The Bullpen Report: Buying Osuna, A Deep Leugue Bullpen Sleeper & More

by Nick Hutcherson

I am going to change the format for the column a bit for the next few weeks! We haven’t had a ton of action on the closer front lately, so I am going to give you 3 guys to target (as usual) and then do a buy/sell on hot starters or poor performers in the second part. As far as the three to add, here’s a guide line for league size:

• Shallow Leagues – 10 teams or less
• Standard Leagues – 12-15 teams
• Deep Leagues – 16+ teams

Three to grab

1) Shallow League- Archie Bradley- Arizona Diamondbacks
Bradley has been featured here before. This past week there was talk of him entering the rotation with Shelby Miller hitting the shelf, but the management in Arizona quickly put out the flames and pronounced the he will remain in the bullpen. That is great news for us! Fernando Rodney is hands down the worst closer going, while Bradley has the newfound skills to be among the games elite closers.

Bradley is not the same guy as he has been in the past. While he still pounds the zone with his high-90’s heater, he has really refined his knuckle-curve to be deadly (opponents are hitting just .083 on the pitch this season). Sometimes, with guys that have all the tools, the bullpen is the best landing spot. Bradley now has the green light to go full gas for 20-25 pitches instead of having to pace himself.

2) Standard League- Joaquin Benoit- Philadelphia Phillies
We know who Benoit is so I am not going to dive deep into the statistics here. When Jeanmar Gomez coughed up the gig Benoit was anointed closer, but that didn’t last long as Hector Neris squirmed his way into the picture and we would all agree that he is the future in Philadelphia. Here is the thing, in the present Neris has allowed runs in 4 of his last 6 outings with the last being brutal. I expect Benoit will be back to getting save opportunities soon (though Thursday’s blown save puts a little bit of a wrench in those plans) as the Phillies may look to get Neris some lower leverage work and rebuild his confidence.

3) Deep League- James Hoyt- Houston Astros
When you are playing in a deep league you can’t afford to take a wait and see approach. Hoyt is looking like Chris Devenski and he hails from the same bullpen! He has faced 17 batters this season, 3 have reached base and 10 have struck out. Pretty good! This looks legit, as this is the same player that we saw in Triple-A last season over 55 innings. He had a 20 inning drink of water with the big club during the season in which he posted a 4.50 ERA, but this shouldn’t scare you off. It is common for players to go through an adjustment period and an elevated HR rate and HR/FB% suggest that this was, at least in part, due to a little bit of poor luck.

Buy/Sell

1) Brandon Kintzler – Minnesota Twins – Sell
If you own Kintzler his value is never going to be higher than it is right now. He is the proud owner of a dazzling 0.79 ERA and has 7 saves to his credit, so you should be looking to trade him off right now for the best deal available. Everything points to some rough correction First he has a K/9 rate below 5 and a BB/9 rate above 3. This means that lots of contact is being made with too many runners getting freely on base. Couple that with his .188 BABIP, he owns a .300 career BABIP, and his 4.42 FIP and you can see that this is a clear sell candidate, and it’s best to get to work on making that trade immediately.

2) Roberto Osuna – Toronto Blue Jays – Buy
This is the same argument as Kintzler, as Osuna has been suffering from terrible luck. He happens to have no walks issued this season and is striking out a batter an inning. What is the problem here? The .360 BABIP that is .100 points higher than his career .255 BABIP. This luck is due to correct itself and Osuna’s ERA should creep down towards his 2.63 FIP.

Make sure to check out all of our updated rankings: