Archive for Kelvin Herrera

With Kelvin Herrera having returned from the DL last Tuesday and Ryan Madson (back) and Sean Doolittle (toe) on the mend, it looked as if the injury-plagued Nationals bullpen was finally going to enjoy some stability. That just might not be in the cards, though, as Herrera injured his foot in the Nationals’ 15-0 win over Mets on Sunday. In just his second appearance since getting activated, Herrera hurt himself while fielding a Jose Bautista grounder, and he had to be carted off the field. X-rays taken after the game came back negative, but he is scheduled for more tests on Monday.
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Largely by default, Koda Glover was thrust into the Nationals’ closer role when the team put Ryan Madson (back) on the 10-day disabled list this past Tuesday. It has not gone swimmingly. Just before Madson was placed on the DL. Glover took a loss against the Cardinals on Monday, giving up a walk-off home run to Paul DeJong, and while he got the save in Thursday’s series finale, he allowed the tying run to get into scoring position.

On Saturday night, Glover was called on to keep the Nationals in a tie with the Marlins in the top of the 10th inning, but after getting into trouble again, there was no escape this time. Back-to-back one-out singles put the go-ahead run in scoring position, and after a force out and an intentional walk, Isaac Galloway brought home two runs on a bloop single into center field. Since the Nationals failed to rally in the bottom of the inning, Glover was left with his second loss in six days.
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When Kyle Barraclough had to get bailed out to prevent him from blowing his fourth straight save on Monday, that was the last straw for Don Mattingly. On Tuesday, the Marlins’ manager announced he was removing Barraclough from the closer’s role, though his replacement “was not going to be one guy.” Drew Steckenrider, who has been used consistently as the eighth-inning setup reliever, would be a strong candidate to get the Marlins’ next save chance, though a report from MLB.com beat writer Joe Frisaro cited Adam Conley and Tayron Guerrero as candidates to close as well.
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Kelvin Herrera got his first save with the Nationals on Sunday, tossing 1.2 scoreless innings in a 6-2 win over the Braves. While Herrera has posted a 1.62 WHIP since leaving the Royals, he should receive at least a few more save opportunities. That’s because Sean Doolittle has been diagnosed with a stress reaction in his left foot that could keep him out for a few more weeks (though probably not for months).

Ryan Madson could be in the mix as well, either if Herrera continues to put runners on base or if there are situations where Davey Martinez opts to use his primary replacement closer to face the tougher part of the lineup prior to the ninth inning. Then again, Madson has had difficulty getting hitters to chase bad pitches, just like Herrera has. Over his last six innings, Madson has a 2.17 WHIP and a paltry 21.7 percent O-Swing rate.
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Sean Doolittle was named to his first National League All-Star team on Sunday (he was also an American League All-Star with Oakland in 2014), and he’s clearly been worthy of the distinction in both the real and fantasy worlds. He has compiled a 1.45 ERA, 0.54 WHIP, 22 saves and 49 strikeouts to date and ranks as the top reliever in terms of Roto value in the NL (per ESPN’s Player Rater).

Not all of the news for Doolittle was positive on Sunday. Earlier in the day, reports surfaced of Doolittle having a strained toe. By multiple accounts, the injury is minor, and he may even have been able to pitch in the series finale against the Marlins. It was a moot point, as the Marlins won in a 10-2 laugher.
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Thursday’s slate was short on games and also short on any sort of closer developments. We also got a break from the ongoing late-inning soap opera being acted out for us by the Brewers and Cardinals. The former team had the night off, while the latter blew out the Reds, 13-4.

Oddly enough, the Cardinals’ bullpen produced one of the two saves recorded on Thursday. Mike Mayers pitched the final three innings, giving the late-inning contingent a rest during a lopsided game. Mayers shut out the Reds over his three frames, allowing only a double, a single and a walk while striking out two batters.
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Kelvin Herrera’s latest hiatus due to forearm issues was a brief one. The Royals’ closer was lifted early last Friday against the Twins with tightness in his lower forearm, but according to the Kansas City Star, he was available again for Tuesday night’s game in Detroit. The Tigers won handily, 13-2, so Herrera wasn’t needed.

Given that Herrera has been lifted twice in the last two weeks with forearm tightness, it is hard to trust that he will be healthy and effective from here on out. In both cases where Herrera had to leave early in the middle of a save opportunity, it was Scott Alexander who was called in to finish the job. On Monday, with Herrera resting, Brandon Maurer started off the ninth inning to protect a four-run lead against the Tigers, but after allowing a Nicholas Castellanos three-run homer with one out and a pair of two-out singles, Alexander had to come to the rescue again. With a Mikie Mahtook force out, Alexander got his third career save, and each one required just a single out.
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The sheer amount of data points we have at our fingertips these days, while immensely useful, can be overwhelming. Seemingly, any one player, particularly this early in the season, can surge to the top of the leaderboard of your most trusted stat. One of my favorite heuristics for identifying sustainable breakout performances is very simple. Based on a handful of my favorite peripherals, I filter the leaderboards for those performing above average across all of them, in effect isolating standouts while hedging against the inherent volatility of performing well in a single stat. It’s not perfect but it’s a quick-and-dirty methodology that serves its purpose. 

Last week, I presented a list of pitchers who were better than average across K-BB%, swinging strike rate, Zone-Contact percentage, and ground ball rate. I focused on a few available starters while promising to cover some of the relievers this week. Lowering the innings threshold a tad (min. 14 IP), here are the relief pitchers all boasting better than average performances across the board in the aforementioned stats along with their ownership rates in Yahoo! leagues.

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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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Having the flu is a nightmare. The sweats, the all-night restlessness, the purging of all sorts of disgustingness from the body, it’s awful. Some like to huddle up under the covers all day for comfort. Some like to sip on some warm chicken soup. You know what makes me feel better? That’s right — the Kansas City Royals bullpen. Last season’s darlings in powder blue collectively posted a 7.3 WAR (second in the majors), a 9.57 K/9 (first), and a collective 2.55 ERA (second) over 461.2 innings. It was a thing of beauty, and best of all, they’re all returning again this season. Read the rest of this entry »