Alexis Díaz, Hector Neris, and Alex Young each had three SV+HLD’s this past week to lead all relievers. We know how good Díaz has been this season, but Neris has been one of the more underrated non-closer relievers while Young has been an intriguing deep league option for some time now. Neris is in the midst of one of his best seasons despite losing over a MPH on his fastball, but it’s led to a better command of the pitch and his splitter is still doing its thing with a 42.2% Whiff rate. Young has had some issues with hard contact but other than that has been fairly dominant this season with a 19.7% SwStr rate and 38.8% Chase rate (while having just a 4.3% BB rate). He’s been throwing his changeup more often this season, a trend that has helped some other relievers have breakouts thus far (Keynan Middleton for example).
Notes
- Mark Leiter Jr. is also having a breakout season, also aided by throwing his changeup/splitter more often, while also upping the cutter usage against lefties (which led to Evan Phillips’s breakout last season). The splitter has been a dominant pitch for him going back to last season, and now that he’s throwing it more often, it’s led to a 36.3% K rate. He’s allowed runs in just three appearances this season, with those coming against the Rays, Astros, and Dodgers, so I’m not concerned about him not being able to keep this up moving forward.
- Will Smith has been a good find by the Rangers this season and it’s great to see the swing-and-miss stuff come back while being able to keep that walk rate under 10%. My concerns lie in the high hard contact rates, the low groundball rate (24%!), and the fact his BABIP and LOB% will inevitably rise as the season moves on.
- Tommy Kahnle returned to the Yankees bullpen yesterday and should slide into some sort of high-leverage role rather quickly given the state of that bullpen right now. He’s pitched a total of 13.2 innings since 2019 so it remains to be seen what he can offer still, but Kahnle was one of the better changeup specialists in the game before all of these injuries and flashed that ability in a small sample size last season.
- It’s time for the Rockies to move on from Pierce Johnson as their closer. The problem becomes, who do you replace him with? There doesn’t seem to be a clear-cut option in that bullpen at the moment so like we should be doing with all Colorado pitchers, just avoid this situation entirely if at all possible.
And if you want more daily reliever updates, please check out our Reliever Ranks series.
| PITCHER | TIER | INJURY (SURGERY DATE). NOTES |
|---|---|---|
| José Alvarado | 1/2 | Elbow. Beginning rehab assignment and could return next week |
| Andrés Muñoz | 1/2 | Deltoid. Beginning rehab assignment and could return next week |
| Pete Fairbanks | 2/3 | Hip. One thing after the other for Fairbanks, who will be shut down for at least a week. |
| A.J. Puk | 2/3 | Elbow/Nerve. Started rehab assignment and could return next week |
| Daniel Hudson | 4/5 | Knee. Throwing bullpens could begin a rehab assignment soon |
| John Schreiber | 4/5 | Lat. No news on him since he was placed on the IL two weeks ago |
| Jonathan Loáisiga | 5/6 | Elbow. Underwent surgery and will be out until August. |
| Robert Suarez | 5/6 | Elbow. 60-day IL now, could return after the All-Star break |
| Matt Moore | 5/6 | Oblique. No timetable for return, but it could be a while. |
| Joe Mantiply | 5/6 | Hamstring. Could begin rehab assignment shortly |
| Matt Bush | 6/7 | Shoulder. No recent updates on his shoulder injury |
| Caleb Thielbar | 6/7 | Oblique. Rehabbing and could return this weekend potentially |
| Codi Heuer | 7 | TJS (3/7/22). Should begin a rehab assignment soon. |
