The Relief Brief: Wednesday, September 14th

by Collin Campbell (collinman005@gmail.com) Last Updated 2016-09-15 03:14:21

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!

Wednesday features a split slate. While I won’t break down every bullpen situation, we will begin with the bullpen highlights from the late portion of the slate.

1. Bullpen Highlights

Rick Porcello now has nine consecutive starts of at least seven innings thrown. We can just about bank on a long outing from Porcello, particularly when pitching in Fenway Park (where he has been dominant this season). Porcello is getting the mention here because of the state of the Red Sox bullpen. Yesterday, the Red Sox ‘pen logged heavy work after a disappointing outing from Drew Pomeranz. Expect Porcello to get some extra run tonight given his current form and the fatigue in the Boston bullpen.

Jake Thompson now has seven career big league starts and has gone 1-5 with a 6.05 ERA and a 5.32 xFIP. He does have a pair of seven inning outings, but aside from those two starts, he has been at five or fewer innings. The walks and long balls have been the biggest issue for Thompson so far. The Phillies ‘pen has given up a lot of homers lately to the tune of a 1.65 HR/9 combined with a 4.16 SIERA over the last 30 days. This could be a nice spot to attack.

Tyler Duffey owns a hearty 1.72 HR/9 rate through 120 innings pitched this season and has reached the six-inning mark in just 11 of his 23 starts this season. I don’t expect Duffey to stick around for long in this game, which should mean that we may have some goodness all game long. The Twins bullpen owns the fifth worst SIERA over the last 30 days and has had to work a lot lately. Expect the Tigers to do some damage here tonight, though anything can happen in baseball. “That’s why they play the game…” or something like that.

Josh Tomlin has allowed at least one home run in 15 consecutive starts. Tomlin had his turn in the rotation skipped last week and will be hoping to bounce back tonight. On top of his struggles with the long ball, Tomlin has struggled to work deep into ballgames as well. While he should be fresh tonight, there is more to suggest that this game will involve a healthy amount of the Indians bullpen than not. The Cleveland ‘pen owns a 3.17 SIERA over the last 30 days and in spite of having heavy amounts of work, they’ve been one of the best bullpens in baseball since July. We can certainly take a White Sox bat or two against Tomlin, but don’t expect much damage to be done once Tomlin exits the game.

It’s probably unfair to call Jeff Hoffman the new Kyle Kendrick (I miss you Kyle), but his first four big league starts have been Kendick-esque. Hoffman is giving up home runs and runs of all types in droves and has more walks than strikeouts so far in his 17.2 innings pitched. The Rockies ‘pen had to work hard yesterday, and should suffer a similar fate tonight in Chase Field. The Rockies bullpen owns a bottom third SIERA this season and they are not at full strength going into tonight’s ballgame.

Rubby De La Rosa tossed two innings in his first start coming off of the DL. After that, Braden Shipley took over for 3.2 innings of his own. Essentially, De La Rosa and Shipley were always going to split duties in that outing, and I expect a similar scenario to unfold tonight. De La Rosa is still working his way back to full strength and isn’t going to thrown more than four to five innings max. After that, we will see a large amount of one of the clear bottom two bullpens in baseball. The DBacks bullpen was saved by Matt Koch who threw four innings last night, so all arms should be available tonight, but that’s not necessarily an added benefit when your bullpen owns a 4.32 SIERA in 2016. It’s sort of like choosing between Case Keenum, Jared Goff and Sean Mannion as your starting QB – it’s probably not going to end well either way.

Jhoulys Chacin has bounced back and forth from the bullpen to the rotation all season long since being acquired by the Angels. Chacin has not had an outing of six innings or more since the end of May, so we shouldn’t expect a long outing tonight against the Mariners. Predictably, the Angels used a lot of arms yesterday and they find themselves in a similar spot tonight. I really like this spot for Seattle bats as Chacin has struggled (particularly against lefties) and hasn’t been stretched out in a while. Combine the starting pitcher with the fact that the LAA ‘pen owns the fourth worst SIERA in baseball this year.

My Favorite Bullpens To Pick On

1. Colorado Rockies
2. Los Angeles Angels
3. Minnesota Twins
4. Philadelphia Phillies

2. Bullpen Personnel Movement

No personnel movement today to this point.

3. Other Notes And Insights

The Cincinnati Reds bullpen has thrown the most innings of any team in baseball this season at 515.1 innings. They have paired that with the worst bullpen SIERA in baseball.

The Los Angeles Dodgers bullpen has thrown the second most innings of any team in baseball this season at 513.1 innings. They have paired that with the fourth best bullpen SIERA in baseball.

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

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