So…You Want A Situational Reliever?
The M’s have talked publicly about what they want at the deadline this year, and just in case no one got it, Jerry Dipoto reiterated it at the Baseball Prospects night on Saturday. They’re not looking at starters, no matter how well-reasoned by article on that market may (or may not) have been. Instead, with some SP depth, they can limit innings both by moving to a 6-man rotation AND by shortening the games on the back end. Dipoto stated that they’re fine at the end of games, with Edwin Diaz dominating in the 9th, and with Alex Colome…uh…handling the 8th (he’s put up -0.1 fWAR thus far with the M’s which is obviously a ludicrously small sample, but it’s not great to see a negative sign there). Now, they want wipe-out relievers that can come in and handle the 6th/7th innings. They don’t need length out of them, and they don’t need guys who can go multiple innings – they want the situational excellence they thought they were getting from Marc Rzepczinski. Are any situational relievers avaiable in the M’s price range? I’m glad you asked, narrative device!
Righties:
1: The Name-Brand Option
The Marlins are out of it. They’re out of it in a division with two teams loaded with young talent who’ve arrived a bit earlier than expected in Philadelphia and Atlanta. The Nationals are still ever-frustrating, and may look quite different in a year, but they give three really solid competitors, and all of them feature current 40-man rosters that simply outclass Miami’s. There’s a reason why so many of these options currently toil there, is what I’m saying. There’s no real need for the Marlins to hold situational relievers, or shut-down relievers of any stripe, at this point in their development. They need to see if they’re able to develop starters and position players to fill the yawning chasm left by the likes of Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, and Marcell Ozuna. This isn’t about trying to slash payroll, though I’m sure the Marlins ownership would love that. Rather, it’s about providing some opportunities for players who could conceivably be a part of the next good Marlins team.
Perhaps no one is more miscast on the Marlins than righty Brad Ziegler. Ziegler, the side-arming GB specialist, signed a 2-year, $16 M contract last year, and it expires at the end of 2018. The M’s can easily afford a fraction of $8 M for the rest of the year, and he gives them a very different look than, say, Nick Vincent. I’ve always thought a bullpen needs someone who can come in when a double play ball is in order, and Ziegler’s 73%+ GB% this year would do the trick. In his long career, he’s getting grounders from 2/3 of the batters who put it in play.
Why this makes sense for the M’s: In Ziegler, the M’s would acquire a righty who’s been tough on same-handed bats for a decade, and someone with nearly unparalleled grounder tendencies. If you want “proven” – whatever that phrase means for a reliever – Ziegler is it.
Why this makes sense for the Marlins: Ziegler’s making $8 M this year, and has next to no real utility for them in August/September. His innings could be reallocated to youngsters like Drew Rucinski or Ben Meyer. At this stage, they can’t really expect anything back in terms of talent (low-level lottery ticket), but it would still make sense for everyone.
Why this might give you pause: You know who had a decade-long track record of being tough on same-handed bats? You know who had an amazing GB%? Marc Rzepczynski, that’s who. Also, Ziegler hasn’t been a true shut-down guy against righties this year. He’s been worth -0.5 fWAR – most of that damage has come against lefties, but he’s still giving up a .300 wOBA v. righties, which isn’t exactly what you want from a market-rate ROOGY.
2: The Lesser-Known, Hipster Option
No one in baseball’s induced a higher GB% against right-handed bats this year than one Kevin McCarthy, 26-year old ROOGY for the Kansas City Royals. The Royals are in bad shape right now, but they at least have the lingering memories of their World Series win in 2015 to help them through what may be a painful rebuild. The thing is, most of the hard stuff’s already done – Hosmer followed Dave Cameron to San Diego, Lorenzo Cain’s in Milwaukee – and so it’ll probably be easier for the FO to move guys like Whit Merrifield and, uh, everyone else. McCarthy is a righty reliever who doesn’t miss bats, which is why he could be available. He’s cost controlled for a while, though he’s also the kind of guy who would never command a huge salary given his skillset. But hey, the Royals are interested in Ryon Healy, so I’m sure both teams have already spoken.
McCarthy’s sinker runs just shy of 93, and has solid but not truly remarkable armside run. He pairs it with a change (as well as a slurvy curveball and a tighter slider), which is interesting for a ROOGY. To date, he has not figured out lefties *at all* so again, his ceiling’s quite limited. His change is effective against all hitters, but his fastball is the real story, as lefties apparently get a long look at the pitch and can elevate it. He’s got whatever the opposite of deception is – really debilitating candor, or something.
Why this makes sense for the Mariners: McCarthy does most of what Ziegler does, and he wouldn’t be a rental. If you’re one of the old heads who misses a Sean Green type, well, McCarthy is…not exactly like that, but a 10:1 GB:FB ratio vs. righties could be huge in a bases-loaded, 1-out scenario. I wouldn’t do this for Healy straight up, but if they’re interested in Healy, then make sure we get McCarthy as part of the package coming back.
Why this makes sense for the Royals: Like the Marlins, the Royals simply don’t need situational relievers, and while I’m sure the Royals could build around cost-controlled young players, no one builds around low-K situational relievers. You either need one now or you don’t.
Why this might give you pause: Ziegler’s been around enough to be able to at least fight lefties to a draw. McCarthy’s pretty much sunk if the opposing manager pinch hits, which limits his effectiveness. If you’re targeting big spots in the 6th inning, it could work, but there’s the possibility of a crippling HR to a lefty, or a bunch of intentional walks in his future. The lack of real bat-missing ability is a red flag, too.
3: The Closer-type
Keone Kela, of Highline/Chief Sealth and then Everett Community College, is currently the Rangers closer. He’ll draw plenty of attention as the go-nowhere Rangers retool for another run in a few years. He’s in his first arb year this year, so he’ll get sizable raises over the next few years. Importantly for the M’s, he’s absolute death on a stick against righties, thanks to a fastball/curve combo that’s tough for righties to pick up. In his career, righties are hitting .184 and slugging .276 on his slurvy curveball. He’s a perfectly fine closer for now, but I think he’d be even better as a righty-focused set-up man.
If the fit works well (I’d actually rather have him where Colome’s slotted in now) in terms of role, I’m less sanguine about the fit in trade. The Rangers may get a decent prospect or two for Kela, who’s still cost controlled, and who has the all-important closer tag on him. For a guy with apparent attitude issues for a while, Kela seems to have done well in the closer’s role, though of course the Rangers are about as far from a playoff race as you could get.
Why this makes sense for the Mariners: Kela offers exactly what you want in a righty specialist. He’s got premium velocity and a great breaking ball that righties seemingly can’t quite pick up. He’s fine against lefties, too, so you don’t have to remove him if the opposing manager pinch hits. All in all, he’s better than Alex Colome, so clearly he’d be a great pick-up for the M’s. His price may come down as a result of his recent DL stint with shoulder soreness.
Why this makes sense for the Rangers: The Rangers have already made it clear they’d like to move him, as no team except possibly Miami needs a closer less than Texas. He’ll draw plenty of interest, and should net a solid prospect or two. Dan Vogelbach won’t get it done here, so the M’s are going to need to send over several near-MLB players, and frankly, they don’t have a ton to offer.
Why this might give you pause: Kela’s going to command more in trade than anyone on this list, and has struggled with control at times. Two years ago, he collapsed to a replacement-level season, with an ERA over 6, the product of too many HRs. Since that time, he’s limited dingers remarkably well, but the other side of that coin is that his HR/FB luck could run out at any point. Also: shoulder soreness.
Lefties:
4: High K Potential Relief Ace
Adam Conley, a local kid out of Olympia HS and Wazzu, threw 300 big league innings as a starter. The first 200 were quite good, but the last 100 got him demoted to the minors, and then saw him lose his starting role. He’s worked out of the minors most of the year, but has come up to throw 26+ innings as a reliever, where the Marlins hoped his stuff might play up. It has. Conley’s sinking, running fastball now averages 95+, and with 10″ of armside run, it looks like a true weapon out of the pen. Even better for Conley, it’s made it hard for lefties to elevate. He’s got completely different batted ball profiles against lefties and righties, with lefties pounding the ball into the ground, and righties hitting the occasional fly ball on those rare occasions they don’t strike out.
Unlike the others on this list, Conley isn’t really a true situational guy. He’s just new to relief work, and as of right now, he’s actually fared better against righties. But with that FB boring in on the hands of lefties, and with the makings of a decent slider, there’s no real reason he couldn’t dominate lefties. The problem, such as it is, is that his change-up’s ahead of the slider right now, so he’s striking out righties instead. I can’t speak for Jerry Dipoto, but personally, I’m ok with that.
Why this makes sense for the Mariners: Conley is under team control for three years, costs virtually nothing this season, and looks for all the world like a break-out reliever. Tweaks to his breaking ball akin to the tweaks they made to Marco Gonzales’ should make him even more effective.
Why this makes sense for the Marlins: Conley is now 28, and hits arbitration for the first time next year, meaning he’s due for a big raise. That’s awesome – he’s earned it. He doesn’t have a long track record as a reliever, so he won’t command a ton in trade, but as a guy with three years of arb coming up, the Marlins may decide they’d rather sell high and give those innings to pre-arb players. If that’s what they want to do, the M’s should make a move and happily pay Conley a slightly-higher fraction of what he’s owed.
Why this might give you pause: Conley would cost more than Ziegler in terms of talent. If the Marlins want a legitimate prospect, I can see some wondering if it’s worth it for a non-late-inning reliever. There’s also much less of a track record here. Righties used to hit him fairly hard, and he’s *never* posted decent K rates against lefties. If you want a shut-down guy against same-handed hitters, Conley both might cost too much and do too little. He’s great, but it may just not be the right fit.
5: The classic LOOGY
Alex Claudio is Keone Kela’s teammate with the Rangers right now, and like Conley, he’ll hit arbitration next year. He lacks the velocity and raw stuff of his teammate/fellow lefty Jake Diekman, but he makes up for it in deception and GB tendencies. With a sidearm delivery and a sinker with tons of armside run, Claudio has a GB% over 60%. His slider has loads of horizontal movement, making it a great weapon against lefties. I’d liken his stuff to watching Carson Smith (or Diekman) in slo-mo – it’s doing the same sort of thing, it’s just doing it 10 MPH slower.
Claudio’s been bitten by BABIP this year, and has never really been a swing-and-miss pitcher, even against lefties. That’s largely due to the fact that the slider that has all of that break has been his third pitch. His main secondary pitch is a weird change-up thrown very slow, at around 71. It’s weird because despite its low velo, it actually has *less* sink than his, uh, sinker. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything like that, actually. The M’s could work with him on his slider to be even better against lefties, but even if nothing changes, he’d be a solid option with men on and a lefty at the plate, as he induces tons of grounders against them.
Why this makes sense for the M’s: Claudio gets tons of grounders and lefties have a .204 OBP against him in his career. From a pure results standpoint, Claudio checks the boxes: he gets lefties out, and he doesn’t walk people.
Why this makes sense for the Rangers: I’m mentioned before that a rebuilding team doesn’t really need LOOGYs, but the Rangers actually have two left-handed relievers on the market. Diekman’s better overall, especially as puts his major surgery behind him (he had his colon removed in 2017), and Claudio’s escalating contract may not be as attractive to the Rangers as it would be to the M’s. Even in arb, Claudio’s not going to break the bank. The Rangers should be happy with cost-controlled relievers coming back, and the M’s have plenty to offer.
Why this might give you pause: As funky as his change-up is, it’s not a great bat-missing pitch, and his overall results are down this year. In 2018, the league average reliever strikes out a batter an inning. Even in a specialist role, Claudio will never come close to that, and thus may not be the kind of specialist the M’s really want.
Shane Greene’s now out with shoulder discomfort, Tony Barnette was shut down a while ago with the same problem, so they’re not viable candidates. Zach Britton probably *is*, but as an absolutely dominant former closer coming off of injury, I think he may not quite fit with Seattle. Not only has he not been linked to them in public reports, his stuff’s not quite what it used to be. Britton will help someone, but I doubt it’ll be the M’s. That’s fine, as I’ve shown there are quite a few players who might fit the M’s needs, depending on how you define situational reliever. What would you give up for a 6th-7th inning specialist? How much does that willingness to trade change with the M’s current spot in the race, and how much does club control matter to you?
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9 Responses to “So…You Want A Situational Reliever?”
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I was hoping for a bobby Ayala to blow the lead….
That’s the great thing about relievers, Heyoka – any of them can go full Ayala at a moments notice. You could argue that Nicasio’s season has been a weird Ayala homage – lots of K’s that keep you intrigued, but a lot of opponents crossing home plate.
Nicasio, Colome, Scrabble, etc.
I’d be wary of flinging any real prospect at getting the next in a longish line of meh.
What about Ryan Cook, Rumbelow, Armstrong, Festa, instead?
There is nothing worse than trading prospects for middling players in an ultimately failed post season run. I have no desire to see the M’s make their farm system even worse by trading for middle relievers, the one thing that is easiest to get, yet prone to swings of volatility.
Just the mention of Bobby Ayala makes my legs want to start swinging like Lou’s in the dugout when Bobby got out on the mound. Memories….
But, here we are in end July, and the Mariners are into their typical mid-season, Brownian Motion approach to wherever they are statistically. Although, this year, it’s not hovering at .495 but at .600, which is strange and magical. But not unheard of. We’ve been here before in a very unsettling way, looking at some solid reliever mojo. And what is good is that, regardless of who they’re looking at, nothing that’s out there really resembles the shambolic, 1997-style temptations. We don’t need to give much away (luckily, because we don’t really have it), and we’re not in some weird, Hail Mary, mentality willing to feverishly overlook serious danger signs.
Yes. Please. Just enough bump to get things back into +.500 mode over the rest of the season.
With any luck we can pick up the likes of Heathcliff Slocumb, Paul Spoljaric, and Mike Timlin.
I have been pushing Conley as a possible Dipoto move for several weeks…but as the #6 rotation/bullpen pitcher to reduce the innings for LeBlanc and Marco. He would have been cheaper to acquire, if Dipoto had moved on him two months ago.
I wonder if McCarthy could be packaged with Merrifield? We know KC has interest in Healy, and while it would take a lot more than Healy, Merrifield could immediately cover CF, then move over to 1B for the post season (assuming, yes). I wouldn’t have a problem with Haniger in CF, Gamel and Span in the corners for the post season.
I would think it’d be worlds easier to have Gordon play a bit of OF to free up room for Cano for the stretch drive.
The problem with jettisoning Healy and putting Cano at first is once the post season hits Vogelbach is your starting first baseman.
I would almost think the Ms would have to fall pretty flat on their face before the deadline, because booting their best (gulp) option at first base in the post season to … address a team strength in the bullpen just doesn’t move the needle.
Healy reminds me a lot of the Logan Morrison experiment. Neither were much beyond replacement level, but the sudden absence of them in the lineup without a suitable replacement being brought in feels like it craters an already struggling offense.
The narrative sentence for the M’s is “Oh man, we could have seriously won that game if ….”
And in 40 losses i do not think that sentence has ended ‘we had another situational ROOGY at our disposal’ even once.
The two most common finishes to that sentence are “We had ANY semblance of starting pitching today” and “hit the ball.. even a little.”
Maybe years of Justin Smoak has stockholm syndrome’d me into finding first baseman who hit 7th in the line up as acceptable. If you want me to agree that Healy is expendable, we need someone to play 1B in the post season first, don’t we?