Rates & Barrels - The Closer Episode

Episode Date: February 11, 2020

Rundown2:54 What Matters to Teams When Choosing a Closer?6:34 Which Early Closers Do You Trust?13:05 The Value of Josh Hader, With Fewer Saves17:45 Considering Rogers, Hand & Jansen25:45 Messy Closer Situations: Seattle, San Francisco & Pittsburgh37:04 Preferred 'Discounted' Closer39:18 Buying Hand or Giles?49:57 Getting Caught on the Wrong Side of a RunFollow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRipere-mail: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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at netsuite.com slash listen. That's netsuite.com slash listen. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode number 68. It is February 11th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. Pitcher Week became eight days of pitching, which is probably a more unique Rates and Barrels sort of thing anyway. So that comes to a close with our breakdown of relievers on this episode. So we'll talk about

closers a lot. We'll talk about whether saves should even be a standalone rotisserie category anymore. Some housekeeping before we get to all that. We are available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty much anywhere that you'd like to listen to this podcast. So if you're enjoying this show on a platform that allows you to rate and review it, please take the time to do that.

We greatly appreciate it. And if your friends would like the show, tell them about the show as well. We'd really appreciate that too. Some of you might be listening to this podcast for the very first time. So if you're not already a subscriber to The Athletic, you can get 40% off a subscription at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Everything we do is included with a subscription. Eno, how's it going for you on this Tuesday? Everything's good. Everything's good. I'm a little sick, but I think it's just like a little one I can knock out of the park real quick.

I think the temperatures are changing a little bit out here, and there's always going to be something waiting for you, especially when you've got kids, man. They are just festering gobs of nastiness. They just pass it to each other. It's almost like they're French kissing or something. I don't know.

I'm not a parent at this time. I see it secondhand, though. I've got a lot of friends with little kids, and it does seem like they are sick constantly as they go to daycare and school and all those kinds of places. But let's just dive right into some closer talk. It's become a more frustrating endeavor in recent years, trying to pile up saves, especially in no-trade situations.

If you play NFBC leagues, if you play leagues which is difficult to trade, finding enough saves on draft day is a unique challenge. And it made me start to think about it just from a broad perspective. What matters at this point when it comes to figuring out who is likely to get saves in a particular bullpen like what even matters to

teams as they try to decide who's going to finish out games for them in the past we've been able to hold on to basically three aspects of a pitcher that have kind of powered decisions that were seemingly powered decisions by managers to make them closers. And those three things were, you know, previous role. So were they the setup guy? That was the most important. And then secondary were velocity and strikeout rate. Now that sounds believable to me because generally we can see through some of Rob Arthur's work that baseball is paying for more underlying skills than results. So they're not as interested in your ERA or whatever, and they're more interested in your velocity, your spin rate, your movement on your pitches. Just look at Drew Pomerantz as kind of an example of that.

But Rich Hill was an example before that and so on and so forth. So, you know, I believe in those things, but I also think that baseball has changed their attitude towards how the bullpen should be used and, you know, how static roles should be in the bullpen, I think. Absolutely agree with you there. And that's what's made this so challenging the last decade in particular. I mean, you've seen kind of a gradual shift more and more teams using their best reliever in the highest leverage spot and then things break a certain way with injuries a couple guys end up on the il and something unusual happens like josh hater you know piling up 37 saves and that leaves us to wonder,

well, are they going to do it again? Is he going to get a full season in that role? Is he going to get 50 saves this year with the ridiculous strikeout rate that he brings to the table and the good ratios over that slightly larger volume of innings than a lot of other closers? I think we're seeing this mindset take over in more bullpens now than ever before. The Twins are a good example of it.

Taylor Rodgers, I mean, he got the 30 saves last year, but he didn't start the year as the closer, even though he looked like the most skilled reliever in the bullpen from day one. Yeah, and I just think that the number of just like sure things is is out the door i mean what was that that piece of research you had about about you know a number of pitchers with 10 saves yeah i ran the baseball reference play index search on this i wanted to see single seasons in the expansion era since 1961 that had the greatest number of players with 10 or more saves. And not surprisingly, 2018 was first. 43 players had 10 or more saves in the 2018 season. For reference, 2019 was at 37, which is a top 10, top 7 season, actually,

for players with 10 or more saves. All of the seasons in the last decade or so are at the top of the list. I mean, if you go back down through that, you'll see 2016 is second with 42. 2017 had 40. 2014 had 39. This is just the way baseball is played now. And I think what it has done,

it has really shrunk the circle of trust when it comes to drafting closers early. And again, looking at no trade leagues versus trade leagues, there's a little bit of a difference there. You can afford to wait, and if you miss out on your top tier guys, you don't get burned as badly if you can go trade for the saves that you need later on. But it's left us in this weird spot

where some of the previous dominant closers, Kenley Jansen, even Aroldis Chapman, even though his skills decline hasn't been quite as steep as Jansen's. Those guys are going cheaper than ever in the high stakes arena. And I think we're going to see that reflected as more and more home leagues draft in the weeks ahead. The premiums placed on those closers has really fallen.

And I think there's a little bit of a hangover from 2018 seeing the success of edwin diaz and blake trine and only to see them both falter for different reasons in 2019 has made people a little bit hesitant to spend a lot of draft capital on their pursuit of saves i think something like 60 of jobs changed last season in terms of closer role. And that's something that Jeff Zimmerman has been researching for a while about just how likely it is that your closer loses his job based on either injury or poor production. And really, we're just looking at small samples every year when we're trying to project a pitcher. We're trying to project a pitcher, a relief pitcher off of 50, 60 innings at a time. And, you know, think about someone like Drew Pomerantz where, you know, it's a half a season.

So now you're trying to project them as a reliever off of 30 innings, you know, and as much as I think he's going to be great, you know, these things, uh, when you're, when you're working off such a small sample, they're, they're volatile, they're volatile. And then if you think about who becomes a reliever instead of a starter, the reasons they become relievers are lack of command, poor mechanics, lack of a third pitch. And all three of those things can lead to a tremendous downturn because their production is tied. And this is something that Bill Petty researched a while back with aging curves. Their production is tied closer to their velocity than anybody else, than starting pitching.

So if you look at a Roldis Chapman, he's fine where he's at. He's got a lot of velocity. However, if you've seen his bad stretches, a lot of times, I think most of the time it's correlated with a lower velocity. And so, you know, he doesn't really have, he has a pretty good slider, but he doesn't really have other options. He can't go to a third or fourth pitch that often when the velocity starts going down. And we know from looking at how fastballs perform that if you're throwing over 95, 96, it does really well. But the more fastballs you throw

under 94, the more you're at risk for a sharp decline. So in terms of swing strikes and home run rates. So all of the reasons that these people become relievers are the reasons why Kirby Yates was nobody and then he was somebody. Or why Liam Hendricks was released and then was one of the best closers in the game. And what's going to happen, why Edwin Diaz was one of the best closers in the game and then just totally useless the next year at times with a 5.6 ERA. So, you know, I agree that we shouldn't spend into it, but I do think that at least when it comes to Chapman and Hayter, I would consider a high pick. I feel like they're

safer than the most. And especially in a kind of draft and hold, no trade situation, I want to have one that I really believe in. The problem is that might be the end of the list. That is a shorter list than ever before. If it's just really hater and chapman that are worth paying the premium for especially when yates is definitely commanding that higher price his adp and nfbc league since january 15th is at 78 so it's the 25th pitcher overall and only hater is consistently being taken ahead of him it is a little surprising that Yates goes about 10 picks ahead of Aroldis Chapman. You've been somewhat critical of Chapman, I think, for a few years. I remember one of your presentations at First Pitch Arizona, maybe two years ago now, highlighted the lack of command that Chapman has. I mean, he gets away with it because he's just had

overpowering velocity. So the stuff's been good enough to just kind of mask that but it does make you wonder in a bullpen with so many other talented arms if chapman hits a prolonged stretch of struggles for a team that has world series aspirations does he actually have enough downside to lose the job that that scares you away it seems like at this point, the answer is no. For a year or two more, I'm okay. I mean, so 2018, the average is 99. 2019, 98, still one of the best average velocities in the big leagues, still one of the best max velocities in the big leagues. But, you know, if he comes out next year and averages 97,

I predict that he'll have some tough stretches. I think he'll keep the job all year. And then if he's at risk of dropping below 97 the next year, I start to be more and more out on him. So, you know, I think he's still, he's still fine. That velocity allows him to blow through the poor command, as I mentioned. But, you know, if I hear anything in the spring about reduced velocity from him, that would bother me because you don't have any of the mitigating factors where, oh, he's got to stretch out or this or that. Relievers should pretty much hit the ground running and they don't really gain that much velocity over the course of the season.

So Kirby Yates, for example, one of the reasons why I'm a little bit worried about him is he's only at 93.9 or something, 94.2. And 94 for me is just a huge number. It's just a huge number. You know, above and below that is really bad. Actually, in fact, last year was 93.5. And I know he's got that good split finger, and it looks like he has good command overall, but split fingers are notoriously fickle in terms of commanding them. And he throws it half the time so you know there's any sort of slipping of command or velocity there are definitely Padres ready to go Andres Munoz throws 100 Drew Pomerantz you know has the quality Emilio Pagan saved 20 games for the for the for the Rays last year there are plenty of people ready to step in for Kirby Yates so I actually see a lot more risk in Kirby Yates

I can't believe he's going ahead of a role as Chapman. Yeah, I think because the track record's a little bit shorter and because it's a similarly deep bullpen, it's easier to see where things could go south on him somewhat quickly. And I don't think that's just the hangover that I referred to with Blake Trinan and Edwin Diaz burning so many owners a year ago. Hader is interesting for a few reasons. He came up on this podcast, I think, back in the spring of last season when he was getting really fastball heavy.

He got up to about a 90-10 split with fastballs against sliders, got back to 80-20 in the second half. Things were working a lot better for him once he went back to that 80-20 split. Things were working a lot better for him once he went back to that 80-20 split. I never really saw a good explanation for why he got so fastball dependent, whether it was a lack of confidence or something else. Who knows? But he is the first reliever off the board, and I think the interesting thing about it is that he's going right around pick 60. So if you're in a 15-team league, it's the end of round four.

If you're in a 12-team league, it's the end of round five. He has a lot of ways to make that value up. Even if Corey Knable comes back and wrestles away a share of the saves and Hayter comes out and has 25 saves instead of the 37 he had a year ago, if he holds up that elite K rate and he gets you well above 100 strikeouts with two ERA and a one or lower whip, that could still be enough for him to not be a complete bust at that elevated price. It's not what you want to see happen, but that's a really high floor for a reliever,

even with the home run rate issues that Hader had a year ago. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look at how great he was with the 1.8 home runs per nine i mean i you know he's gonna be he's one of he's also one of the rare guys that is in the middle of his career has velocity has track record you know and you know kind of puts all that together where everybody else is kind of like well you know he has two of the three or, you know, so on and so forth. And in fact, um, I'm just perusing command plus numbers for these guys. I don't, I don't, I don't think it's a be all or end all in terms of any, anything, any terms of pitching. I mean, I think it's useful, but, um, hater best command of the of the of the sort of top end guys we're talking about

um hendrix and yates have about similar command and hendrix liam hendrix stuff his number is way beyond kirby eights his stuff number so um i do think that maybe command, uh, is worth looking at with some of these guys for, because Diaz's number is the worst. Edwin Diaz's number is the worst of the, of the groups that I looked so far. And I want to check like Neris, you know, who's been in and out of his role. And, uh, he's, he's actually surprisingly good, but there are, like I said, there's a bunch of different reasons that can fall apart. Velocity, uhough off, injury, or command. And then on top of it, just the high-end saves totals, like what you were talking about with the 10 save thing, what happens there is also the high-end saves totals go away. So I've been looking at historical saves totals, and we used to get, there weres and 53 and 47 and you know i'm not even sure this year someone will save 40 yeah i mean yates led this group with 41 a year ago chapman hater

37 hendrix 25 roberto ozuna i think gets drafted in this range as well he's got a much lower strikeout rate but he's got the best walk rate of the bunch. I'm just kind of curious, how does he stack up command-wise compared to the rest of this group? Yeah, he's lower end. He's lower end. Good stuff, but 93 command-plus, closer to Chapman without all the stuff. In fact, Osuna, to me, is one of the weakest top-end closers. is one of the weakest top end closers. In terms of strikeout rate,

he's not in the top 30 among the relievers in strikeout rate. He has a person on his team that was in the top 15 in strikeout rate in Presley, Ryan Presley. And a lot of Osuna's brilliance seems to depend on suppressing home runs, which is kind of weird because he doesn't have a good ground ball rate. He doesn't really throw a sinker very often. And he doesn't have like the kind of, I guess last year was 96.9, but before that he was kind of a 95 guy. So he doesn't have that top end velocity for a closer either so roberto azuna to me and then last year was one of his best strikeout rates in other years he's had

terrible like terrible strikeout rates for a reliever so um you know i think as soon as being treated as a chapman hater yates elite guy i i see more question marks than other people, I think. The next chunk on my rankings, the guys that kind of round up the top eight, Taylor Rodgers, Brad Hand, and Kenley Jansen. I mean, you're adding different forms of risk here. I think with the Twins, they've got a pretty right-handed bullpen, if I'm not mistaken. So depending on circumstances, maybe that slightly reduces

Rodgers' opportunities, but you're talking about a guy that still had a 32.4% K rate and a 4% walk rate. Within the top eight, it's the lowest walk rate of the bunch, misses plenty of bats. Are there any concerns for you with Taylor Rodgers this year if you're chasing him for 25 saves? Not really. one of the things that's interesting is that i did i did do a bold prediction that bruisar gratterall would would lead the twins and saves and it wasn't so much about taylor rogers as it was about you know seeing a guy who could maybe average 99 or 100 on his fastball and seeing that the twins don't really have that high velocity in their bullpen um so i i thought that might be a situation but in terms of

you know what's going on in the twins bullpen i think the highest velocity belongs to trevor may and uh taylor rogers is at 948, which is kind of amazing because his brother is a twin brother. I forget if they're twins. But his brother is like a sidearm slinging 80 poo guy. But Trevor May is at 95-6. Trevor May has shown flashes of brilliance. Last year was his best season altogether. Didn't quite show the command of Taylor Rodgers.

But I think Trevor May offers some sort of risk to Taylor Rodgers, but he's decently safe for someone now that Gratterall's gone. And in fact, Kenley Jansen, whose stuff has been sort of sloughing off to the point where he's trying to develop a third pitch, I think Gratterall being in L.A. is some risk to Kenley Jansen. So because Trevor May is his biggest obstacle in some ways, I like Taylor Rodgers. He's one of my sort of mid-table guys that I could pile up. But I will say, I was just in a draft on Saturday, and something terrible happened.

It was just so bad. I was waiting on closing because I was just like, because of all these questions, I didn't want to spend a high pick on one of the top guys and some waiting and waiting. And then I decided, okay, you know what? I'm going to just jump in with Emilio Pagan. And I draft him.

And literally halfway through the next round, the news breaks that he's been traded to the Padres. Yeah, that was a really tough blow for his fantasy value. I mean, you mentioned there are some concerns with Yates, but there's no guarantee that Pagan's the next guy up for that role if Yates coughs it up at all. So to have used a mid-round pick on Pagan only to find out that happened just minutes later is a really unfortunate turn for you. I tried to take Diego Castillo to make it a little bit better. I do think Diego Castillo is going to be a big part of it.

A lot of people are pointing to Nick Anderson. That's definitely a name. Jose Alvarado is going to be healthy, hopefully, and he'll be part of the picture. And really, the Rays are the microcosm of what's going on in bullpens around the league right now. In that, they're totally Mike Shanahan-ing it. There's going to be four or five guys who have five saves in that bullpen. I like Diego Castillo because he has awesome stuff.

Averages 98-99 on a power sinker. He's kind of the righty version of Jose Alvarado. I kind of think those two will combine for saves, and they'll use Nick Anderson more in the 7th and 8th. But that remains to be seen. And, in fact, as we're saying, it's hard to kind of use what's happened in the past to the rubric that we developed in the past

to even kind of, you know, shed daylight on what's going to happen in Tampa this year, because in terms of role, well, they all had saves last year. I heard Alex fast was a guest on the sleeper in the bus podcast over the weekend.

And I think he said there were 10 different rays who picked up saves last year which is just ridiculous i mean i know there are some odd ways to pick those up along the way but that's that's an outlier type season like even even within the framework that we're talking about where teams are changing up how they manage the bullpen late in games they still had seasons where they locked in on one guy i mean alice colomay had a couple big years there uh they've they've been able to hone in at times on one reliever it doesn't mean they'll do it again but i i think we might be over correcting for some of the wild things we saw from the race i mean to begin last season emilio pagan was at AAA, and it was a combination of Castillo and Alvarado

mixing and matching initially to close out games. And then Alvarado had personal problems and injury and kind of fell off a little bit, and they ended up using David Castillo as an opener, and Pagan just kind of stepped into the void a little bit. Pagan is a lot younger than I realized, too. For some reason, I thought Pagan was like 33, 34 years old. He hasn't even turned 30 yet. Yeah, yeah.

I don't know why it feels like he's been around so long. I do wonder about sort of age and arbitration and money concerns. We've tried to show that that was a big deal in the past. Then teams actually responded to some of that research saying, no, we don't make decisions based on arbitration awards for saves. However, there's a real big reason for teams not to admit that they would be manipulating the closer role based on arbitration awards because that would really get them into trouble in arbitration hearings. arbitration awards because that would really get them into trouble in arbitration hearings. It would, but it's funny that they could just manage the bullpen in a way that's mathematically correct and achieve that. I think about that a little bit with Brandon Workman on the Red Sox.

I think Matt Barnes is a superior pitcher. on the Red Sox. I think Matt Barnes is a superior pitcher. Of course, Barnes had some trouble, so it's not that easy to connect those dots. However, it is fairly easy to connect the dots on Greg Holland in front of Archie Bradley. Greg Holland got 17 saves last year, which Archie Bradley only got 18. I'm sure that depressed some of Archie Bradley's arbitration award. However, it's not that easy when you sort of just, if you sort by saves to be like, oh, that person was just a hired hand that came in. Maybe Ian Kennedy was the closer for the Royals because there was cost certainty. He was signed to a deal. He's not going to cost any more, any less. However, Ian Kennedy was the closer for the Royals because there was cost certainty. He was signed to a deal. He's not going to cost any more, any less. However, Ian Kennedy was also the only guy on the Royals that could close.

I mean, that was a terrible bullpen. You know, Rysel Iglesias blew like 15 saves last year and kept the job. He's got a guaranteed deal. I don't know that they were keeping somebody down. You know, I like Michael Lorenz, and I like some of those other guys in that bullpen, but I don't know that there was, like, obviously someone that they're like, oh, this guy's better, and we're just going to keep him cheaper, you know?

So, like, do you see it? Like, when I peruse the saves leaderboard, I don't really see a player who's like, oh, that person was just suppressing salary for somebody. Although I am really surprised. How did Royanis Elias get 14 saves? What team was that? Mostly with the Mariners, because they had a

revolving door. So it was before that trade to the Nats. He was just taking that opportunity for a little while. But that's going to happen again this year, and I don't think it'll... I guess he was one of the older guys in that bullpen, so maybe you could say that. But how do you then apply that to this year where there is no old guy in that bullpen? Austin Adams is 28, but he's coming off of – did he eventually have the ACL surgery?

I think he's hurt. surgery uh i know he's i think he's hurt uh otherwise uh you know there's not uh there's not an easy like oh you know this is the old guy so they're going to give him the job um you know yossi hisa hirano i guess i don't know they're all just unproven and young maybe carl edwards you know if he's healthy could take it but my favorite in the Mariners' bullpen is Matt Majel. He's the guy that I see popping up as most people's choice to take over that job. They've also got Sam Twivailala, the old Cardinals reliever. I remember poor command, but hasn't really shown in the walk rates too much. There's some bad walk rates in there.

And he's the old man, actually, in terms of team control, because he's been pitching since 2014. So, you know, nearing the end of his team control, maybe they just give it to him. He has, you know, 93.5 last year. If he comes into camp throwing 94, I could see that, where Matt McGill, he's 30, so he's older, and he's been pitching longer. So I guess those two are the old men in

the bullpen, and McGill had better velocity last year. So that's sort of where I'm going. They made some tweaks to his repertoire in Minnesota that I think really stood out. He bumped his velocity up and had the best strikeout rate of his career last year. So it's a simple one for me, but I don't think that necessarily salary is making these decisions. I think they would rather have someone that can close and then deal with the salary ramifications later, like the Rays did. I think the Rays last year would rather have Emilio Pagan close, and then, oh crap, he got expensive, let's trade him. Yeah, there's definitely teams operating that way.

I don't doubt that at all. It's not a long list, but I think it really just throws those unexpected wrinkles into the fold. The Rays have a deep bullpen. I didn't even conceive the idea they would trade emilio pagan like he's not even that expensive yet yeah they they operate like they're obviously thinking about years two and three even as they try to improve year one i mean if you think about the about the Randy Orezarena trade again, they got Jose Martinez for year one, but the whole reason they wanted Randy Orezarena is to replace Jose Martinez after

they trade him after year one. Yeah, exactly. And I think they have that track record of other positions of getting rid of guys maybe a year early and just saying, you know what, we don't want to be here when the wheels fall off. Maybe they see something with Pagan where last year was as good as it gets and they made a trade that a year ago wouldn't have happened. I mean, Emilio Pagan for Manuel Margot one year ago, that wasn't going to happen. So there is still that longer term view. I know

there's obviously Margot fitting really well with Kevin Kiermaier in a platoon, being a defensive equal or at least a more comparable defensive player that they can roll out there in center field. That's part of it, too. But I think they're doing a great job of not getting attached to the players that they were able to squeeze more value out of than expected over a short period of time. more value out of than expected over a short period of time yeah i mean the one thing that's maybe a little unsustainable pagan is his infield fly ball rate although he's really had it uh for three years in a row last year uh though his fly ball rate was lowest and he maintained the high infield fly ball rate and those two two were linked. Usually the higher your fly ball rate, the higher your inflow fly ball rate. So, you know, maybe they saw something there where they're worried that he would have fewer pop-ups next year and more home runs. He had 1.9 home runs per game, per nine innings with the athletics, almost two per game. So there is a little bit of a home run situation there.

But given all that we have at our disposal, let's shine a spotlight on the Giants' bullpen for one. One thing I like about a team like the Giants is they're not going to be so putrid and their bullpen is not so bad that it's going to be – there's been some Tigers seasons, some Orioles seasons like this where the team leader in saves has 10 saves, and most everybody in the bullpen has a 4.5 to 5 ERA, and it's really just a FUBAR pass, fade the whole bullpen situation. I don't think that's the case for the Giants.

The Giants have brought together some interesting players. They've got the sidearm of Tyler Rodgers. They've got Sam Coonrod, whose velocity really took off after he went to relieving after Tommy John. Sean Anderson has got this weird one-seam sinker. Handel Gustav has a lot of velocity. Tony Watson has some history to him. some history to him. You know, the money, if you follow the money, it says maybe Tony Watson closes until he's traded, basically. If you follow the velocity, I think it's Handel Gustaf that probably has the best velocity in that bullpen. And if you follow the strikeout rate, it's probably Kunrod. So it's funny when you have the kind of different indicators pointing in each direction. Is there someone that stands out for you in that bullpen? I kind of like Sean Anderson. Option D doesn't meet any of the criteria. I liked him a lot more

as a reliever, picking up that extra velocity. You mentioned the one-seam sinker. I think contracts and money used to matter when it came to how a team, especially a rebuilding team, might decide to go ahead and hand out those saves. I also think there's this misguided perception that you can trick other teams into thinking a guy's more valuable than he is by using him in the ninth inning.

I think teams are so far advanced beyond that now that the idea that it was ever true was questionable in the last five years especially. But now, teams see right through that. They see skills. They see spin rates. They see velocity. That's all there is. I think that's true, but I think there probably are differing philosophies about if a pitcher can handle high high leverage and generally high leverage does still happen in the eighth and ninth inning that's generally the highest leverage uh

just because you're running out outs i mean it's a math thing you know um you know Your leverage is going to be necessarily higher in those innings. I think that probably pitching Sean Anderson in the eighth and he has success is about the same as pitching in the ninth and he has success. There's some slight swing weight changes in the ninth in terms of how aggressive batters are, but other than that, I think you're right. If Sean Anderson has success in the eighth inning, he's just as marketable if the Giants want to market batters are. But other than that, yeah, I think you're right. I think, you know, if Sean Anson has success in the eighth inning, he's just as marketable if the Giants want to market him. To your point about him being better as a reliever, he had really bad Babbitt, which kind of takes away from his ERA as a reliever, makes him look bad. But if you look just sort of at the component numbers, 25% strikeout rate, 12% walk rate, 350 FIP as a reliever, definitely those numbers, I think, would make him the best reliever

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and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, reason to make him more expensive in the future. They're not going to win games. It's not like he's so polished and obviously should be the closer. He's already

27, though. I think age kind of factors in here a little bit. Age is real. I don't want to wait forever. I struggled with that when I was talking about the Mariners bullpen. You might have noticed. To me, age for a reliever is almost distance from free agency yeah you know as opposed

to uh like actual age on the thing uh because distance to free agency plus velocity he throws 96 yeah he's gonna lose it as he ages but he's at 96 now you know so so I don't think there's so much to lose there year over year. But in terms of distance from free agency, he's probably three years from free agency at least, if not four. Out to the Giants, though, along with the Mariners and possibly the Marlins are among the absolute worst. And Pirates, as far as just not really knowing what direction they're leaning. With the pirates, I assume it's Keone Kella getting those chances. I don't know how tradable he actually is relative to other similarly skilled relievers.

We've had a few team-related clubhouse-type things that have come up with him in two different locations, and I just wonder how much that limits the appeal for contenders to go out and get him mid-season and kind of throw him into the mix as a bit of a wild card.

From my knowledge of how the clubhouse dynamics work, I would say it's okay at the deadline to add someone like keela and because at that point your your your group has established the connections they've got they've established what the clubhouse is like keela's coming into it as an outsider and as a reliever And as a reliever, he's not an everyday player. He's not a highly paid player. He's not a star. He's not going to come in and get the locker right by the door. So he's not going to be looked to as a leader. And if he's

annoying or starts fights or whatever, he can be ostracized quickly. And as a reliever, he can just go out there and throw, especially if he's not going to be your closer then he doesn't even have to talk to media you know what i mean so i wouldn't want to go into my season necessarily with a headache like keela and crick next to each other because obviously both of those guys i don't want to pick sides and say one is right and one is wrong but those guys do not mesh no they do not um and it's kind of weird because there's this range after pick 200 where you have all these guys that if you knew what the role looked like, you could look at the skills and justify taking them a few rounds earlier. That's why they are where they are.

But I see Joe Jimenez versus Kela versus maybe Mark Melanson, who I still think is going back into a setup role. I think Will Smith's going to get more saves than Melanson. Most people are drafting them that way at this point. But you may end up having to chase some cheap saves. Are any of those guys, Jimenez, Kela, Melanson, anyone in that post-pick 200 range kind of standing out to you as viable? Jimenez does.

Jimenez is a good pitcher in a bad – it's a pretty bad bullpen. I wouldn't say – I mean, by the depth charts, it's 28, so it's obviously a bad bullpen. But I think they have probably enough pitchers in there to get some like 20 plus saves to him. Uh, but not good enough where any of those guys stand out as being able to take his job. And the Tigers are just kind of phony at this point, you know, still trying to build. And so I think that they'd be fine with Joe Jimenez just having a great year, you know,

get him to have a year where he's got a three, three ERA, uh, and 25 saves and really start, uh, marketing him, um, uh, you know, to, to the rest of the population. I mean, he, I think the rest of the population has already noticed that like there's a 96 mile an hour guy with a great strikeout rate and a little bit of a home run problem in Detroit. But I think a great season could still, especially if they tweak something in his repertoire. And from what I've heard, the coaching staff there on the pitching side, internally, people say that they've got all the best tech and the best research at their disposal, and they listen to their players, and they're really trying to get the most out of them.

So I think Joe Jimenez sticks out, yeah. It just seems like a very stable situation there. There's some other kind of higher-end guys that struggled to varying degrees last year. Brad Hand, skills hand skills wise didn't look that different i mean the k rate was right around 35 the walk rate was even better than it was in 2018 lots of swinging strikes didn't have a major home run issue in the year of the rabbit ball when you look at brad hand do you see him as more of like a safe top 10 sort of closer,

or do you see him as a clear decline candidate, especially with the trade that the Indians made where they took back Emmanuel Classe in the Corey Kluber deal? No, I don't see Hand as very safe at all. He was throwing 95 in early 2018, averaging 95. And then at the end of 2018, his foresame was down to 92. And at the end of last year, it was like 92.5 at the end of 2018. Last year, it was 92.1. And there's a pretty clear decline phase in his fastball.

And I know he's at least partially about the slider, so I think that's where the strikeouts are coming from. He's still a decent pitcher, but I see that fastball velocity, and I'm worried about him. In terms of stuff and command, his command is okay, but his stuff lags behind Buck Farmer, Rysell Iglesias, Robert Gisellman, Carl Edwards Jr. Oh, no. You don't want to be on this list. It's pretty low.

I mean, who are the few closer candidates that have worse stuff number by driveline stuff number? Here are the few closers that have a worse stuff number. Mark Melanson's in a virtual tie with him. Gross. Royness Alias. Not a closer. That's not very surprising, though, probably. Yeah. um, Royness alias. I got saves last year. That's not very surprising though.

Probably. Yeah. Uh, Trey Wingenter, um, Giovanni Gallegos is a little bit surprising to me. Hmm. He's another one of the guys that I was going to get to in just a moment because he's in this bullpen where we're really not sure.

And a lot hinges on Carlos Martinez and whatever they're trying to do with him, stretching him back out as a starter. All right. So you're out on hand. The price isn't terrible, but good reasoning, I think, as far as your,

your hesitation to draft him. Also. Yeah. It's not only about hand. It's about the behind hand is like, are two of the, like basically by a dry line stuff. number klaus and karinchik are one and two yeah number one and number two in all of baseball so you know there's a there are there

are some fire-breathing dragons uh breathing down his neck and you know i don't and i could see the indians being just totally weird i could see the indians being as weird as the rays you know hand gets 10 saves as a lefty kind of lefty closer and uh they and like i could see them all three of them getting 10 saves a nightmare scenario really yeah the worst but klasse and karenchak i think would have better eras and better uh strikeout uh totals but i'm not i'm not sure about that classes um strikeouts haven't really matched this stuff yet so it's a little bit of an interesting thing there but karenchak is like a the lead minor leagues in strikeout rate kind of guy for a while. So looking at this cluster, Taylor Rodgers, Brad Hand, Edwin Diaz, Kenley Jansen all lumped together in the same range in ADP.

Ken Giles at the bottom of that group. I like Giles a lot. I would actually choose Giles straight up over everybody else in that group. I know there's some risk of a trade there, but I think the Jays are going to be better this season. A lot of young talent there, full season of Bo Bichette. Obviously, Vlad Jr. should take another step forward this year. They brought in Ryu. They traded for Anderson. So they've just got a better foundation there, more chances to win games. That bodes well. They might hang around, and Giles could end up just staying there all season how do you stack up diaz and we mentioned jansen earlier i mean are you in on jansen or do you kind of have a brad hand sort of of approach with him before gratterall was there

i was like joe kelly's never going to be the closer was trying enough of a threat though for you to start to with gratteratterall and Trinan? Yeah. There was a little bit something there. And Trinan actually reminds me... So look at this Ken Giles. This is kind of remarkable. I'm just going to read to you since Ken Giles started closing games.

I'm going to read to you his ERA year by year. 180, 411, 230, 465, 187. It's been a wild run. Like pretty much rock solid, his ERA is going to start with four this year, huh? Yeah, I mean, if we're into numerology, yeah.

That's how it works. The wild thing is, is that his strikeout rate maxed out last year in Toronto. He got the 39.9% with the K rate. I mean, it didn't have any home run issues last year. Threw the slider exactly half the time last year, basically.

And had a little arm injury in the second half, so maybe you're a little worried about that. No, I think he's... I actually like him probably the best. I mean, I like Jansen. There's something about the Dodgers in that role where you know think about yasmani grundahl so yasmani grundahl i know this is like totally a weird non-sequitur thing but yasmani grundahl had the the same issues that he had in the postseason all year long he couldn't

block pitches uh he wasn't a very good game caller and yet they played him every day because uh the team construct mattered uh the thehouse mattered, because he was the veteran, because he wasn't blowing game after game after game with these things. They tried him all year. And then when they got to the playoffs, what did they do? Oh, now we're going to use Austin Barnes or whatever it was. So I see Kenley Jansen, even if he has issues this year mostly making it through the year and then in the playoffs all bets are off all of a sudden gratterall is closing games you know what i mean if if if if kenley has a bad year so i know that's a little bit uh voodoo math

than i'm doing here um but i would say that i thought kenley Jansen was going to lose his job for like three straight years and here he is still hanging on still ticking right so I kind of think maybe Kenley Jansen makes it Ken Giles in terms of me I think has a two thirds of a year closer and I do

think that they will probably because he's going to be a free agent next year. And so what I see is that they're good enough to keep him for the beginning of the year, but I doubt that they're good enough to keep him for the last two months of the year or whatever.

And I think he'll go somewhere. He's not good enough, I don't think, to drop a qualifying offer on. Because I think he would take it. I mean, a reliever getting an $18 million. Because I think he would take it. A reliever getting an $18 million contract, I think they would take it. It's Will Smith-esque without

the consistency, but I don't know. Smith lost a year to Tommy John. I think you're right. I don't think they would extend that to him, and that's why he's more likely to get traded than Smith was, but I would have said the same thing about Smith this time last year so and he got the qualifying yeah so my mind's at least open to that possibility and maybe giles's representatives say oh that'd be great give us

the qualifying offer so that we have leverage somehow will smith turn that into leverage yeah and the way teams value elite relievers obviously obviously year over year, that's been one of the groups that's done well in free agency. But two-thirds of a year, I think, would be happy. I'd be happy with that anyway. That's what he's done for the last two years, 50 innings, 25 saves. I don't think if you smash those two years together, you get the sort of three ERA he's projected for,

and you get 25 saves. I mean, what are we talking about? We've just been talking about how nobody's gonna get 40 this year and how everyone's getting 10 so 25 is pretty good and getting it with that higher strikeout rate too is is worth that little extra you're gonna have to pay so i think in that group what was the group you got rogers rogers diaz hand jansen Rodgers, Diaz, Hand, Jansen, and Giles. I think Hand is last for me, man. I can level with that.

And I don't know where to put Diaz because usually you can say, well, role is the most important. And he wasn't the closer at the end of the year last year. No, but this is one of those areas where cost in the terms of like what the front office gave up in order to get him, I think is still kind of hanging around there

where they want him to be successful. I want to hear about Jared Kalanich one more time. Right. If Edwin Diaz can bounce back and be 2018 Diaz, that really takes a lot of heat off. And look, it's kind of like your voodoo math.

It's a read on how I think things are going to work, which goes beyond the numbers. And I think with Diaz, it's one of the weirder seasons I've ever seen. I mean, he still missed a lot of bats last year. A 39% strikeout rate, but a 2.33 homers per nine. When I looked at it, it was just middle, middle shots. He was just throwing down Broad Street a little bit.

He doesn't have great control, but neither does anybody else. His command number was right there with Rose Chapman. Are you taking him in the eighth round of a 15 team league where you don't have a closer yet though what i don't like about that is that he's going like a closer there's there's like virtually no discount it's i mean there is a discount off of him the year before but there's virtually no discount like oh i found edwin diaz in the 12th you know or the 14th it's like no i paid for edwin diaz and you know he was a little bit better than what i paid for and what could happen i mean you might like some of the guys in that range but

if you're in the wrong part of the draft order a run can happen and the guys you'd like in that tier are gone you don't take the guys you don't like and you're down a level and you're chasing out of a group that includes Hector Neris and Craig Kimbrell and Rysel. Oh God, that's exactly what happened to me with the stupid Pagan and then Dio Castillo and my freaking lead closer is Michael Givens. Oh,

you know, you don't want that. Oh, no. You don't want that. See, it was an interesting draft, too, because my ace is Charlie Morton, and so people were laughing about that, too. But I don't actually have a problem with that because let me see if I can find this. My rotation is just a total Eno rotation. Charlie Morton, Carlos Carrasco, Hyunjin Ryu, Julio Urias,

Garrett Richards, Dylan Cease, Spencer Turnbull, John Means, Michael Fulmer on the aisle. Those are all guys I've touted in the past. And what I did was I just sort of hit the middle hard, as you can tell, with Carrasco, Rio, Urias. Those were like three picks out of six rounds and I feel pretty good about that

in terms of like yeah there's a big health question mark on all four but if two or three out of the four are healthy they're all sort of ace level talents however I also had since I was also kind of

punting pitching to a certain extent or like going late on pitching I also had, since I was also kind of punting pitching to a certain extent, or like going late on pitching, I also had the problem in the closer department. So now I'm Pagan, Givens, Castillo, and Presley on my relievers. And I got to drop one. I don't even know which one to drop. You get a little time to think about it, right? Yeah. They were talking about maybe doing FAB soon.

But anyway, I really liked my offense. I started out Trout, Devers, Jordan Alvarez. That's a good foundation. That's what I was doing when everyone else was taking pitching. Well, I'm curious to see how that one plays out for you. I think alternative strategies can work. You just have to execute and have those guys who become aces and have those undervalued.

I feel good about the starting pitching. In fact, I don't even feel that bad about relief, man. I mean, how many people are looking at their relievers right now going, oh, look, I got three great relieversvers and they're about to lose two of them shouldn't be more than a team or two at most in any given league that feel great about the relievers top to bottom there's not that many good ones to go around but i feel good about how like how good these pitchers are you know in terms of you know they're good pitchers um so anyway my worst offensive player is Trent Grisham. So I'm, you know, like the offense, but like the starting pitching, I'll probably spend some FAB on relief this year. And I think

everybody will, which is something we should, you know, be one of the takeaways from this podcast is everybody's going to be spending money on FAB on relief this year. Just bake that into whatever in-season strategy you connect to your draft strategy. It's going to be gross. There's a few more names we should get to real quick. Craig Kimbrell, disaster 2019 season. Throw it out and buy at the discount or let him become someone else's problem in that 140 to 150 overall range? You know, the one thing that I... So I want to say, oh, look at the velocity,

and he just really fell off, and, you know, he went from averaging. If you just click the yearly average on his Brooks player page, he went from 97 to 96. It's a fairly big drop-off for one year. But if you look within the sort of months, you know, he had a month last year where he averaged 97, and then there's got to be some mitigating factor to the fact that he just didn't have like a spring. I don't know how much I want to give that for a reliever. I said earlier in this

thing that, you know, they should be hitting the ground running. I'd be very interested in his relief, his velocities in spring camp this year, but I'm willing to give him a little bit of the benefit of the doubt in terms of maybe gaining some of that velocity back, especially since he had a month last year where he showed decent velocity. So in terms of the strikeout rate, it was there. He's never had good command, and I think a lot of what happened last year was command related. So if he falls and I can take him as my third reliever, then I'm all into it. Second reliever sort of depends on how late

and how good my first one is. Yeah, second is probably where you're going to have to do it most of the time. But in like a 10-team league, maybe there's a shot you get him as your third, depending on how things break. Alex Colomay on an improved White Sox team. He's done the job before. He's piled up a lot of

saves may have been a little bit hurt last year what do you think about Colomay this season I don't dig on it man I mean this is just this just screams like bad like a closer for a bad team team to me. Below average velocity for a closer. And then he's like a backwards pitcher where he throws his cutter that's at 90 miles an hour. He throws it 71% of the time. And then he uses his four-seam fastball at 94 for whiffs. And I just don't dig on it, man. I just, I don't dig on it, man. I just don't know.

The one thing I would say is I don't see someone who's itching to take the job from him. I like Aaron Bummer as the guy that just reminds me of Zach Britton in terms of being lefty, heavy sink. Turbo sinker. Good velocity. I think there's something there with Bummer. If I had to pick somebody to emerge to take over that job, Bummer would be that guy. I think

the second or third tier closer I like the most this year is Hansel Robles. I really like what Robles brings to the table. I like his skills more than Columet's. The prices are pretty similar. I would his skills more than Colomay's. The prices are pretty similar. I would not be surprised if Hansel Robles finishes this year as a top 10 closer.

I don't know what happened. I mean, when the Mets had him, he was 95. And when the Angel had him, he was 97. And like, in the same year at some point. So maybe he just, maybe they just told him to throw closer to his max. Let me look at that. I would be interested in that because that would be an explanation. Certain teams, I think, have a different philosophy. Let's see, let's see if his max changed much. His max did not change much.

Here's his year-over-year max velocities. 100.9, 100.4, 98.7. That's a weird, maybe injured year. 100.7, that was 2018 when the Mets lost him. 100.6 last year. So his max has been relatively steady. It's his average velocity that's kind of yo-yoed. So I think that bodes well for him.

He's just throwing as hard as he can. Let's talk quickly about some current non-closer relievers who you want to throw at Lake Darna. And he has three pitches. Yeah, well, yeah, Robles is, yeah, he's not. He's kind of fun. He's not going out there just playing the one-note song, as we might call it. But the list of guys that you would actually consider stashing to begin the season who are not close is generally a short list because you can only afford to hold maybe one guy like that.

If he's not good enough ratios-wise to fill in for your ninth pitcher then you're probably doing it wrong um you know basically you're looking for a nick anderson type who then takes over the role not paying the sticker for this year's nick anderson i think we're both kind of out on him and taking our shots on cheap rays so castillo alvarado ryan presley came up on this episode i think he's definitely on the list for me as a really all the guys on my team yeah you do have like that's that's good those are all the all the secondary guys there's got to be somebody else though you're right um I guess uh let's I'm just gonna I'm going down the depth chart I'm just gonna throw some names out there and we'll pick from them so Seth Lugo yeah yeah I like Lugo a little bit. I mean, again, one of these guys on a typical mixed league roster,

and they're cuts if they're not getting the chance to begin the season. Yeah, so Seth Lugo, Corey Knievel, maybe Luke Jackson, Lou Trevino, Tanner Rainey, Amir Garrett. I think I'm on Stevenson over Garrett if I'm throwing a dart. I do like throwing a dart in Cincinnati, by the way. I'm not. Because Iglesias just blew so many last year? Yeah, I'm not convinced he keeps it.

The stakes are a lot higher now. If the team is better, they're going to be more likely to make a change. Exactly. Higher stakes. So that's probably why I'm a little hesitant to buy into Iglesias and more likely to take a chance on one of those. It could just as easily be Lorenzen too, but my argument against Lorenzen is just that because he's this fringy two-way player who can actually hit,

he might not really fit into ninth inning usage he might be needed earlier in the game just because of how they're going to use him off the bench yeah i was seeing now they probably have you know there's a little bit of a softness in center field if if senzel is going to play second or yeah i don't actually can senzel is not supposed to play the infield. That's what they're saying. So, yeah, okay. I can see that, I guess. And they might be a little bit, I think, in terms of like, oh, we've established a new closer. I feel that more with Stevenson than I feel with Lorenzen.

Lorenzen, they're going to use where they need him. And if he's the stopgap, if Iglesias has like, I've got to take a two-week vacation, then maybe Lorenzen. But if they're making it, they're like, this is our new closer, it's Stevenson. And same sort of thing in Arizona. Kevin Ginkle, I think, is the closest to being like, hey, he's going to be our new closer. But maybe Junior Guerra steps in if it's just for a couple weeks.

Yeah, Ginkle would be the guy if I were throwing a dart in NL-only reserve rounds. He'd be the reliever I want in Arizona behind Bradley. Trevor May in Minnesota. Tyler Duffy was good out of the pen for the Twins last year. That was one of the surprises for me last year. How about Joely Rodriguez in Texas? I mean, Jose Leclerc kind of struggled to get his job back throughout the second half.

I know he's got the multi-year deal, but Rodriguez comes back over after spending some time in Japan. He was really good there. Is he worth taking the chance on in AL only leagues? I'd love to see his strikeout rate over there and know more about his story because his projected strikeout rate is just terrible.

So 7.9 strikeouts per nine against four walks per nine. I mean, that doesn't scream off the page for me. But I will say that other than Rafael Montero, I don't really see someone that's coming for his job. So I think LaCroix is actually pretty safe there. You know, and the Cardinals is really interesting because Giovanni Gallegos has the best projection out of any reliever there.

So even better than Carlos Martinez as a reliever, I think, if I'm reading this right. Unless that's just Carlos Martinez as a starter put into the reliever section. I'll have to say I don't know what's going to happen there because there are a lot of good arms in there with Jordan Hicks, Genesis Cabrera, John Brebbia is really good, John Gant's been good, Andrew Miller was saving games for them,

and I've heard a decent amount out of St. Louis just being like, Gallegos is probably not going to be our closer. But Gallegos has got great strikeout and walk totals. So I may pass on that one just because everyone's interested. And Alex Reyes is there. He could be a closer.

So I may pass on that one just because there's too many good relievers. And it's hard to sort of make a case for any one of them. They may decide that Martinez isn't a starter anymore and then you kind of think, oh, well they got to give him the first crack at closing. So as much

as I like Gallegos' skills, that situation is pretty murky for a team that at least should be in the mix for a playoff spot. Yeah. The Red Sox pretty murky for a team that at least should be in the mix for a playoff spot yeah yeah uh the red socks i mean it's matt barnes again i mean maybe they start with workman but it's matt barnes again that's most interesting to me so i'd actually that'd be a decent stash for me best uh projection on staff best believer on staff if they go toman, Workman has been up and down and is

more, I would describe as a journeyman more than anything at 31. You know, former starter that's, you know, has stopped starting a long time ago, but, you know, has been sort of up and down in terms of minor league. So I'm interested in Barnes there. You know, if it's not Kyle Crick, it's Richard Rodriguez for me in Pittsburgh. I think Seranthony Dominguez in Philadelphia is interesting. He's probably my second pick for closer after Hector Neris, and Neris has been up and down. So that's an interesting one. That's actually probably on the level of sort of almost Ryan Presley-esque for me,

where I like Seranth Anthony Dominguez a lot. Turnover potential for Neris is a little higher than I'd like it to be for where he's going in drafts. So I feel like I'm probably going to get squeezed out of Neris ownership in 2020. I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up just getting completely shut out on him. Hopefully, this closer focused episode has been helpful. If there's any guys we didn't talk about, any situations we didn't talk about

that you'd like us to cover on a future episode, you can email us, ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com. Be sure to spell out the word and. If you go the email route on Twitter, he's at Eno Saris. I'm at Derek Van Ryper. Other fantasy baseball pods we've got running here at The Athletic Fantasy Baseball on 15 every weekday morning. Check that out for all the news that you need to know each and every day. And of course, the Athletic Fantasy Baseball podcast. New episodes drop

opposite this show on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in the afternoons. That's going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening.