Archive for Joaquin Benoit

This post continues our Depth Chart Discussions. In an effort to suss out every team, we’ve divided them into four parts (infield, outfield, rotation, and bullpen) and will continue to break them down for you over the next few weeks. You can find the Depth Chart Discussion posts gathered here.

The San Diego Padres’ bullpen lacks name brand appeal, but it’s glorious. Friars’ relievers ranked just 14th in WAR (3.4), but boasted exceptional ranks in other categories ranking tied for third in SIERA (3.07), third in WHIP (1.14), and second in K-BB% (16.4%) and FIP (3.09). Those numbers are partly inflated by the brilliant 33 innings thrown by former closer Huston Street, who was dealt in July, but even in his absence this is a fantastic group. Read the rest of this entry »

Our Mock Draft is complete.

Team Schwartz/rounds drafted:

C: Travis d’Arnaud/17 1B: Victor Martinez/4 2B: Arismendy Alcantara/18 3B: Josh Donaldson/3 SS: Hanley Ramirez/2 MI: Jean Segura/19 CI: Prince Fielder/6 OF: Mike Trout/1; Mookie Betts/7; Ryan Zimmerman/10; A.J. Pollock/14; Steven Souza/20; Carl Crawford/24 U: Pedro Alvarez/21

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Any day now, Zach Sanders (@zvsanders) will come out with his end-of-season FAVRz/Fantasy Rankings. Look out for them.

For this post, I will provide three sets of rankings using that same approach (summed up z-scores) for our end-of-season “Bullpen Report: Expected Fantasy Rankings”. The Bullpen Report team should follow up with role reports for each division in the coming weeks as well.

The first set of rankings you will find almost anywhere: on the fantasy sites that you use, via player-raters, etc. It’s the standard 5×5 fantasy value (Wins, ERA, WHIP, SO and Saves). The second grid will be for 6×6 leagues (addition of Holds). The last grid will be for 5×5 and 6×6 leagues, but instead of standard ERA and WHIP, we’ll look at rankings if you were to use expected ERA (via SIERA) and adjusted (adj)WHIP through BABIP differential: I will explain below.

1) 5×5 Rankings (Wins, ERA, WHIP, SO and Saves) – actual 5×5 value in column 4; expected 5×5 value in column 5:

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Dodgers at Padres: Joaquin Benoit’s shoulder pain his back and Kevin Quackenbush should be owned in all leagues and perhaps for the rest of the season:

Why you’re not going to see #Padres closer Joaquin Benoit for a while http://t.co/LRTgQJhgQt

— Corey Brock (@FollowThePadres) August 31, 2014

It’s not yet known when Benoit will be available again. At this point, maybe assume 11 days like the last timeframe since it’s similar pain.

Yankees at Blue Jays: Future starter/ace, current september bullpen asset, Aaron Sanchez looked great striking out 3 in 2 scoreless innings for his first major league save. He threw 19 of his 28 pitches for strikes. And on 12 swings, the Yankees were only able to put the ball in play 3 times. His minimum fastball velocity was 96 MPH. The one breaking ball he threw was a beaut. to Derek Jeter on a 2-2 count. Probably anyone other than Jeter would have chased (just missed low). He’s only given up 1 ER in his last 8 appearances with a 12K:1BB ratio. IMO he’s got a great Sinker-Fourseam-Curveball repertoire in conjunction with the velocity to succeed longterm. He’s only thrown 3 Changeups thus far, but I’d assume that remains part of his starting repertorie. If so, more whiffs should come; the groundball induction is already apparent; and his command (4.3% BB-rate) thus far is a huge bonus.

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For my first Bullpen Report, I wanted to provide additional value so I blasted “Enter Sandman” and sprinted toward my office to write this.

Below the report of yesterday’s games, you will find rankings for 5×5 (W,ERA,WHIP,K,SV) and 6×6 (+Holds) leagues based on Zach Sander’s FVARz approach. For reference, I used 108 active Pitchers = 9 P x 12 teams and 25 IP as a qualifier. Why 25? I didn’t want to leave Ken Giles off the list.

But there’s more. In addition to their fantasy value, I’ve z-scored outcomes on the plate appearance level to depict pitcher skill (K%-BB%, Ct%, GB/FB, F-Str%, and IFFB% weighed by their correlations to ERA) and luck (BABIP, HR/FB and LOB% weighed by their correlations to ERA) thus far this season. To back up the top 20 relievers ranked by my “Skill” Score, I also furnished grids on their pitch outcomes, which depicts how well their individual pitches induce whiffs and grounders vs. flies.

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Saves are king when it comes to the value of relievers in fantasy baseball, but in the right type of league, top middle relievers can be very useful. In leagues with start limits, top middle relievers can help with ratios and, maybe more importantly, they can help you rack up strikeouts, which is a category than can be a tight race in start limit leagues.

To determine who the most valuable relievers have been so far, I took the top 100 relievers from ESPN’s player rater and stripped out the categorical contributions from wins and saves. I took out saves because most closers are owned, and you probably don’t need help chasing saves. I took out wins because they’re even harder to predict for relievers than they are for starters. Below is a list of the relievers with the greatest combined contributions in ERA, WHIP and Ks on the player rater so far this year along with their ESPN ownership percentage. Read the rest of this entry »

When the news broke that the Tigers signed veteran closer Joe Nathan, Detroit GM Dave Dombrowski also announced that the team and the man who finished the 2013 season as their closer, Joaquin Benoit, would be parting ways, citing that the 35-year old righthander was no longer “a fit for the Tigers.” With that, Benoit jumped into the free agent pool and came away with a two-year, $15.5 million contract from the San Diego Padres where he is expected to fill the exact same role he filled for Detroit when he first signed with them back in 2011; a bridge between starter and closer with the potential to close out games, if needed. The deal works well for both parties as Benoit gets a contract comparable to what free agent closers have been getting and the Padres get a replacement for, and upgrade to, Luke Gregerson. Read the rest of this entry »

– Craig Kimbrel locked down his 9th save on 10 pitches tonight in a 3-2 Braves victory over the Nationals. The right-hander whiffed just one batter in the top of the ninth-inning resulting in a dip of his K% from 38.9% to 38.5% on the season. Oof. Kimbrel is now 9-of-10 in save opportunities with a 1.69 ERA (1.03 FIP) on the year. But the narrative shouldn’t just be about ninth-inning man here. Fredi Gonazlez summonsed both Jordan Walden and Eric O’Flaherty from the ‘pen prior to calling on the closer. Combined, Walden and O’Flaherty dished 2.2 clean innings while fanning five Nationals. Entering tonight, the Braves bullpen held a 2.18 ERA (2.84 FIP) in 70.1 IP. Not bad.

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–Addison Reed notched his third save of the season — tying him for the early league lead after the first week with Sergio Romo — dishing a perfect ninth-inning as the White Sox clipped the Mariners, 4-3. The 24-year-old Reed induced a Dustin Ackley groundout to first, then fanned pinch-hitters Franklin Gutierrez and Jesus Montero to seal the deal. The prescription was a steady diet of sliders to both Gutierrez and Montero, each of whom ended their at-bats with swings-and-misses on Reed’s preferred offering.

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Round and round she goes; where she stops, nobody knows.  This closer carousel that keeps spinning around this season is starting to become downright unbearable.  They say never to pay a premium for saves on draft day because they’ll be abundant on your waiver wire, but this is ridiculous.  Now it’s getting to the point where you shouldn’t be spending so much of your FAAB dollars either because the shelf-life of a closer in 2012 is about a week.  Here’s a look at who’s getting the baton passed to them now… Read the rest of this entry »