Bullpen Banter: With Melancon On The DL, Which Giants’ Relief Pitcher Should Be Targeted?

by Eric Stashin (aka The Rotoprofessor)

With Mark Melancon hitting the DL, and potentially needing more than the minimum 10 days, the back of the San Francisco bullpen is once again in flux.  There are two obvious candidates to assume the closer’s role, so let’s take a look at each and determine who is the better waiver wire addition (despite who the team is currently saying will close, things tend to change quickly):

Hunter Strickland
Long considered a potential closer of the future, Strickland has put up some impressive numbers early on this season with a 0.82 ERA and 11.45 K/9.  Of course he’s struggled with his control (5.73 BB/9) and benefited from some significant luck (93.8% strand rate).  Throw in having not yet allowed a home run and he appears to be a disaster waiting to happen.

Control has never been an issue, including a 2.80 BB/9 last season, so that’s not a reason to downgrade him.  Even an improvement there, though, doesn’t help to offset the risk of regression in his strand rate.  His fastball velocity is down, averaging 95.8 mph (after 96.8 last season), and considering he’s throwing it 71.2% of the time it is something to monitor.

He’s showing tremendous swing and miss ability (12.1% SwStr%) and getting opponents to chase outside of the strike zone (33.0% O-Swing%).  Is that enough?  He’s unlikely to maintain this type of strikeout rate and with the other concerning numbers it’s easy to imagine an implosion coming.

Derek Law
Law brings a four pitch mix to the back of the bullpen, which has helped him to a 2.40 ERA to open the season.  He also owns an unimpressive 1.53 WHIP, as his walks are up (3.60 BB/9) and he’s suffered some poor luck (.364 BABIP).  That should improve, so even when his 88.5% strand rate regresses the impact won’t be quite as severe.

With a minor league career 2.7 BB/9 we know the control is solid.  He also owns an 11.5 K/9, and while he may not be quite that good his 10.0% SwStr% does support a bit better of a number (8.40 K/9).  With those marks, as well as the ability to generate enough groundballs (49.2% in the Majors), the makings are there for a strong option at the back of the bullpen.

He may not be elite and likely will have some bumps, but he appears to be the safer of the two pitchers right now.  It makes sense that he’d be first up in terms of saves, and he does have the potential to run with the role.  In this case the rhetoric backs up the numbers, so if you are claiming a Giants’ reliever prioritize Law for the short-term.

Sources – Fangraphs, Baseball Reference

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