The Relief Brief: Tuesday, August 9th

by Collin Campbell (collinman005@gmail.com) Last Updated 2016-08-10 02:43:53

Somewhere around 35% of at bats come against a team’s bullpen. Most DFSers, however, pay attention only to the matchup an offense has with starting pitchers.

In order to give RotoGrinders readers an edge on the field, we have developed a Bullpen Pitching article that focuses on bullpen usage and skill, as well as the elements that may come into play on that day in terms of the bullpen pitchers an offense is likeliest to see. Although we developed this article as part of our Premium Content Package, we decided to make this article free to all readers for the remainder of the 2016 MLB season!

I’ve had some great feedback and thoughts from readers via the comments section and twitter. Keep your thoughts and ideas coming, and thank you for reading!

Tuesday features a 14-game slate. While I won’t break down every bullpen situation, we will begin with the bullpen highlights. As always, feel free to ask me questions on twitter or in the comments section below. Let’s get to it!

1. Bullpen Highlights

Luis Severino will get another crack at starting tonight, and he will do so in Boston. He began the season in the rotation, but early struggles (29 earned runs through his first six starts of 2016) knocked him back to the bullpen. Those early struggles and injury problems have led to a disappointing campaign. Tonight, he’ll get a chance to remedy that. He should be stretched out enough to go for five or six innings (if he is effective). The Yankees bullpen has been great, but also lost Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman via trades. Dellin Betances continues to pitch well, but he’s just one third of the former trio of DMC.

Chad Kuhl is another highly touted prospect. He’ll get his fifth career big league start tonight in spite of a minor injury to his triceps. In his four previous starts, Kuhl has been more lucky than good. The Cubs lit him up, but otherwise his numbers aren’t bad (except for the 5.38 xFIP). The Pirates mediocre bullpen is still trying to piece things together since the trading of their best arm, Mark Melancon. The Padres have been swinging the bats better since the All-Star break, and they may be in position to put up some runs tonight, but it’s hard to get too excited about that lineup or most any lineup in PNC Park.

Zack Greinke is finally back from a stint on the DL with an oblique injury. Greinke had 17 starts on the season prior to injury and had gone six or more innings on 14 occasions. We have to temper expectations somewhat in this game because of the DL stint, as he may not be in line for a typical allotment of pitches. The Mets bats have been showing some signs of life lately (Walker and Conforto homered in the same game over the weekend in a throwback to April type performance). The Diamondbacks bullpen may have to put in some work here, and they have been dreadful all season long and particularly in the last month.

The San Francisco Giants and Miami Marlins were in a 14-inning marathon last night, so both Matt Moore and Tom Koehler get a write-up by default. The Giants used Jake Peavy, Derek Law, Will Smith, Sergio Romo, Hunter Strickland, Santiago Casilla and George Kontos out of the ‘pen last night. Only Romo and Law threw less than 12 pitches, and everyone else aside from Smith threw over 20 pitches. Needless to say, the bullpen is going to be fatigued tonight. With Strickland, Casilla and Kontos all going for two innings yesterday, I am guessing that all three would be unavailable tonight. Matt Moore has been stretched out this season and will likely get some extra run here. Moore has gone for six or more innings in eleven straight starts. For the Marlins, Dustin McGowan took the brunt of the bullpen work by going nearly four full innings and tossing 62 pitches. Kyle Barraclough (28 pitches) and Mike Dunn (27 pitches) are also likely to be unavailable tonight. Meanwhile, Tom Koehler has been on a nice little run lately thanks to consecutive starts against the Phillies, but he also shut down the Cubs over six frames in his last outing. The Marlins will be looking for a similar outing from Koehler in this one, and the Giants have been cold at the plate over the last two weeks (.309 team wOBA).

Wily Peralta hasn’t pitched in the majors since being demoted to AAA back in mid June. Peralta is one of my favorite pitchers to pick on. In his 13 starts in 2016, Peralta has reached the six-inning mark just twice, while sporting a salivating 4.78 xFIP and hard contact galore. Wily Peralta is an inspiration, but enough about him. The Braves lineup has been hitting the ball better in the last two weeks (fifth best team wOBA), and are in a prime ballpark to do some damage against “One L’d Wily” (he continues to inspire). At home on the season, the Brewers bullpen has allowed a collective .323 wOBA and a team xFIP of 4.28. It’s tough to want to invest in Braves bats, but they won folks some serious change last night.

Brandon Finnegan now has consecutive scoreless outings over 12-innings of work. In those starts, he has given up a combined six total hits and three walks. His xFIP in each of the last two starts is still pushing four however. Right after I wrote up how the Reds bullpen had been improving yesterday, they gave up five runs and blew a 4-0 lead in the ninth inning. That’s what I get. Never again. In all seriousness, the Cards have struggled against lefties all season long (this sounds eerily similar to the write-up yesterday about Cody Reed) and registered only four hits through six-innings of Cody Reed. Look, the Reds bullpen is bad but it has been better recently (3.55 SIERA over the last 30 days compared to a 4.43 SIERA on the season). Still, this is a spot that the Cardinals should take advantage of, at least on paper, but it’s hard to recommend taking bats in a lineup that is ranked 25th in team wOBA against lefties in 2016.

Zachary Neal gets his second career big league start tonight against the Orioles. Neal has bounced back and forth between the minors and the big leagues this season, and has primarily been used in a mid-relief role. He does have one previous start, and it came in Seattle. Neal went four innings in that game and gave up seven earned runs and two dongs. The A’s got a strong start from Kendall Graveman last night (seven innings, one earned run). The bullpen should be fresh, and it will need to be. I can’t see Neal lasting more than five innings in this one. Thereafter, the O’s will be facing a mediocre bullpen that has been underperforming over the past month.

Daniel Norris was recalled from AAA on Monday, and he will get the spot start tonight against the Mariners. Norris has three starts in the big leagues this season, including one against Seattle. Norris gave up three dongs over five innings in his previous start against Seattle, and failed to pitch beyond the fifth inning in any of his previous big league outings this year. Norris posted 91 K’s over 86 innings in the lower levels this season, but as he has found out, the margin for error is much smaller with the big club. The Tigers ‘pen will need to work in this one, and they have been league average over the course of the season (3.83 SIERA).

My Top Bullpen 3 Bullpen Situations To Attack

1. Milwaukee Brewers
2. Oakland Athletics
3. Detroit Tigers

Honorable Mentions

Cincinnati Reds
Miami Marlins

2. Bullpen Personnel Movement

The Marlins star closer A.J. Ramos was placed on the 15-day DL today.

Oakland is calling up a slew of minor leaguers to make spot starts against the Orioles. This should be fun.

The Dodgers called up Josh Ravin from AAA. Ravin had served an 80 game suspension for PED use.

Tim Tebow is reportedly pursuing a career in baseball and will likely be joining your favorite team next season. Get ready for a summer of TEBOW-MANIA!

3. Other Notes and insights that I find along the way.

Last night, Roberto Osuna gave up a solo home run. That was the first run he had given up since June 29th against Colorado.

Feel free to follow me and ask me questions on Twitter – @collinman005

Legend