This is the only photo I have of Papelbon where he’s not grabbing his nuts or Harper’s throat. Photo Keith Allison via wikipedia/flickr
Look, I get it. We’ve watched Jonathan Papelbon blow two saves rather egregiously in the last week. We know his fastball is down (average of 90.9 this season versus 91.4 last year and 93.8 in 2012). We know his “stuff” is down (K/9 is “just” 8.35 this year versus career peaks north of 10 K/9) and his walks are up (3.34 BB/9 this year, a stark increase over last year’s 1.71 BB/9).
But did you know that the Nats bullpen is still one of the best in all of baseball? Here’s some quick team stats for you from fangraphs; the Nats bullpen is:
- 4th in the MLB in ERA
- 2nd in FIP and 3rd in xFIP
- 6th in K/9
- 4th in BB/9
- 6th in fWAR
- 4th in Blown Saves.
So, optically yes we would like to have a better arm throwing in the 9th. But overall, we have (against all odds) crafted a brand new bullpen from 2015’s dumpster fire version that has been pretty darn effective.
So what do we do with our embattled “closer?” Well, I think Fangraph’s August Fagerstrom has put it best. I think its time to flip-flop the roles of Papelbon with Shawn Kelley. Kelley’s peripherals are ridiculous: 13.9 K/9, a 58/7 K/BB ratio. By way of comparison, Aroldis Chapman has “only” a 12.6 K/9 rate this year (though to be fair, its a down year for a guy who has a career 15.2 rate … yes i’m cherry picking stats a bit).
I do think its promising (at least from a player management perspective), that we’re hearing Dusty Baker addressing these questions with what seem like real quotes from Papelbon that show him to be a team player and cognizant of his struggles, as opposed to the defiant petulant bastard that he has appeared to be elsewhere in his career. Numbers don’t lie; if he’s not getting it done, and he knows it, then its time to step aside. There’s no shame in getting old (he’s in his age 35 season and he’s got nearly 700 high-leverage “I’m the guy” appearances on his C.V.).
No, I wouldn’t have wanted to trade my #1 system prospect for Chapman like the Cubs did. In fact, I wouldn’t trade a starter or a position player for a reliever, ever, unless it was a lesser guy completely blocked by someone that I had signed to a long-term deal. The value trade-off is just not there. As Fagerstrom points out, we can shuffle roles and then perhaps find a bullpen spot for the electric arms of Lucas Giolito and/or Reynaldo Lopez for the stretch run if we run into injuries.
Mike Rizzo; please, please resist the temptation to trade valuable assets for the “proven closer” (insert trademark here). Please. If you’re tempted … I hear Drew Storen is available. Or at the very least trade someone from our logjam of 4-A starters instead of a valuable piece that we’ll need a few years time.
PS readers; apologies for 2 weeks of radio silence; was OOO visiting family and going through a stretch of business at work that prevented such fun things as spitting out opinion pieces about relievers who will contribute a fraction of a WAR over the rest of the year. Thanks for sticking in there. MartyC; next post I’m teeing up a glowing review of Giolito just for you 😉