sensation Roberto Osuna should take the job and run with it again. Adding insult to injury, after learning about his demotion from the closer’s chair, Storen allowed two runs in one inning of work yesterday. For those of you who had their drafts already, I’m sorry for your loss and you should try to convince the commissioner to hold the draft closer to Opening Day. For those of you who have not had their draft, please bump up Osuna’s value. While there is very stiff competition at the top of the relief rankings (these are a bit outdated and we hope to have an update soon), Osuna was darn impressive as a 20-year old and I could see him touching the top ten by the end of 2016.

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When your leaguemates start paying too much for closers, there’s only one thing to do – queue up your closer sleepers. The following is quick analysis of my favorite closers-in-waiting. You can use these guys as elite sources for holds or handcuffs to unstable closers. Yesterday’s post covered the NL, today we move to the AL.

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When your leaguemates start paying too much for closers, there’s only one thing to do – queue up your closer sleepers. The following is quick analysis of my favorite closers-in-waiting. You can use these guys as elite sources for holds or handcuffs to unstable closers. We’ll do the NL today and the AL tomorrow.

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I am a huge San Francisco Giants fan. However, if you have followed my work prior to joining Rotographs, you know I hate Gregor Blanco. I will explain further. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

Fresh off of the Hank controversy, the Milwaukee Brewers find themselves starting down another tough story to spin: A second consecutive season under .500. The Brew Crew haven’t gone back-to-back on the losing side of the ledger since 2009-2010, and even those teams flirted with an even record. To find the last time the Brewers won 68 games and had little reason for optimism, you’d have to go back to a Ben Sheets-led 2004 squad, and that team had Sheets, who was awesome. That might not seem like an eternity ago, but this is a team that’s grown accustomed to being decent, if not good.

Projections don’t like their chances for a rebound in 2016, and the pitching staff is a big reason why. A year after landing in the middle of the pack for wins above replacement from pitchers despite their rotation ERA jumping more than a run, nobody seems to think the Brewers will be able to prevent opponents from scoring. Out a Mike Fiers and a Kyle Lohse without a big acquisition or marquee prospect banging at the door, that’s understandable.

It doesn’t mean there aren’t a few fantasy arms worth keeping an eye on throughout the spring. It just means Hank II might not be the only one having an accident or two at Miller Park.
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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

Things did not go well for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2015, but it would be difficult to pin too much of that on their pitching staff. With a 3.74 ERA and 3.91 FIP, the Rays’ pitchers weren’t exactly world-beaters, but they weren’t the team’s biggest problem, either. They ranked in the middle third of the league in pitcher wins above replacement, walk rate, ERA, and FIP-. They just kind of were.

The issue, in some cases, was timing. The Rays ranked sixth in strikeout percentage as a whole, but their rotation was much better (fourth) in that regard than a bullpen lighter on gas. That bullpen posted 87 meltdowns, sixth-highest in baseball, which served to squander a bit of what a fringe-top-10 rotation was able to manage, and that bullpen lost lefty Jake McGee, to boot. That could be an iffy area again in 2016, one the .500-bound Rays didn’t see fit to invest a ton in.

The rotation, by the way, only had to go nine-deep a year ago. If it can stay relatively healthy once again, even getting a late-season reinforcement back from the disabled list, the Rays could have one of the better cost-effective rotations in baseball.
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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

The always-stingy Colorado Rockies ranked 21st in the majors in salary by the end of the season, cracking the $100-million for the first time in franchise history. Their biggest expenditure, though, may have been the outlay for physical therapists specializing in neck injuries, as their pitching staff likely suffered from a great deal of whiplash in 2015.

The Rockies employed the second-worst pitching in baseball by wins above replacement, with the staff as a whole owning a 5.04 ERA, 4.56 FIP, and 4.33 xFIP. And sure, that xFIP-ERA gap is enormous thanks to a 13.2-percent home run per-fly ball rate, but that’s almost always going to be the case for a team that plays half its games at Coors Field – as a team, they haven’t outperformed their FIP or xFIP since 2007, the lone time they’ve done so in franchise history.

To combat this, the Rockies have eschewed strikeouts in favor of ground-ball pitchers, owning the fourth-highest ground-ball rate and the No. 28 strikeout rate a season ago. Whether or not that’s a sound strategy – limiting balls in play with high-whiff arms might better counter the Coors effect – is almost beside the point, because the Rockies haven’t made significant changes to the rotation for 2016.
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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

Few teams got quite as much from their rotation as the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2015, and repeating that success will be paramount if they hope to win their first division title since 1992, finally avoiding the coin-flip of a Wild Card game. Last year’s rotation threw 967.1 innings, seventh in baseball, and they backed a 3.53 ERA up with a 3.34 FIP, good for the sixth-highest Wins Above Replacement among all major league rotations.

That group boasted a sky-high ground-ball rate and did well to suppress home runs as a result, and their primary subtraction was the only pitcher in the group with a fly-ball tendency. Gone is J.A. Happ and perhaps the Pirates Pixie Dust they sprinkled him with, with the lefty hoping his newfound approach can produce results in Toronto, too. A.J. Burnett is gone, too, leaving the Pirates preciously thin on starters with initialed names.

Of course, there’s still a lot to like at the top, some intriguing arms on the way, and what could wind up being one of the better relief squads in the National League.
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