Bullpen Report: August 24, 2015

• After Junichi Tazawa’s rough night, he was given a day off but is expected to stay as closer. Even with the words of encouragement from the interim manager, this situation is still red. I expect Tazawa to stay as closer and as Scott Lauber mentions, with Dave Dombrowski now on board the team might prefer for Tazawa to “to get the longest look” given his track record of success setting up Koji Uehara. Said another way, there’s just not many other options to choose from in Boston. Rebuilding the pen will be on Dombrowski’s agenda this offseason but for now it’s Tazawa. If he continues to falter, expect Jean Machi (who was called on tonight) to get the look.

• Oliver Perez is more of a  LOOGY than future closer for the Astros (duh), but he entered tonight’s game against the Yankees in the bottom of the ninth in a scoreless game. New York residents couldn’t have been surprised to see Perez start the inning with three walks (two intentional) before being relieved. Perez received the loss after Carlos Beltran hit the ball far enough to bring in Brett Gardner from third. Control has never been an Ollie strong suit but since 2012 (when he’s been solely a reliever) he has a 3.10 FIP in 173.2 innings pitched. He’s prolonged his career after failing out of a starting role but his inability to get right handed hitters out puts a lid on any fantasy relevance.

On the other side, Andrew Miller received the vulture win from Eovaldi after he threw a scoreless ninth with two strikeouts.

• Speaking of vulture wins…After throwing 8.2 innings Jon Lester was relieved by Hector Rondon for the last out of the game with Rondon picking up the win on a Kris Bryant walk-off homer in the bottom half. Patient Rondon owners who stuck with his services after the committee/Jason Motte Experience have been rewarded with a quality closer. Rondon doesn’t quite dominate in any specific area of pitching but he does pretty darn well in them all. He almost strikes out a batter an inning (his 24% K% is above average), gets groundballs 51% of the time and throws hard (96 mph on his fastball). Since last year (not including tonight’s outing) Rondon has a 2.03 ERA and 2.37 WHIP FIP with 118 strikeouts in 120 innings pitched. In spite of losing the job earlier this season, Rondon’s actually one of the better options, especially down the stretch with the Cubs in the hunt and playing well.

• Quick(er) Hits: Neftali Feliz was terrible in Texas this year and now he’s terrible in Detroit. Feliz got two outs in the sixth inning but not before allowing four baserunners with three crossing the plate, ballooning his ERA to 7.68. Feliz still throws hard and could throw important innings at some point in his future but he has no place on a fantasy roster.  Arodys Vizcaino‘s successful run at closer continued for Atlanta after a perfect inning against the Rockies for his fourth save on the season. Vizcaino has a 0.48/2.21/3.83 ERA/FIP/xFIP pitching line and will most likely head into 2016 as the Braves closer. There was some speculation that the Braves would go in another direction after Jason Grilli’s injury to save money in arbitration on Vizcaino but they’re certainly fully committed to him in the ninth. Mark Melancon entered the ninth inning with two on and no out and finished off the Marlins for his league leading 40th save. Add that to a 1.50 ERA and Melancon’s provided about as much value at closer as one could without being a strikeout artist.

Closer Grid:

	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
Arizona	Brad Ziegler	Daniel Hudson	Addison Reed
Atlanta	Arodys Vizcaino	David Aardsma	Andrew McKirahan	Jason Grilli
Baltimore	Zach Britton	Darren O’Day	Brad Brach
Boston	Junichi Tazawa	Jean Machi	Alexi Ogando	Koji Uehara
CHI (NL)	Hector Rondon	Pedro Strop	Tommy Hunter	Rafael Soriano
CHI (AL)	David Robertson	Jacob Petricka	Zach Putnam
Cincy	Aroldis Chapman	J.J. Hoover	Ryan Mattheus
Cleveland	Cody Allen	Bryan Shaw	Zach McAllister
Colorado	John Axford	Tommy Kahnle	Scott Oberg
Detroit	Bruce Rondon	Alex Wilson	Al Albuerquerque	Joe Nathan
Houston	Luke Gregerson	Pat Neshek	Chad Qualls
KC	Greg Holland	Wade Davis	Kelvin Herrera
LAA	Huston Street	Joe Smith	Fernando Salas
LAD	Kenley Jansen	Jim Johnson	Pedro Baez
Miami	A.J. Ramos	Mike Dunn	Bryan Morris	Carter Capps
Milwaukee	Francisco Rodriguez	Will Smith	Jeremy Jeffress
Minnesota	Glen Perkins	Kevin Jepsen	Trevor May
NY (NL)	Jeurys Familia	Tyler Clippard	Carlos Torres	Bobby Parnell
NY (AL)	Andrew Miller	Dellin Betances	Justin Wilson
Oakland	Drew Pomeranz	Fernando Rodriguez	Sean Doolittle
Philly	Ken Giles	Luis Garcia	Jeanmar Gomez
Pittsburgh	Mark Melancon	Joakim Soria	Tony Watson
St. Louis	Trevor Rosenthal	Kevin Siegrist	Steve Cishek	Jordan Walden
SD	Craig Kimbrel	Joaquin Benoit	Shawn Kelley	Brendan Maurer
SF	Santiago Casilla	Sergio Romo	Hunter Strickland
Seattle	Carson Smith	Tom Wilhelmsen	Edgar Olmos
TB	Brad Boxberger	Steve Geltz	Alex Colome	Jake McGee
Texas	Shawn Tolleson	Jake Diekman	Sam Dyson	Tanner Scheppers
Toronto	Roberto Osuna	Aaron Sanchez	Brett Cecil
Wash.	Jonathan Papelbon	Drew Storen	Casey Janssen

[Green light, yellow light, red light: the colors represent the volatility of the bullpen order.]