Archive for Jonathan Papelbon

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

Closer/Setup Men:

Fishing for a closer?

Draft Jenrry Mejia and you may feel like doing this:

Jenrry Mejia. So pumped. pic.twitter.com/iy8HR5yrZu

— MLB GIFS (@MLBGIFs) July 26, 2014

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The closer grid is updated below, but first up is your current rankings for 5×5 (W,SO,ERA,WHIP,SV), 6×6 (+HLD) and rate-stat (K/9, BB/9, HR/9, H/9, ERA) leagues using z-scores (rate stats adjusted by IP) for each category. It’s currently sorted by the standard 5×5 format. Scroll to the right for all of the individual z-scores in gray. I highlighted the relievers in green:

Here is yesterday morning’s review of Friday’s games including a grundle-grab reference, Edward Mujica probably sticking at closer, Drew Storen definitely sticking at closer, a White Sox closer swap rewarded with shakiness, and an update on Glen Glen Glen!

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Phillies at Athletics: Ken Giles is the closer! This has already happened, but It’s my first BP Report since the Jonathan Papelbon grundle-grab, and I wanted to type it. I also wanted to type grundle-grab. Giles hasn’t had a save opportunity yet and his only 9th since was on 9/17. Sean Doolittle converted his 22nd save with 100% fastballs. Much of his success comes from throwing high, hard and historic which he did here:

I get two BP reports in a row so today i’ll focus a bit more on the game decisions and updates. Tomorrow I’ll get back to my normal per-pitch effect and component-comparison deal. I’ll also furnish an updated rankings list for your different league formats. I’m thinking the following:

5×5 (ERA,WHIP,W,K,SV)

6×6 (ERA,WHIP,W,K,SV + HOLDS)

5×5 Rate Stats Leagues (K/9, BB/9, HR/9, H/9, RA/9).

Any other formats? Shoot me a note in the comments section and maybe i’ll include it in tomorrow’s different rankings.

Indians at Twins: Glen Perkins has finally been shut down and Jared Burton will continue to consume closing responsibilities. While a MRI revealed no damage to his UCL (great news), he’ll be shutdown with a forearm strain and nerve irritation in his elbow. Strengthening and two months should do the trick. Burton got the win yesterday in 2/3 IP while Cody Allen blew his fourth save of the season through a Suzuki Double, Arcia Single and a botched double play ball.

Red Sox at Orioles: Edward Mujica got his 7th save of the season through three balls in play which is what we’ll continue to see from Mujica about 78% of the time (80% general contact-rate). Koji Uehara last pitched on 9/16 striking out the side. I just don’t see much motivation for them to make the swap at this point, but i’ll still swap him and Tazawa in the grid below. Zach Britton kept the game scoreless in the 9th and Darren O’Day continued his all or nothing month with a mistake and loss to David Ortiz. This says it all:

That red quadrilateral dead center? Yup, Ortiz capitalized.

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A’s at M’s: Sean Doolittle is back, looked sharp and earned his 21st save the season. Since his last save on August 23rd, there was one lonely save by Eric O’Flaherty. The A’s went 6 and 14 over that timeframe. It was a big win for the A’s who kept the Mariners one game back from their Wildcard lead thanks in part to Doolittle’s clean return (1 IP, 1K), but thanks more in part to a Fernando Rodney implosion (1 IP, 4 straight walks in the top of the 10th). To date, using 50 IP as the qualifier, Sean Doolittle owns the 3rd best K%-BB% rate in the history of baseball, 36.2%, thanks in part to the 20th best K% ever (38.6%) and the  26th best BB% ever (2.4%). Incredible. Enjoy his high fastball in a time where not many others have this lethal high fastball and hitters focus with their chins down.

Astros at Angels: Angels keep winning: their 10th straight behind two Trout homers. Lefty specialist and deep bullpen option Joe Thatcher was activated from the DL. Austin Powers has forever ruined his last name for me: Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day….Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day! Huston Street earned save 14 for the Angels (38 in total). He gave up 1 hit, struck out 1 and looks as though he’s fine after being sidelined with a hamstring injury. Noncloser note: Jered Weaver continues to deceive. I strolled across this while preparing a 2015 Mets Rotation post…Jered Weaver owns the 9th best zone-contact rate for starters this year, and despite diminishing velocity, hitters are relatively swinging at much less stuff in the zone against him (14th best SP rate) confirming his continued deception.

Rays at Blue Jays: Usually I’m pointing to just how dominating Brad Boxberger has been, but perhaps he needs a little break despite only pitching in 4 of the last 8 days. It’s 2 appearances in a row now he’s given up a homer. He earned his 2nd loss of the season yesterday. With less than a month left of the season, if you’re in a saves-only league mayyybe it’s worth dropping Boxberger since Jake McGee is still the (very effective) closer. Casey Janssen confirmed that he’s still the Blue Jays’ closer earning himself save #23.

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First, the ?’s.

Second, the historical K%’s.

And of course, the Grid…

1) The ?’s

Angels at Twins: Glen Perkins has a sore neck (received a MRI after tingling, but there was no structural damage). Ron Gardy said he should be back within a few a days so I wouldn’t jump to the waiver wire for anyone. We didn’t get a chance to see who would have had the opportunity to close out the games for the Twins tonight. While it was presumably Jared Burton, he received the loss, getting beat by a Albert Pujols double after a single (Cron) and walk (Trout) and then Anthony Swarzak let in the inherited runner.  Huston Street earned save #37. That’s 3 straight appearances for Street and he could potentially use the day off tomorrow. He only has 2 k’s in through his last 5 appearances, and his win yesterday came from a blown save. He induced only 1 whiff from 6 swings tonight.

Astros at Athletics: Sean Doolittle had a successful bullpen session today and should be activated next week. Until then, it’s still Eric O’Flaherty closing out games. David Wiers called O’Flaherty a wild-card for the closing role prior to the season and the ground ball rate (58+%) and weak contact (.213 BABIP) holds true. Tonight, Luke Gregerson pitched a scoreless 9th for the win. Heck, if you’re own a hold league, why not own the entire Oakland bullpen next year?

Chad Qualls remains under the weather with a case of the shaky qualls. He let both of Scott Feldman’s inherited runners score and then gave up the winning single to blow a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the 9th. I would think and hope that Tony Sipp is next up  for the closing role. Other than a shellacking on 8/25 (4BB and 4 ER without recording an out), he’s been lights out since 8/12 (12 K’s, 0 BB’s and only 1 hit). Yesterday, he struck out 4 of 7 batters. I’d like to see him with the gig.

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• White Sox at Yankees: David Robertson furnished save #34. D-Rob has only blown 2 saves all year this year and has done an awfully good job displacing Mariano Rivera. In fact, as a closer, Mariano Rivera never reached a 30% K-Rate and his career contact rate was 79.7%. D-Rob has a sub-70% contact rate this year and could be even better next year assuming the luck stats (BABIP based on his inflated line drive rate this year; HR/FB and LOB%) all take a step forward next year. It will be interesting to see where D-Rob lands next year considering he deserves a big payday and the Yankees still have another dominate K%(39.9%)/Contact%(70%) reliever in Dellin Betances. D-Rob got the 10th best K%-BB% in baseball right now: 28.5% tied with Koji Uehara.
• Rays at Blue Jays: Casey Janssen has offset an awful K-rate with the best BB-rate of his career, but he walked Wil Myers tonight to start the 9th and blew a save after a couple of singles. Brad Boxberger pulls an Armando Benitez and gives up a 2R-HR to Dioner Navarro and a double to Colby Rasmus. We were getting pretty spoiled with Boxberger: 8 scoreless innings since August 10th with a 13:1 K:BB ratio and only 3 hits. Between Koji Uehara yesterday as well as Boxberger and Ken Giles today, the R2M (Regression to the Means) Monster hit me hard this weekend.

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I wanted to highlight Pitcher over and under performers. Naturally, Mike Podhorzer has already done that and more concisely and eloquently than I ever could. In conjunction to what he did (ERA vs. SIERA within this year), I wanted to look at pitchers’ skills and luck relative to last year.

By “skills” I mean K%-BB%, combined Contact% and SwStr%, GB/FB and IFFB%. These columns are in green.

By “luck” I mean BABIP, LOB% and HR/FB. These are in some emotional shade of red.

I took all the 2014 vs. 2013 differentials and z-scored them. I summed them up and presented them under column 3 (“SKILL”) and column 4 (“LUCK”). In short, these are not their skill and luck scores for 2014, but their change relative to 2013…in relation to how much everyone else from this list changed (50 IP qualifier).

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–Steve Cishek surrendered a leadoff single, but an induced groundout sandwiched between two strikeouts got him out of the ninth-inning unscathed enroute to his 23rd save. The lanky right-hander is now 23-of-25 on the season — his last blown save coming on June 4th against the Phillies — and sports a 3.08 ERA (2.94 FIP) and a 1.15 WHIP. As we look further into (some of) Cishek’s numbers entering tonight, it seems as if he’s pretty close to being the same pitcher he’s been since entering the league. His velocity appears to be holding steady on each of his offerings, both his swinging strike rate (9.2%) and whiff rate (23.9%) are right inline with his career numbers and his batted ball profile hasn’t changed all that much.
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The Phillies bullpen is a healthy blend of veteran and younger arms that improved greatly this offseason with the addition of veteran Mike Adams. The backend of Bastardo, Papelbon and the aforementioned Adams should provide fantasy owners fine production in 2013 — especially those in holds+saves leagues.

The Closer:

Jonathan Papelbon

Papelbon is the model of consistency at arguably the most inconsistent position in baseball. The Phillies’ right-hander took the hill a minimum of 59 games and saved at least 31 in each of the last six seasons between Boston and Philadelphia. Papelbon doesn’t exactly post Kimbrelian type strikeout numbers — but a 32.0 K% in ‘12 and a career 29.9% K% is nothing to be ashamed of. It does appear that Pap lost a tick on each of his three offerings, so one may want to keep an eye on that. But if you’re the type of fantasy owner that believes in paying for saves — but not as much as it would cost to snag Craig Kimbrel — then Papelbon is your guy.

The Setup Guys:

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• Tom Wilhelmsen needed 19 pitches in Toronto to earn his 26th save of 2012. Wilhelmsen surrendered a walk, but fanned two and induced a fly ball to lock down his seventh consecutive save. The Mariners ninth-inning man is now 4-3 on the year with 26 saves, a 2.50 ERA (1.14 WHIP) and a 2.33 K/BB. Wilhelmsen’s save tally is good enough for 12th-best season in club history, which is a huge accomplishment considering he didn’t take over the role until June 4th — 59 games into the season.
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