Archive for hunter strickland

A somewhat wild Friday evening will leave some fantasy owners sleepless about Seattle. Hunter Strickland will undergo an MRI on Saturday after experiencing tightness in the back of his shoulder. It could be inflammation, but resulted in Strickland blowing his first save of the year after convincing his manager to leave him in. Strickland allowed two hits, including a three-run home run to Mitch Moreland, and a walk in one-third of an inning. Roenis Elias finished the ninth inning getting a strikeout versus the two hitters he faced. If Strickland does land on the injured list, this could signal a committee approach in Seattle until Anthony Swarzak returns.

Hard to say which right-handed reliever will emerge, but Matt Festa or Cory Gearrin could get save chances along with either Zac Rosscup or Elias if facing a left-handed lean in the final stanza. Plan accordingly. Read the rest of this entry »

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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Among yesterday’s developments, I was pretty certain nothing was going to top the Cubs losing their closer due to an injury sustained while taking his pants off. I was wrong.

After blowing a save against the Marlins on Monday night, Hunter Strickland then lost a fight with a door. The Giants’ closer punched said door and broke his right hand. He underwent surgery on his right pinky finger on Tuesday and is expected to be out for six-to-eight weeks. Bruce Bochy wasted little time in anointing Sam Dyson as his new primary closer, and promptly used him to nail down a save against the Marlins on Tuesday night. With Tony Watson apparently off after pitching on consecutive days, Will Smith pitched the eighth inning and stayed in to begin the ninth with lefties J.B. Shuck and Derek Dietrich due up, but after walking pinch hitter Yadiel Rivera and striking out Dietrich, he gave way to Dyson. The sinkerballer, who happens to have a 64.8 percent ground ball rate, got Brian Anderson to hit into a game-ending double play.
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For the second time in less than 24 hours, the Marlins helped themselves with a sacrifice fly off Hunter Strickland. On Wednesday night, it was Brian Anderson’s deep fly to center field that brought in Miguel Rojas to score the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning. Then on Thursday, Strickland was brought in with a one-run lead in the ninth inning. Three batters into the frame, he engaged in a nine-pitch battle with Lewis Brinson that concluded with a flyball to the warning track. That drive scored Starlin Castro and tied the game up. In fairness to Strickland, Castro had reached on a Joe Panik error, and the night before, he had inherited two runners from Reyes Moronta.

With Mark Melancon back, it may seem like Strickland has less margin for error, but the Giants’ former closer is far from the most immediate threat to the incumbent’s job security. Tony Watson has been spectacular lately, not allowing a run over his last 8.1 innings while striking out 13 batters and yielding only a single and a walk. Sam Dyson stumbled a bit in the Marlins series, allowing three runs (two earned) in 1.1 innings, but prior to that, he had allowed one run over a 13.1-inning span with 17 strikeouts and four walks.
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Bullpen Report – March, 30th 2018

With only eight wins on the season, the Orioles closer job has been pretty tough to speculate on so far this season. However, manager Buck Showalter did fantasy owners a big favor Sunday night by laying his cards on the table in their 5-3 victory over the Detroit Tigers.

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All 13 Tampa Bay Rays fans in attendance last night almost got a little too much excitement with their “closer” once again. Romo and Colome were both warming in the bullpen, up by three runs, as the Rangers threatened with two on, two out in the bottom of the eighth.

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The first day of the 2018 season did not lack for closer drama, and the bumpy ride for some fantasy owners began even before the first pitch. After weeks of speculation over how Cardinals manager Mike Matheny would split up save chances among Dominic Leone, Tyler Lyons and Luke Gregerson (hamstring), once he returns from the 10-day disabled list, Greg Holland stepped into the picture and shredded all of those narratives. The Cardinals signed Holland to a one-year, $14 million deal, and he instantly became the uncontested closer in St. Louis.

A cursory glance at Holland’s 2017 stat line with Colorado — particularly his 3.61 ERA — might give the impression that he had a, you know, rocky first season back from Tommy John surgery, but bulk of his difficulties came during a three-week period in August. During that slump, Holland coughed up 14 runs in 6.1 innings. He had a sub-2.00 ERA prior to that stretch, and went back to a sub-2.00 ERA for the period following the downturn. Even Holland’s 29.8 percent strikeout rate from last season, which was well below his marks from his peak years of 2013 and 2014, could have been an illusion. His 15.2 percent swinging strike rate and 44.3 percent swing rate look right in place with his rates from his best seasons.
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Truth be told, I’ve been dreading this piece for months. Before joining Rotographs this season, I always enjoyed this series as much for revisiting the predictions at the end of the year as reading them in the first place. But of the 30 or so pieces I’ve written this year, Bold Predictions is easily my worst. Not only did I miss but I missed spectacularly. I missed in part because I went too bold but most painfully because I was sloppy. Want to know what I mean by sloppy? I predicted Greg Bird would out-perform Mark Teixeira. Seven weeks after he was lost for the season. I also got too specific, ambitiously adding milestones when broad declarations would have more than sufficed. I’m not going to enjoy what follows but without further ado, let’s Bring the Pain.

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Barry Bonds leads the Marlins in home runs. OK, so this won’t happen but you so know he could.

1. Aaron Hicks finishes as a top 24 outfielder

I made my fondness of Hicks pretty apparent in a previous piece on the Yankees’ playing time battles. In limited plate appearances last season, Hicks kept some pretty impressive company combining speed, power, and plate discipline. In fact, over 600 plate appearances, his numbers pro-rated to a 17/20 season. Moving from Target Field to Yankee Stadium, a 20/20 season seems plausible.

For Hicks, it comes down to two things: playing time and improvement versus righties. Given that Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran are the walking embodiments of a week old French loaf, the boldness in this prediction comes from betting on gains against righties. If he can do it, watch out.

Continuing with the Yankees…

2. The three most valuable position players on the Yankees at year’s end will all start the year as backups or minor leaguers

Of course for this prediction to come true, it hinges on the first. Perhaps it’s unwise to compound predictions. Perhaps I should diversify. Perhaps I’m just really excited for a Yankees youth movement. And no, I’m not a Yankees fan, apparently just an enthusiastic observer.

So obviously, I’m talking about the aforementioned Hicks. The other two missing pieces to the Morris Avenue Miracle are Greg Bird and Gary Sanchez. We saw what Bird was capable of last season when his number was called and ZiPS’ confidence in him bodes well.

Sanchez is the real stretch here but given his advanced approach at the plate and that he held his own as a 22 year old catcher in AAA, it’s not out of the realm possibility that given an opportunity, he provides above average production at a premium position. Now Top 3 on the Yankees? Look, this ain’t 2009 but this team still scored the second most runs in the AL last season. A lot has to go right for this to happen.

So, let’s say the Yankees lose Mark Teixeira for a prolonged period because, I don’t know, he hurts his wrist or he falls into a coma after watching one of his post-game interviews. Brian McCann strains a back muscle yelling at someone flipping a bat. Meanwhile, Hicks has already carved out a spot in the lineup spelling Ellsbury or Beltran and the offense teems with the Yankees’ future realized a couple years early. It could happen.

I suppose if you’re being litigious, you could argue that a breakout year by Dustin Ackley could place him in the top 3, making this prediction come true. And to that I say fine. Except that would never happen because everyone knows that the dividing line between a bold prediction and a crazy one is Dustin Ackley.

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The Giants’ biennial odd-year failures are well documented. By now, Giants fans know that if it’s an odd-year, they can safely leave town on Columbus Day weekend, volunteer at their NPR affiliate’s fall pledge drive, or spend a weekend up in Santa Rosa picking delightfully fragrant organic Braeburn apples in-season. But odd-year apple seasons bring Brian Sabean neither respite nor rich phytonutrients. For it’s a time when baseball’s longest-tenured GM must roll up his sleeves and construct yet another World Series winner.

This past October, Sabean set his sights on filling a gaping hole in center field and rebuilding a rotation that ranked 25th in WAR. So he signed Denard Span, Johnny Cueto, and Jeff Samardzija to multi-year contracts, undoubtedly improving the team in 2016. And that’s more or less it. Needs addressed.

From a fantasy perspective, there isn’t so much a battle for the final rotation spot as the inevitability that injuries to Matt Cain or others will open the door for Chris Heston and conceivably a few promising young pitchers. With that in mind, we take a look at those pitchers vying for the final spot in the Giants’ rebuilt rotation.

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