By Jesse Severe
League 3
Normally, in this space, I identify and lionize those little-discussed middle relievers sitting on your waiver wire who can provide short-term help to your strikeouts and ratios. Two weeks ago, I told you about an exciting rookie lefty, Mitch Stetter. He had a 1.69 ERA at the time, 15 strikeouts and only four walks in 9 and 2/3 innings, and seemed the unlikely rock in the meltdown that is the Milwaukee bullpen.
By the time, Up the Middle published that Friday, Stetter had one outing with four walks and an earned run in 2/3 of an inning and another with three walks and an earned run in 1/3 of an inning. By the weekend, he was back pitching for my local Nashville Sounds.
So, how can I spin this obviously disastrous situation to convince you to keep listening to my advice on middle relievers? The example of Stetter reminds us of one of the principles of grabbing middle relievers: respect a streak. Given the low cost of picking up middle relief, the cost of dropping one for another is very low as well, and you can afford to roster only the red-hot. Almost every middle reliever should be unceremoniously dumped once they have a blowup appearance.
Stetter’s stutter, which counted against an NL-only, weekly, team of mine, amounted to one inning, one K, an 8.00 WHIP, and an 18.00 ERA. The good news is … when a middle reliever blows up on your team, there aren’t many innings of bad performance added to your stats. While good middlemen outings chip away at your ERA and WHIP, incrementally, bad outings also hurt only incrementally.
Stetter is not the only, or the most prominent, backfire by a middle reliever this year. That honor would certainly belong to former king of the 8th inning Jonathan Broxton, whose 6-run, one-out, appearance May 11th sunk his ERA for the first half. Remove the string of singles he gave up to the heart of the Astros’ order that day, and he would still be near the top of his class. He’s the exception to dropping guys after a disaster appearance, as he has already bounced back and still possesses a worthy 11.76 K/9.
Kansas City’s Leo Nunez, the original star of my list, has improved his ERA from 2.38 at the start of May to a current 1.35, but he has also stopped striking opponents out, with a mere four strikeouts in 9 and 2/3 innings of work over that span. Nunez’s teammate Ramon Ramirez is also cooling off lately, with fewer strikeouts and an ERA that has gone from 1.00 to 2.14 in nine days. Despite his continued appearance on my list, I’m dropping him for now.
So, where do you go for a couple of days of help on your roster next week? As usual, the list is full of Blue Jays and As.
As usual, this is a list of all Major League pitchers with at least 10 IP, over 8 K/9, under 4 BB/9, under 1.5 HR/9, under 1.35 WHIP, under 3.5 ERA, and less than two games started. Incumbent closers are excluded. The list is shown sorted by K/9 in descending order.
All Toronto lefties (Jesse Carlson, Brian Tallet, and Scott Downs) continue to excel. The fourth lefty in the Toronto pen, BJ Ryan, is not listed only because he is a closer. Would somebody please page Baseball Prospectus and ask them to explain why what used to be the best park in the AL for right-handed batting average is now making every Jay lefty look like Billy Wagner? Next week, Toronto goes to Los Angeles, which is above-average against lefties, then away to New York. Let your own tolerance for risk be your guide.
Santiago Casilla is still on the DL after a one-pitch, one-homer outing May 15th that led to a brief scare he’d be out for the season. Oakland’s relief factory, thankfully, has replaced Casilla with Joey Devine, who should be your top target next week … assuming Carlos Marmol is already taken. Dallas Braden and Keith Foulke also creep onto the list this week to replace Alan Embree and are worth a look.
John Grabow is an anonymous vulture-win machine out in Pittsburgh. Grabow has a batting average against right-handed hitters thirty points higher than against lefties over the last three years. Despite the split, manager John Russell still trusted Grabow for an extended extra-innings relief appearance against Chicago on May 24th despite the fact Chicago is the third-best team in the NL against left-handers. Grabow rewarded his manager’s faith with three innings of scoreless work, two strikeouts, and the win.