Archive for Closers

•Texas Rangers reliever Robbie Ross doesn’t pitch in too many high leverage innings and isn’t close to being in line for any save opportunities, but after pitching four innings yesterday for win he is now 6-0 in 34.2 innings pitched this season with a shiny 1.30 ERA.  Ross’ 3.34 xFIP and 5.71 k/9 aren’t quite as jaw dropping but they aren’t particularly terrible either.  Roster space can be a very valuable thing and I wouldn’t recommend using a spot on a reliever who isn’t close to saving games and doesn’t have strikeout potential but if your league gives points for innings pitched, Ross could be a compelling add. He’s pitched the second most innings in the majors out of the bullpen this year and figures to continue that trend as we approach the Texas heat with a Rangers rotation battling with some injuries at the moment.

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• After we last left you on Friday night, Brian Fuentes had a mini-implosion versus the Diamondbacks, taking a win off the board for the A’s and Tommy Milone and probably taking himself out of the ninth inning on a full-time basis. On Saturday, Bob Melvin told assembled press before the game that he was going to use — something every fantasy owner longs to hear — a committee. Fuentes will remain in the mix for saves but Ryan Cook and Grant Balfour will get opportunities based on their availability and matchups.

Cook has been the sleeper darling of the group since the first few weeks of the season, putting up a sparkling 0.69 ERA in 26.0 IP so far in 2012. While his strikeout rate has been solid (8.7 K/9), his walk rate has been anything but (5.2 BB/9). Free passes are nothing new to Cook who had 9.2 BB/9 in limited action at the big league level for Arizona last year in addition to 4.2 BB/9 down at AAA. Thanks to the walks, a low BABIP (0.119) and the fact that he has allowed no homers this year with a 48.3% fly ball rate, his xFIP is a less-than-appetizing 4.39. Balfour’s fastball velocity and, subsequently, strikeouts are down this year (7.0 K/9, compared with a career average of 9.7), and his walk rate (3.9 BB/9) and xFIP (4.40) are nothing to write home about, either. Ironically, Fuentes still has the best peripherals of the three, thanks in large part to his 2.0 BB/9 (3.95 xFIP). Unfortunately for him, a poor strand rate (64.5% LOB%) and HR/FB% nearly four points above his career average (12.5% versus 8.4%) has his ERA the worst of the three at 5.24.

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• The Cubs bullpen situation is an absolute mess. Yesterday, Shawn Camp and James Russell (the two guys Dale Sveum publicly anointed as closers in the wake of Carlos Marmol’s demotion) pitched in the seventh and eighth innings, leaving the door open for what (at the time) appeared to be a Casey Coleman save opportunity (Coleman never got the opportunity, and took the loss in extras). Tonight, Russell straddled the seventh and eighth innings (giving up a run) while Camp got his crack at the ninth. In typical Cubs bullpen fashion, he immediately gave up a screaming single (off the left field wall, no less) to Josh Willingham and a Justin Morneau triple to blow the save before inducing a few weakly hit balls in wriggling out of the jam and getting the game to extras. At this column’s press time, that’s where the game was. Sveum left him in to pitch the tenth, and he gave up a walk and a couple singles to take the loss.

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Josh Lindblom

With 13 holds, Josh Lindbolm has the third highest total in all of baseball. This past year, Lindblom was rated the fourth best prospect in the Dodger’s system by Marc Hulet (8th by Baseball America), so the talent in the arm is certainly there. He has a big ERA-FIP split, as his 2.51 ERA is nearly half of his 4.98 FIP. Both numbers should begin to converge, as his HR/FB% will likely not remain at 18.2%. Lindblom has a nice fastball and slider mix, with both his four-seamer and two-seamer sitting in the low 90’s. A guy like Lindblom can help right now in a holds league and should be in the set up role for the next number of years. In dynasty or deep keeper leagues with high keeper totals that use holds, Lindblom is definitely an attractive target.

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In late February, the Astros shocked the baseball world by announcing they’d be converting longtime starter Brett Myers into the bullpen to serve as closer. Considering that the Houston rotation looked incredibly thin beyond Wandy Rodriguez & Bud Norris, many questioned the logic beyond trading ~200 innings of Myers as a starter for ~60 innings of him as a reliever. A third of the way through the season, the move has worked out reasonably well for the surprisingly competitive Astros, as Lucas Harrell & J.A. Happ have capability bolstered the rotation and Myers entered play on Tuesday tied for fourth in the NL with 14 saves, making him one of the few to survive the unending turnover and volatility in the ninth inning so far this year. Though I hardly need to remind you that saves don’t exactly equate to quality and that Myers’ sparkling 2.25 ERA isn’t backed up by his 4.08 FIP, saves are still a mainstay category in nearly every fantasy league, and that alone makes Myers valuable.

Yet it’s also that value which comes from saves that’s exactly why he’s one of the best sell-high players of the first half of the season. Read the rest of this entry »

• He’s mortal! Aroldis Chapman finally gave up a run tonight, and it only took him until the Reds’ 56th game to do so. The run came after consecutive doubles in the 10th inning of a tie game, but one run was enough for the Pirates who held on for the victory. Obviously, I think we all expect mass drops in many leagues tonight which should send Chapman’s ownership value plummeting. OK, maybe not. However, one thing for Chapman owners to keep in mind — he is on pace for 87 innings, which is well above league-average for a reliever generally appearing in single-inning, high-leverage situations. It wouldn’t be out of the question for the Reds to dial back his workload a bit, especially since they’ve historically treated him pretty softly when it comes to pitching multiple days in a row.

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It’s saves mini-series week here at RotoGraphs! We tried one look into whether or not bad teams provide save opportunities, and then we tried another. We looked at lefty closers. The results seem to indicate that bad teams are almost as good as good teams at providing save opportunities, and managers don’t seem to prefer lefty closers.

But ‘bad teams’ and ‘good teams’ are not all alike. Commenters rightly pointed out that there might certain types of teams that create more save opportunities. How about teams with small run differentials? They seemingly play in more close games which could end in saves. How about teams with good pitching staffs? They might keep the score down and create more save situations. Or even teams with good bullpens. They might be able to keep the score close and hand the ball to the closer more often.

These are all testable questions. So it’s time to run the correlations — this time with teams since 1990, in order to reflect current bullpen usage more accurately. There are still over 600 team-seasons in our sample. SVO stands for Save Opportunities.

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• Huston Street was activated from the disabled list yesterday and proceeded to get the save last night against the Giants. It wasn’t the prettiest of saves with Street letting three batters reach base, but he didn’t surrender a run and looks primed to continue the great year he was having before his injury. The Dale Thayer experiment is officially over for now but it could rear its head again if Street were to miss time again or be traded because fellow setup man Andrew Cashner is now expected to enter the rotation at some point this year, leaving an open spot for the Padres to breed another reliever. Padres GM Josh Byrnes didn’t give a timetable for when Cashner can be expected to start but look for him to enter the starting rotation in the near future.

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J.J. Putz

With a 6.00 ERA, J.J. Putz can likely be taken from an owner looking to solidify his ERA and WHIP in standard formats. Of course, he is owned for his saves, so swapping a lesser closer who is over performing — Matt Capps and maybe Brett Myers, for instance — could be necessary in some leagues.

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Watching for Sasquatch is less rewarding then betting on a lefty closer, but that isn’t to say that managers don’t prefer righty closers. Ceding the platoon advantage to three-quarters of the league in the ninth inning seems like a bad idea unless you really have something in your lefty.

So how often does the lefty closer happen in baseball? Answer: not as often as it should.

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