Archive for Athletics

Blake Treinen captured his 15th save of the season on Tuesday night against the Rays, but he was fortunate to have had a two-run cushion entering the bottom of the ninth inning. In starting off with a four-pitch walk to Brandon Lowe, Treinen followed in his recent trend of not throwing enough strikes. Over his six innings pitched in the month of June, he has issued seven walks while locating in the strike zone at an anemic 31.9 percent rate and throwing first-pitch strikes just 41.4 percent of the time.

The walk came back to hurt Treinen, as Lowe scored on a two-out Willy Adames single to cut the Athletics’ lead to one run. However, he stranded Adames by getting Kevin Kiermaier to ground out for the final out.
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The back end of the Athletics’ bullpen figured to be a strength coming into this season, but the struggles of Lou Trivino and Blake Treinen continued on Sunday. Trivino’s season had actually been going well until two weeks ago, but it has gone downhill quickly. Heading into Sunday’s game with the Rangers, he had given up nine runs (eight earned) on 10 hits and five walks over his previous 5.2 innings. Trivino had not experienced any notable change in his velocity or pitch mix, but he was suddenly very hittable, getting only six swinging strikes in 115 pitches.

He threw 19 pitches on Sunday without a single swing-and-miss. After retiring Nomar Mazara to start the bottom of the eighth inning, he coughed up four straight hits (two doubles and two singles) and allowed the Rangers to chisel two runs off an 8-3 lead. A third run was charged to Trivino when Rougned Odor stole home with Ryan Buchter pitching, with the lefty having entered the game with two outs and runners on the corners.
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Wednesday was not a good day for the two best closers of 2018. Edwin Diaz blew his second save of the season after entering the bottom of the ninth with an 8-5 lead against the Dodgers. Coming into the game, the Mets’ closer had allowed little damage when facing lefties, holding them to a collective .071/.133/.214 slash line, but Joc Pederson and Max Muncy defied the trend, hitting back-to-back homers to begin the Dodgers’ half of the inning. Justin Turner and Cody Bellinger followed that up with consecutive doubles, with Bellinger’s erasing the lead. Diaz would face three more batters but would only retire the last one. Unfortunately, the batter was Alex Verdugo, who hit a walk-off sacrifice fly.

Just as he did a year ago, Diaz is missing a lot of bats (17.3 percent SwStr%), but despite that, he has already equaled last season’s total of home runs allowed (five). That may be something of a fluke, as his flyball rate is up only slightly, from 35.3 to 37.0 percent, as is his average exit velocity allowed on flies and liners, from 91.5 to 92.1 mph (per Baseball Savant). It may be a good time to get in touch with a frustrated Diaz owner.
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Welcome to the 2019 RotoGraphs Bullpen Report!

As in past seasons, we will update and publish our team-by-team bullpen grid on a daily basis and provide analysis on relievers to pick up, drop or monitor. I’m unveiling the first iteration of the grid just below, and then we will begin our daily updates beginning next Friday.

With a week to go until Opening Day, Part 2, one-third of the closer situations are still very much in flux. For each of those 10 teams, I have denoted the relievers in the grid as being part of a committee. With the possible exception of the Giants, Diamondbacks and White Sox, a committee is a probable outcome for these teams once the season gets under way.
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It feels like fake advertising to label Stephen Piscotty’s 2018 as a breakout, but his ability to rebound from adversity and outproduce his 2016 season turned out to be a boon to patient fantasy owners. After cratering in 2017, Piscotty’s preseason average draft position plummeted falling to the 19th round in NFBC formats as the 72nd outfielder drafted. His trade to Oakland and declining health of his mother also created questions about potential production fueling his depressed draft stock. Read the rest of this entry »

Wednesday’s slate of starting pitchers is not fully set, as there are still no fewer than five teams listing TBD as their starter as of this writing. I have filled in some of the blanks, projecting that Stephen Gonsalves will be the Twins’ primary pitcher and Sam Gaviglio will start for the Blue Jays. That increases the number of widely-available projected “starters” to eight, using a 25 percent ownership rate on Fantrax as a cutoff point.

While most owners are forsaking these hurlers, a few are reasonable streaming options, particularly in deeper formats.
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As is usually the case, the selection of streamable starting pitchers is much heavier on risk than reward, but there is actually a widely-available starter who looks like a pretty safe bet to help your rotation. It’s Felix Pena, who is unowned in at least 85 percent of the leagues on ESPN, CBS and Yahoo and more than 75 percent of Fantrax leagues. In a column I wrote just last week, I made the case for viewing Pena as Patrick Corbin Lite.
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Something seemed off kilter with Kelvin Herrera once he arrived in Washington. Following a strong start to his season as a Royal, Herrera’s performance with the Nationals did not come close to matching. Speculation of an injury surfaced when Herrera left the mound on Tuesday and underwent an MRI on Wednesday morning. Although his MRI did not reveal any structural damage, Herrera was placed on the 10-day disabled list with a shoulder impingement. He will not throw for a few days then resume a regimen to get back on the field and, hopefully more productive for the stretch run. In 19 games with the Nationals, Herrera’s recorded a 4.76 ERA, 6.03 FIP and 1.82 WHIP in 19 games (17 innings) striking out 15 against eight walks.

Owners chasing saves have already added Ryan Madson, but if he sits on the wire and the need for saves exists, he will take over as the closer while both Herrera and Sean Doolittle work towards a return. Madson’s pitched well of late yielding only one earned runs his last 11 outings with a save, four holds and a tidy 9:2 K:BB in them. However, the bridge getting to Madson could be slippery. Newly acquired Greg Holland could be asked to pitch in high leverage after being released by the Cardinals. Plus, Washington shipped out Brandon Kintzler to the Cubs, so Sammy Solis and others will need to step up to secure leads going forward. Trusting Madson’s past track record as a closer and his recent performances seems easy, getting him to the ninth with a lead could be precarious. Read the rest of this entry »

If the All-Star break is a momentum-stopper, then this week’s exercise of finding meaning in back-to-back surprising starts could be moot. Charlie Morton, who entered the break with consecutive disappointing efforts, will roll into Wednesday night’s start at Coors Field against the Rockies having not pitched in a game in 13 days. Frankie Montas may have had some success against the Indians and Astros before the break, but Tuesday night’s outing at the Rangers comes after a 15-day hiatus.

Still, taking a peek at these pitchers’ two most recent starts can give us some context for evaluating their upcoming assignments. If Montas breezes through his start against the Rangers, who rank 22nd in wOBA against right-handed pitchers, can we merely chalk it up to a favorable matchup after he held his own against two of the top six offenses against righties? And if Morton flubs his first start of the second half, should we blame it on the Coors Effect?
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Over the last 30 days, one of the top two relievers in Roto value (per ESPN’s Player Rater) is not even a regular closer. Tying Felipe Vazquez for top honors is Lou Trivino. Incredibly, he ranks one spot ahead of Blake Treinen — the pitcher he normally sets up for.

Trivino built on his strong string of performances on Thursday, filling in for Treinen (who threw a combined 37 pitches on Monday and Tuesday) in a save situation against the Astros. The rookie responded with a 1-2-3 inning, preserving the Athletics’ 6-4 win for his fourth save of the season and his third in the last 16 days.
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