Archive for Chad Bettis

Tuesday night’s games confirmed for us what we have learned all too well through the first two months of the season, at least as it concerns the closer situations for the Twins, Red Sox and Rays. Their managers are committed to not having a set closer, and on any given night, they can make an unexpected decision in the late innings.

The final two innings of the Twins’ 5-3 win over the Brewers started off normally enough. Blake Parker came in for the top of the eighth with the Twins up, 5-0, and while that’s not his normal type of spot, he had appeared only twice in the previous 11 games. In yielding Keston Hiura’s two-run homer, Parker created a save situation, and it was no surprise to see Taylor Rogers come in to try to finish it off in the ninth. He started off the frame by hanging a slider to Yasmani Grandal, which he drove into the second deck to cut the lead down to two. Rogers rebounded to strike out Mike Moustakas and Jesus Aguilar, and it looked as if he was about to walk away with his fifth save.
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Chad Bettis is on the Rockies. You might be inclined to move on after the very first sentence of this post, but let me convince you otherwise.

Chad Bettis finished 2015 with a 4.23 ERA and 1.41 WHIP. However, on July 7th, he was shellacked in Colorado by the Angels. Excluding this 2.1 IP start, he would have ended the year with a 3.50 ERA and 1.33 WHIP. That has utility in most, especially deep leagues. I personally just drafted him in the 47th round of my only NFBC Draft Champions League thanks to his Arsenal Score, which is sandwiched between Dallas Keuchel and Max Scherzer.

Don’t get worked up. Bettis should not be in the same sentence – or matrix – as Keuchel and Scherzer. The matrix should be updated next week with pitch usage weights (increasing the Fastball value due to usage approximately three-fold to approximate MLB rates). This will drop Bettis in the rankings significantly. If we look at his 2015 sabermetric outcomes on his Brooks Baseball Player card, we can see that his Fastball whiff-per-swing rate is -0.74 standard deviations worse than the average fastball.

Still, the rest of his repertoire is great from a whiff/swing perspective:

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Prior to just a few weeks ago, Chad Bettis was an absolute after thought; he had struggled in previous chances in the bigs, even when pitching in relief, and didn’t seem to be a part of Colorado’s plans. A couple Rockies injuries and some ineffectiveness later, and Bettis has a sub-3.00 ERA in four MLB starts and a near 4/1 K/BB ratio. In order to get a better sense of what Bettis has been doing, I watched his start from last Sunday against the Giants, where he struck out seven in over eight innings of work.

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The Rockies parted with Huston Street at the GM meetings on Wednesday, trading him to the Padres for a player to be named later. The move saves Colorado $7 million that they hope to put toward acquiring a durable starter or a third baseman, but the reason the Rox were comfortable swapping Street is that they have a top-tier reliever ready for a shot at the closer’s spot. While Rafael Betancourt has to look over his shoulder at the likes of Rex Brothers, Matt Belisle and Matt Lindstrom, he’s got all the skills necessary to rank among the game’s best stoppers.

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