Bullpen Depth Charts: Relievers To Stream 4/5

Welcome back to our Relievers to Stream for Wins and Saves series! This will bring you up-to-date bullpen depth charts every morning for the day’s games and makes for a great tool for those of you looking to stream saves or wins. This series runs 7 days a week, so be sure to check in every morning to get your daily bullpen fix!

Notes

• The Nationals, Mets, Rays, Marlins, Mariners, and Giants were all inactive on Sunday and have virtually completely fresh bullpens going into Monday’s games.
• The Nationals, Braves, Diamondbacks, and Rockies are off today, but there are plenty of options for win vultures as pitchers are still getting stretched out. My two picks are Craig Stammen against the Giants and Matt Andriese against the Rays.
  

• Héctor Neris closed out the game but José Alvarado looked better. His sinker averaged 99 which is even faster than his 2019 average. Seems pretty healthy to me. Neris is still first in line to close, but Alvarado could seize it if he limits walks. It’s worth noting that Archie Bradley didn’t seem to be an option after throwing an inning on Saturday. When Neris was struggling, Connor Brogdon was warming up.
• Chris Martin left the game with an injury. Look out for updates there. We also saw work from Tyler Matzek and A.J. Minter who both looked really nice. The lack of Will Smith solidifies that he’s at the top of the pecking order if there was any doubt left.

• After a short outing from Domingo Germán, Michael King came on and threw six very efficient innings in relief. It was a very impressive outing, but I’m still in ‘wait-and-see’ mode on King.
• Another close game for the Jays, this time we so no Rafael Dolis, Instead, we saw Jordan Romano in the eighth, and, in what was one of the more surprising and exciting moments in the day for me, Julian Merryweather in the 9th. Romano looked good, but Merryweather looked ready and has absolutely filthy stuff. His fastball averaged 99 mph and his changeups are typically around 80 or 81. He can also get swings and misses with his slider. In one sequence, he pumped in a 99 mph fastball, dotted the outside corner with an 87 mph slider to get Gleyber Torres, and had Jay Bruce swinging about a foot over the ball on an 81 mph changeup. We’re going to put him as a co-closer for now, but he very well may be “the guy”. In short, BUY BUY BUY!

• In a game that was well in hand, we finally got our first look at Emmanuel Clase in regular season action since 2019. His first pitch was 101 and his fastball averaged 100.5 mph on eleven pitches. He missed some pitches up, so I can see how he had home run problems in the Spring. Regardless, he’s very much in the ninth inning mix for Cleveland.
• Nothing worthwhile happening in the Tigers pen.
  

• Tejay Antone saw his first action of the season and his sinker was as fast as ever (averaged 98) and his breaking pitches were spinnier than ever. The final line doesn’t look great, but I’m encouraged. He was the victim of a bad call on a pitch that would have struck out Matt Carpenter and some less-than-perfect defense on the single from Tommy Edman. I am hoping we see him go multiple innings and 30 to 40 pitches next time.
• Nothing too consequential for the Cardinals here. This game was out of hand by the late innings.

• The Orioles took a 10-0 lead by the third inning here, so the relievers used here don’t have many fantasy implications.
• Garrett Whitlock threw three and a third scoreless innings striking out five in relief. The 16% swinging strike rate on the sinker is interesting, but I honestly haven’t seen enough of Whitlock to know exactly what to make of him. He had a good Spring as well, so he’s one I’ll be watching a bit more closely in his next outing.

• Ian Kennedy was sent in to close a five-run game and struck out the side, but not before giving up a couple of hits and a run. His fastball was sitting around 95 which is a much-needed increase from 2020. Still, I’m not thrilled and want exactly zero shares of the Rangers bullpen.
• The Royals went down early and didn’t use their top relievers. Kyle Zimmer did throw three solid frames, so you may want to keep his name in mind as a potential bulk reliever. He had quite a bit of success in the role last year as well.

• The Twins had this game in hand by the middle innings, so the top arms didn’t throw, but Hansel Robles had another successful outing. He threw almost exclusively changeups, but the two fastballs he threw were—like in his first outing—in the 96-97 range. This is closer to where he sat in his breakout 2019 season than his disappointing 2020, so he could be a solid middle-relief option for this deep bullpen.
• Josh Lindblom, starter hopeful, came into a 6-2 game for multi-inning relief in the seventh. He threw 12 four-seamers in the seventh averaging 91.4 mph, which is not a bad velocity for him. He came back out in the eighth and his average fastball velocity was down over a full tick to 90.2 in the 8th. Not exactly what you want to see from a guy hoping to start some games. He got up to 56 pitches, but only got six outs with them and lost velocity as he went on.

• After striking out the side on Saturday, Craig Kimbrel notched his first save of the year striking out two and allowing no baserunners. Control has really been the issue for Kimbrel the past couple years and he’s faced the minimum in his first two outings. Good signs so far.
• The Pirates were fighting to keep this game close, so we saw a lot of their best arms including Duane Underwood, David Bednar, and Chris Stratton. Underwood in particular is interesting to me. Just 10 out of his 35 pitches this year (29%) have been four-seamers which is considerably lower than previous years. I’m hoping he’s using the four-seamer less in an effort to limit the hard contact that has plagued him thus far in his career. The career K-BB% of 21.5 hints at some potential if he figures out how to suppress hard contact.

• After a close game on Saturday that saw Kenley Jansen throw 24 pitches to earn a five-out save, the Dodgers turned to Corey Knebel to close things out in Colorado. He needed just eight pitches to record three outs and touched 96 on the gun, pretty much where he was pre-injury. Ho-hum, the Dodgers have claimed another veteran reliever off the scrap heap and turned him into the best version of himself. What’s new?
• The Rockies were trying to keep the game close and threw Mychal Givens for the second straight day. He got through a clean inning here, but I don’t think he’s going to make a big push for Daniel Bard’s job. Will Bard give it up? That’s a different story.

• The Astros jumped out to an early lead and never gave it up, so they allowed their bullpen to take a rest and gave the ball to Brandon Bielak who retired all 14 batters he faced on just 44 pitches. It was an impressive outing for Bielak, but there were definitely some noisy outs here as well. I’m still not ready to buy into Bielak as a useful fantasy asset.
• Position player pitching alert! Ka’ai Tom threw a scoreless inning, something which only one other Athletics pitcher was able to do in this game. We saw Yusmeiro Petit and J.B. Wendelken in this game. Wendelken was effective but his velocity was down on all his pitches again. I was high on him going into the year, but I’m casting a bit of a side-eye now.

• It was our first look at the back of the Diamondbacks bullpen and we got a bit of a surprise. Stefan Crichton came on in the seventh with Joakim Soria coming on in the eighth and Chris Devenski coming in the ninth to pick up the save. Soria struggled, walking two, and eventually was pulled due to injury. He was replaced by Kevin Ginkel to get the last out of the eighth. This may have been a strange situation, but I think it just goes to show the Diamondbacks bullpen situation is still very much in flux. Devenski looked OK, but his velocity was still off from his last productive season a few years ago and Fernando Tatis Jr. absolutely crushed one of his fastballs to left-center. I’m not sure if I want to buy into anyone here unless Ginkel finds his control again or J.B. Bukauskas gets called up and we get to see what he can do.
• Dark-horse closer candidate Keone Kela got some work in the ninth and delivered a clean inning with two strikeouts. He seems healthy, so he should continue to produce solid results if he stays that way. Whether he gets saves or not will likely be a result of how everyone around him does.

• The game was close throughout, so the White Sox threw some of their top arms including Codi Heuer and Aaron Bummer. Heuer gave up a couple of hard hit balls including a home run and didn’t record a strikeout, but I’m not worried about him long-term.
• Raisel Iglesias technically blew the save, but only due to his own fielding error. He recorded five outs on 30 pitches including two by strikeouts. He’s pitched in all three games so far (three out of four days), so he might get a day off on Monday. It’s worth nothing that Aaron Slegers again came on in the seventh inning of a close ballgame and appears to be an important late-inning option for the Angels. He’s not a flashy, strikeout-heavy holds option, but his fastball velocity is up a tick so far and he was solid last year.