Tag Archives: Sean Doolittle

Talk of the trade

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2019-06-12 MadisonBumgarner

Could Madison Bumgarner change employers at last by or before this year’s trade deadline? (Will it be the Yankees? The Brewers?) And who else might the contenders have eyes upon?

‘Tis the season to be pondering who’s coming or going before or at baseball’s new single trade deadline. I know the deadline isn’t June, but it seems just about every season that June is the month when trade talk becomes as fevered as a Trump tweetstorm. At this moment the temperature is low but sure to climb.

You have to be careful, though. Out there in the press mainstream merely speculating upon who’s liable to change addresses can lead to strange feelings among the speculated-upon. And their current employers. Maybe their employers-to-be. (Renters-to-be?) And it’s always healthy to try keeping the strange as much to the playing field as possible.

Everybody with me so far? OK. Now let’s consider potential candidates, understanding that they’re not officially on the block just yet but that teams with certain needs may cast eyes upon them:

Madison Avenue Dept.—Madison Bumgarner ain’t quite what he used to be, if you don’t count orneriness, but his postseason jacket alone would make him attractive to a contender looking for a) a rental lefthander, and b) a fun policeman, since he hits free agency for the first time after this season. (The Yankees are already rumoured to have eyes for him, and the Brewers may have likewise.) But pay attention, contenders needing bullpen help: the Giants have a sleeper for you. Will Smith, lefthanded closer, 2.19 ERA, 0.73 walks/hits per inning pitched rate, 35 strikeouts and a mere five walks in 24 2/3 innings so far this year.

Surprise Package Dept.—Don’t look now, but Ken Giles—he of the 2017 World Series disasters and the 2018 meltdowns that got him purged from Houston—has resurrected himself very quietly in Toronto. Giles has a 1.08 ERA, a 1.15 FIP, a 6.0 strikeout-to-walk rate, a 15.1 K/9 rate, and a 0.4 HR/9 rate this season. Contenders needing pen help shouldn’t ignore such closers. Bloodied-but-unbowed and otherwise.

On Your Marcus Dept.—Giles’ Blue Jays teammate Marcus Stroman has a year and a half left on his current deal, and a contender looking for rotation fortification might find him attractive enough to deal for him with eyes upon extending him with plenty of time to work something out. He may be hung with a major league-leading eight losses but those are definitely team efforts considering his 3.31 ERA. A contender needing a middle-of-the-rotation arm with postseason experience could make the Jays an offer they can’t refuse.

Either Thor Dept.—Noah Syndergaard is actually pitching a little better than his 4.45 ERA shows, even if his tendency to just fire may actually be working against him now. (His K/9 rate isn’t the same as it was in 2015-16 and may not be again for a good while.) But if the Mets awaken enough to know they’re not likely to reach even a wild card berth this time around, Syndergaard still has upside (and is under contract through 2021) to bring them back some decent prospects and give a contender a not-so-secret weapon that may not disappear too soon.

Tribal Fission Dept.—Right now the Indians don’t look like the contenders they were thought to be this year—by themselves or by others. They also don’t look like sellers now, but that could change after Cleveland hosts this year’s All-Star Game and if the Indians don’t look like even a wild card outlier after the Game. The likeliest Tribesmen to bring back a haul if the Indians decide to remake/remodel? Pitchers Corey Kluber (assuming his return to health), Trevor Bauer, and Brad Hand; and, shortstop Francisco Lindor. Lindor especially would be the nugget: 25 years old, established star, and continuing upside.

Full of Colome Dept.—Smith and Giles may not be the only attractive relief target for deal-minded contenders. Alex Colome may look just as delicious even though he’s closing for a rebuilding White Sox team. That 2.19 ERA and 0.65 walks/hits per inning pitched rate are just too succulent for contenders needing relief to ignore. And, like Stroman, Colome has a year and a half left on his deal and a contender in need might find the 30-year-old  attractive enough to talk extension before the deal expires. Might.

Greene Fields Dept.—Contenders in need of relief might have even bigger eyes for Tigers closer Shane Greene. Like Colome, he’s 30. Like Giles, he has an ERA close to 1.00. (Specifically, 1.04.) Unlike Giles, though, Greene’s FIP is a little north of 3.00. But Greene at this writing has a 4.0 K/BB ratio and leads the American League with nineteen saves, and his 9.0 K/9 rate still makes him a catch.

The Nat’chl Blues Dept.—Like the Mets, the Nationals entered the season viewed as one of four National League East contenders. Like the Mets, the Nats are on the brink of fading away from that. And, like the Mets, the Nats have pieces they might be willing to move. Might. The nuggets: Anthony Rendon, their best position player still and a free agent after the season; and, Sean Doolittle, the only true decently consistent option in their inconsistent bullpen. But Howie Kendrick is also having a splendid season. If the Nats decide to sell, watch those three names.

Hot Seven Dept.—Nothing to do with Louis Armstrong, alas. Like the Nats, nobody knows just yet if the Reds might hang up the for-sale signs. But if they do, they’ve got seven men who become free agents at season’s end: Zach Duke, Scooter Gennett, David Hernandez, Jose Iglesias, Yasiel Puig, Tanner Roark, and Alex Wood. (With Wood, of course, it depends on his health.) For now, just watch. For now.

 

Even doing right can be turned wrong

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2019-05-22 RajaiDavis

Can’t find the ballpark, get there in the third, can’t find the clubhouse, don’t see the boss until the fifth—that’s how you pinch hit a three-run homer in the eighth, folks . . .

There are few feelings in baseball worse than making the right move that gets blown up in your face. Especially when you have the league’s shakiest bullpen other than your closer. And you’re thought to be in a seat almost as hot as the one your counterpart in the other Citi Field dugout was thought to occupy.

Unless it’s watching your one genuinely reliable relief stopper surrender a three-run double and a three-run homer within two blinks. The latter hit by a veteran recalled from the minors who almost couldn’t find his way to the park or to his clubhouse.

Dave Martinez’s seat may have gone from toast temperature to broiler in one terrible eighth inning Wednesday night, and he had nobody in the mirror to blame this time. The Mets—including a former World Series almost-hero who couldn’t find Citi Field itself until about the third inning—took care of that with a six-run eighth and a 6-1 win and an omelette all over Martinez’s face.

And Rajai Davis, who was once an Indians icon for tying a seventh World Series game with a mammoth two-run homer, must feel like there was an angel on his shoulder after he could have spent the first night of his new promotion in the proverbial doghouse.

“I was trying to stay short to the ball,” Davis said after he hit a three-run homer to finish the six-run eighth. If he hadn’t, it’s not impossible that his stay as a Met could have ended up a long walk off the shortiest pier along the Gowanus Canal.

Martinez didn’t want to ask Sean Doolittle for a six-out save even though Doolittle is maybe the only Nats relief pitcher this year who refuses to leave himself at the mercy of an opposing lineup. Even with a 1-0 lead as the inning began.

Even with that lead earned the hard way, with the previous two seasons’ Cy Young Award winners, Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer, dueling hard, fighting through less than their best, and battling despite a plate umpire with an incredibly changing-on-a-dime strike zone that had both pitchers and about half of each side’s hitters fuming.

Martinez opened the Mets’ eighth with Kyle Barraclough. Having two outs but a man on second wasn’t Barraclough’s fault, since in between the outs Mets second baseman Adeiny Hechavarria—in the game after Robinson Cano strained a quad muscle on a baserunning play—shot one high toward the left center field wall on which, inexplicably, both Nats center fielder Victor Robles and left fielder Juan Soto pulled up short, allowing a catchable ball to hit the wall.

Then Barraclough walked Mets third baseman Todd Frazier on four pitches. With two out and the Nats still up by the sole previous run—a first-inning homer by Adam Eaton—Martinez took no more chances. He reached for Doolittle. He had every reason on earth to have faith in Doolittle.

He had no reason to believe Doolittle would hit Carlos Gomez on the first pitch to set the ducks on the pond, right off the elbow guard with a wicked ricochet. He had no reason to believe that Juan Lagares would clear the pond with a drive into the left center field gap. And he had no reason to believe putting late Mets catching insertion Wilson Ramos aboard to get to ancient Davis would telegraph disaster.

Davis signed a minor league deal with the Mets last December and was toiling on their Syracuse farm when Brandon Nimmo hit the injured list and Davis got the call. His age caught up to him in earnest, alas, little by little, after he became an Indians legend by taking Aroldis Chapman deep to tie Game Seven of the 2016 World Series.

When he arrived in New York Wednesday, the 38-year-old Davis had a hard time finding both the ballpark and the Mets’ clubhouse. He didn’t even meet his new skipper Mickey Callaway—the pitching coach for those 2016 Indians—until the fifth inning. Yes, that’s so Mets.

Naturally, then, Davis got the call to bat in the eighth. That, too, is just so Mets. And he fought Doolittle to a ninth pitch on a 2-2 count after several lofty foul offs. Then came pitch nine, the ninth straight fastball of the sequence. And Davis drilled it over the left field fence. There’s nothing like a howitzer shot for three runs to get you off the hook for failing to have your GPS calibrated properly on the first day of your new promotion.

Out in the Mets bullpen, a fully warmed-up Edwin Diaz suddenly knew he’d get the night off, and Tyler Bashlor shook off a one-out single by Juan Soto to strike Matt Adams out and lure Kurt Suzuki into a game-ending force.

Martinez may have had his issues with game tactics and resource management in his first two seasons on the Nats’ bridge, but this one wasn’t on him. He didn’t build this Nats bullpen, and it wasn’t his idea to enter tonight’s game with his pen brandishing a collective ERA over six going in.

If he couldn’t bring himself to ask Doolittle for six outs at least he was sharp enough to know his best chance to keep that 1-0 lead in the Nats’ harried hands was to bring his lefthander in for four outs.

If neither Scherzer nor deGrom expected to have to have a psychological wrestling match with plate umpire Ryan Blakney until they each came out of the game, Doolittle didn’t exactly go to the mound looking to hand Gomez first on the house, never mind a pair of bases-emptying drives that handed him his head on the proverbial plate.

All Nats fans know is someone got some splainin’ to do. Good luck trying to explain Wednesday night’s inexplicable. I’m not even sure the Mets can explain their part in it, and they were the ones doing it.