Archive for Blake Treinen

A total of 53 players were non-tendered prior to Monday night’s deadline, and a number of fantasy-relevant players were included in that group. Domingo Santana and C.J. Cron fit that description, and if they can successfully come back from injury, so may Steven Souza Jr., Taijuan Walker and Aaron Sanchez.

What is less clear is whether Blake Treinen, José Peraza and Kevin Gausman can still be called fantasy-relevant. They certainly were as recently as 2018, but each of them fell so far in 2019 that they failed to make the top 500 in ADP in the 2 Early Mocks. Yet, upon closer examination, all three have the potential to have comeback seasons in 2020. Even though they may not get much attention in fantasy circles this offseason, I’ll make the case as to why each is deserving of a spot on your late-round flier or watch list.

Blake Treinen

In 2019, Treinen lost all of the gains he made in his strikeout and swinging strike rates in 2018, and he even lost his long-held knack for getting grounders. This combination led to the escalation of Treinen’s ERA from 0.78 to 4.91 and to him losing the Athletics’ closer role to Liam Hendriks. The loss of whiffs is likely related to a decrease in average sinker velocity from 98.0 to 96.7 mph, as well as a drop in average sinker spin rate form 2371 to 2250 rpm. He was generally locating his pitches higher (see below), which would explain his middling ground ball rate (42.8 percent) and HR/9 ratio (1.38).
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The closer grid will likely look much different on Thursday, but for now, Felipe Vázquez, Alex Colomé, Raisel Iglesias, Ken Giles, Edwin Díaz and Shane Greene, among other potential trade candidates, have yet to switch teams.

The Mets did not shy away from using Díaz on Tuesday night, as he came in to protect a 2-1 lead over the White Sox in the bottom of the ninth inning. He was wild from the start, walking Ryan Goins on five pitches and, two batters later, he plunked James McCann on the shoulder. Both runners advanced on a wild pitch, and then Goins scored on Tim Anderson’s sacrifice fly. The Mets ultimately prevailed in the 11th inning, after Colomé shut them down in the 10th inning.
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Greg Holland picked a very bad time to lose control.

The Dodgers have been the most selective team in the National League, swinging on only 28.3 percent of the pitches they have seen outside of the strike zone. On Tuesday night, Holland was on the verge of collecting his 13th save for the Diamondbacks, pitching to Chris Taylor with a 4-3 lead, two outs and an 0-2 count. None of his next four pitches were close to the zone, and Taylor walked. Then Holland walked Russell Martin, Alex Verdugo and Matt Beaty, allowing the Dodgers to tie the game without getting a hit. He was lifted for T.J. McFarland, and when he left he had thrown 22 of his 30 pitches outside of the strike zone. Martin swung at one of them — a slider that missed the bottom of the zone by more than a foot — and none of Holland’s other out-of-zone pitches induced a swing.
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The showdown between Frankie Montas and Charlie Morton on Thursday night lived up to expectations. Montas dominated the Rays for eight innings, allowing just one run (on a Tommy Pham solo shot), while a Jurickson Profar solo homer was the only run allowed by Morton over 6.1 innings. Emilio Pagan relieved Morton and kept the game knotted at 1-1, giving the Rays’ offense a chance to take the lead against Athletics closer Blake Treinen.

Instead of the game being defined by a matchup of two of the American League’s best starters, it became a story of two struggling closers. Treinen began the top of the ninth inning by walking Pham and Brandon Lowe, and then the Rays pounced with a double steal and back-to-back RBI singles by Avisail Garcia and Ji-Man Choi. That was it for Treinen: four batters, two runs scored, no outs. He was relieved by Ryan Buchter, who let Garcia score on a one-out Willy Adames sacrifice bunt.
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Owning Raisel Iglesias comes with its ups and downs. His multiple inning usage can cap save totals year to year, but he’s saved 71 since the start of 2017. Last night, Iglesias once again struggled with his command leading to his removal from the game in the ninth inning without recording a save. Instead, Iglesias gets his second hold of the season to the dismay of his owners. In the eighth inning, Iglesias entered with a runner on base and one out. He induced a pop out to shortstop by Robinson Chirinos but walked Tyler White in the next at-bat. Iglesias ended the inning on a Tony Kemp ground out and returned for the ninth inning. But, he walked lead-off hitter Myles Straw then retired Alex Bregman on a pop out to first base. Read the rest of this entry »

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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It’s a tenuous time of year for fantasy owners. Amidst all the buy low and sell high noise, one needs to take stock of trends along with the standings. For instance, representing one of the top two picks at the position, Blake Treinen seems a bit off compared to last year. He recorded his 13th save last night, but needed to work around a hit and two walks. Through four innings this month, Treinen’s walked five batters with only two strikeouts. Overall, his 3.16 ERA accompanies a 4.79 xFIP with a drop in ground ball percentage by over 12 percentage points while his walk rate continues to rise sitting at 12.7 percent, his highest rate over his career. It could be mechanics or a hangover from usage last year, but it needs to be monitored. Read the rest of this entry »

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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As a fantasy community, we liked Kenley Jansen and Craig Kimbrel a lot more than all of the other projected closers on draft day this year. Jansen and Kimbrel lapped the field of relievers in Roto value (per ESPN’s Player Rater) in 2017, and owners typically rewarded them with one of the first 50 overall picks. Aroldis Chapman, Corey Knebel and the most popular of the remaining relievers had to wait a bit longer to get their names called (or clicked on).
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