Archive for saves

There wasn’t too much noteworthy bullpen activity on Saturday, besides Addison Reed’s high-wire act against the Angels, which he and the Mets ultimately survived. Sunday was much the same, save for a few relevant items:

• Koda Glover was the first man out of the Nationals bullpen, and it came with the Nats leading 3-2 with two outs and the tying run on second base in the eighth inning. Despite the fact that lefty Nick Markakis was due up, and left-hander Oliver Perez was getting loose along with Glover, manager Dusty Baker went with the righty and the decision paid off. Glover fanned Markakis on a 96 mph fastball, then, with the same score in the bottom of the ninth, Glover came back out to the mound. He surrendered a leadoff single, but then induced a double-play lineout and a game-ending popup. It was the 24-year-old’s third save of the season, and it came just two days after Shawn Kelley, who was seemingly first in line for saves in a beleaguered Nationals bullpen, pitched in the seventh inning of a tie game. As such, the bullpen situation in Washington remains highly volatile and red. Glover slots into the closer’s spot on the chart for now, but that is subject to change at any moment. Expect future save opportunities to go to one of the two, at least, though neither is a clear long-term favorite.

Read the rest of this entry »

Nothing all that momentous occurred in bullpens on Wednesday. Mark Melancon got activated two days ahead of schedule, ending the brief but largely successful run of Derek Law. Dellin Betances recorded his first save of the season by getting one out on four pitches. Ben Taylor got his first career save, because the Red Sox had already used their other seven relievers in a 13-inning affair in St. Louis.

But the biggest impact on a closer situation came on Tuesday. Mariners manager Scott Servais announced he was removing Edwin Diaz from the closer’s role, as the 23-year-old’s struggles came to a head on Monday. Diaz walked four straight batters and had to be removed with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning in an eventual 6-5 win over the Athletics. Servais told the Seattle Times he planned on mixing and matching any of four relievers — Steve Cishek, Tony Zych, Nick Vincent and Marc Rzepczynski — in save situations. Read the rest of this entry »

Two of the more noteworthy closer developments occurred off the field on Wednesday. Terry Collins told the Bergen Record that Jeurys Familia has been returned to the closer’s role. This means the end to his phase-in period following his 15-game suspension for a violation of Major League Baseball’s domestic violence policy. Collins had used Familia in non-save situations for his first three appearances. This also means the end of Addison Reed’s solid run as the Mets’ closer, which resulted in four saves but also a loss to the Marlins in which he gave up a walk-off home run to J.T. Riddle to break a ninth-inning tie.

In his 2 2/3 innings to date, Familia has six strikeouts and 11 swinging strikes, but he has also walked four batters. If I own Reed, I’m hanging on to him if possible, at least until Familia shows that he will be reliable now that he is back in the closer’s role.

Read the rest of this entry »

Spring training is just days away, and that’s our queue to take stock of bullpens around the majors. This is the first of six installments that will take a look at how bullpens are lining up, one division at a time. We begin with the National League Central.

Read the rest of this entry »

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:

Read the rest of this entry »

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!

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

While the Orioles are making headlines with signings of Ubaldo Jimenez and Nelson Cruz, it’s time to take a look at another aspect of the team in which they’ve made some changes. Gone is Jim Johnson, a two-time 50-save closer for the O’s and while they were all set to bring in free agent Grant Balfour, they were unhappy with the results of his physical and opted to fill the vacancy in-house. So let’s take a look at what Baltimore’s bullpen is looking like right now. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

As you may have surmised, this week we here at RotoGraphs are looking at relief pitchers this week. Much of the focus tends to be spent on closers, but seeing as how volatile the ‘position’ is, the set-up men deserve their proper due. And one of the more reliable set-up men over the last few years who certainly deserves the recognition is none other than Luke Gregerson. The former Padres reliever has been a staple in the San Diego bullpen and given the frailty of Huston Street, the Padres longtime closer, he’s been as close to a must-own reliever as you can get without regularly accruing saves. However, now that Gregerson has landed in Oakland, his value heads south for a variety of reasons. Read the rest of this entry »