Archive for Jim Henderson

In the summer of 2009, Brandon Kintzler wasn’t a highly-touted prospect cruising through the Milwaukee Brewers’ farm system. He was just another former 40th-round pick, toiling through his third-consecutive season in the independent leagues and trying to catch the eye of any professional organization.

The Brewers fortuitously had a scout at the American Association’s All-Star Game in Grand Prairie, Texas, where they saw Kintzler pitch two scoreless innings for the North Division in which he struck out three and walked no one. The two sides quickly agreed on a contract, and just one season later at age-25, the right-hander made his major-league debut against the Chicago Cubs.

Although he began to turn heads in Milwaukee during the 2011 season, a season-ending arm injury set him back once again. Rehab proved difficult. He continued to feel discomfort in his elbow in spring training the following year, but all nerve tests and MRIs repeatedly came back clean showing no issues. Doctors eventually diagnosed him with a strained forearm. It took the majority of the season for him to regain his arm strength, but when he did, he worked his way back to the majors and appeared in 14 games in September and October.

The 2013 season found Kintzler completely healthy for the first time in almost two years, and he took full advantage. He posted a 2.54 FIP in 77.0 innings and eventually wiggled his way into the primary set-up role by the end of the campaign. The strikeout numbers are not what fantasy owners would prefer, as he only managed a 6.78 K/9 strikeout rate, but he induced a myriad of ground balls, kept the baseball in the ballpark and issued very few free passes. That resulted in a supremely effective, if unspectacular, season.

While fellow right-hander Jim Henderson possesses a firm grip on the closer’s role in Milwaukee, Kintzler is primed for a full season of high-leverage usage. He should handle the eighth inning for manager Ron Roenicke, and I’m expecting another season of significant success. It may even be fantasy-relevant success, too.

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On Wednesday afternoon, the Brewers and Reds played a matinee in Milwaukee. Thanks to run-scoring eighth-inning hits by Carlos Gomez & Ryan Braun, the Brewers entered the bottom of the ninth with a narrow 3-2 lead. Yet when they trotted out to finish off their victory, it wasn’t behind regular closer John Axford, who’d finished ninth in the Cy Young Award voting in 2011, or even backup closer Francisco Rodriguez, still the record-holder for most saves in a season. It was 29-year-old Jim Henderson, a veteran of ten minor-league seasons (and former Expos draftee!) who’d been called up to make his major league debut less than two weeks earlier, on July 26.

Henderson retired three of the four hitters he saw with two strikeouts, his second save in as many games, and all of a sudden the struggling Milwaukee bullpen has an interesting new contender for saves, an idea almost unthinkable at the beginning of the season. Of course, no one would have expected a bullpen led by Axford & Rodriguez to be quite this bad, but the numbers don’t lie:

Milwaukee bullpen (stats entering Wednesday)
ERA: 4.90, worst in MLB
BB/9: 4.25, 29^th in MLB
AVG: .271, 29^th in MLB
WHIP: 1.55, worst in MLB
LOB%: 68.1, 29^th in MLB
LD%: 23.8, worst in MLB
HR/FB%: 13.1, 27^th in MLB
BS: 21, 29^th in MLB

Some of those statistics are admittedly imperfect and there are others that show the Brewer relief corps in a better light, but it’s hard to look at that list and not think this is one of the worst-performing groups in the game. It’s a team effort that’s not entirely on Axford (4.23 FIP/5.21 ERA) and Rodriguez (4.48 FIP/5.48 ERA), but they’re clearly the worst offenders among those with any real playing time. Rodriguez in particular has been brutal since July 1 (9.23 ERA), and each has been shuffled in and out of high-leverage roles this year as Ron Roenicke struggles to find some sort of success at the back end of his staff.

Now, when Henderson received his first save opportunity on Monday, it could be chalked up to a simple matter of availability, since Axford & Rodriguez had each thrown 24 or more pitches on Sunday. What made yesterday’s save chance so interesting is that Rodriguez was never used and that Axford came in with the Brewers down 2-1 in the eighth, not exactly the usage one would expect for a closer. Though Roenicke has declined to make anything official, the struggles of his two incumbents and the way in which he used Henderson on Wednesday may indicate a willingness to play the hot hand.

So who is Jim Henderson, anyway? Like Axford, he’s a Canadian finally making his debut in his late 20s after years toiling in the minors; also like Axford, he’s always had a powerful arm but struggled with both control and harnessing secondary pitches. In 48 Triple-A innings this year, he struck out 10.5 per 9 while also walking 4.1 per nine, though he’s managed to get off to a sparkling 10/1 K/BB start in the bigs, averaging over 95 miles per hour on his fastball.

As we say often, closers are made, not born, and simply getting the opportunity to be on the mound in the ninth can transform an uninspiring fantasy option into a valuable one, simply because of that one stat. It’s premature to expect that Henderson has suddenly leaped over Axford to become the primary Milwaukee closer, yet with Axford struggling and Rodriguez all but unusable right now, it’s easy to see Henderson becoming a cheap short-term source of saves if you’re in need. The Brewers have Thursday off before heading into Houston to start a series with the atrociously bad Astros, a set in which they’re all but guaranteed to have a lead heading into the late innings at least once. If and when that happens, it’ll be tremendously interesting to see who Roenicke sends out in the ninth.

• Jim Henderson earned his second career save in as many nights this evening as the Brewers clipped the Reds, 3-2. The 6-foot-5 right-hander was asked to close out the Reds after John Axford entered in the top of the eighth-inning with the Crew down a run. Axford sat down the Reds in order, but instead of the mustache running back out for the ninth after the Brewers claimed the lead, Ron Roenicke decided to use Henderson for the second consecutive save opportunity. It’s nearly impossible to get into the heads of the managers — especially those with unreliable bullpens — but I suggest adding Henderson now if you’re chasing saves, worry about definitive roles later.
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