Red Sox Bullpen: Analyzing four internal closer candidates
After winning the job towards the middle of the season, Brandon Workman established himself as the Red Sox closer. Will he keep the job headed into 2020?
It was well-known entering the 2019 MLB season that the Red Sox bullpen was not their strong-suit. For the first few months of the season, everything seemed to go south and hurt the already fragile bullpen.
Alex Cora tried to get the most out of the bullpen by not assigning roles. This lack of structure backfired as Ryan Brasier forgot how to pitch once the calendar turned to May, and Matt Barnes was gassed as he faced the heart of the order night-in and night-out. The bullpen failure was definitely a part of the Red Sox early-season failures.
To make matters worse, the starting rotation wasn’t effective which led to stressful innings being tacked to the workload. The starters also didn’t go very deep into the games leading to over-usage and burning out Boston’s relievers. The bullpen was a colossal failure at the beginning of June – Brasier was soon to be sent to Triple-A and Barnes’ ERA inflated to above 4.00 by the end of a walk-off loss to the White Sox on June 26.
The bullpen eventually stabilized and was a little better. From the ashes of the remains of the Red Sox bullpen, Brandon Workman rose. Apart from walks, he had one of the best relief seasons you can hope for as he ended the season as the defined closer with 10 wins, an ERA below 2.00, and a 13.1 SO/9.
Barnes pulled himself together by the end of the season as his workload was diminished. Having a similar pitching style to his buddy, Workman, he posted similar numbers by the time the 2019 season was over. He had a 5.3 BB/9, 15.4 SO/9, and a 3.78 ERA. While that wasn’t close to as good as Workman, if you take out June, it’s clear the right-hander had it figured out for the majority of the season.
Towards the end of the season, new pitchers emerged as legitimate arms in the Red Sox bullpen. Two lefties, Darwinzon Hernandez and Josh Taylor were dominant to close out the season. While it is unlikely, both contain the pitching arsenal to gain consideration for the 2020 closer role. Hernandez has an electric fastball, but lacks control. Taylor also throws pretty hard, mid-90’s, but doesn’t have the dominant stuff of his counterpart. However, Taylor had better numbers with a 159 ERA+ compared to 109 for Hernandez.
With there being four internal candidates that will garner discussion as to who should be the 2020 closer, let’s analyze each case to figure out who will be the most likely 2020 closer option.
Josh Taylor
Taylor was on the Arizona Diamondbacks to begin the 2018 season, but he was traded to the Red Sox for infielder Deven Marrero in late March (he wasn’t announced to be traded until May). Now, it seems that the Red Sox robbed Arizona blind because they have a dominant, late-inning reliever in Taylor.
He was called up towards the end of the 2019 season and pitched pretty well. His 3.04 ERA was one of the best on the team, and his 11.8 SO/9 was very good for a rookie. He doesn’t posses the greatest pitch mix, but his 94-96 mph fastball proved effective in 2019.
While the lefty definitely showed some encouraging signs this past season, there is virtually no chance that he will be the 2020 Red Sox closer. Josh is simply too young and inexperienced to step into the closer role after his first season. Especially with veterans leading the bullpen, there is no reason to throw the young left-hander into the fire after his rookie year.
Take a look back at Brasier from 2018 to 2019. After his impressive comeback and dominance in the 2018 season, Cora threw him into the heat of the closer’s role in April the following year. Quite frankly, he lost it and found himself in the minor leagues halfway through the season.
I’m not suggesting that Taylor will be awful next year, I am actually very high on him, but it would be smart to nurture this young arm and ease him into the major league bullpen. He has the chance to be a solid contributor out of the set up role if he can come close to replicating his rookie performance.
Darwinzon Hernandez
In his major league career, Hernandez has made one start. He wasn’t good in that outing against the Detroit Tigers as he only lasted 2.1 innings. While he didn’t give up any runs, he definitely didn’t look comfortable out on the mound as he gave up four hits and a walk. He tight-roped his way through his first big league start.
For the rest of the 2019 season, the flame-throwing lefty was used exclusively out of the Red Sox bullpen. He was much better in that role, as on the season he pitched nine percent better than league average. While he lacked control as many hard-throwing, young relievers do, he made up for it with an otherworldly number of strikeouts.
He struck out nearly two batters per inning (16.9 SO/9)! His ERA was high, especially for a reliever, at 4.45, but a 2.75 FIP suggests he was unlucky and actually pitched very well. The Venezuelan lefty will most likely stay in the bullpen for 2020, which means his velocity and pitch movement should improve.
Much like Barnes and Workman, Hernandez walks lots of batters which is not what you need at the end of a baseball game. Much like Taylor, Hernandez is simply too young to be the closer for 2020. Drawing comparisons as the next Aroldis Chapman, with more development and experience, he could become the Red Sox closer a few years down the road.
For 2020, he will likely resume a high-leverage role similar to the end of the 2019 season. With increased progression and development, don’t be surprised to see him closing out games in 2021 for Boston.
Matt Barnes
Coming off a 2018 season in which Barnes was the set-up man to Craig Kimbrel, the best reliever of this decade, it was expected that he would assume the 2020 Red Sox closer role. However, Red Sox manager Alex Cora wanted to better utilize the hard-throwing righty.
He got the meat of the batting order every night. As it turns out, pitching high-leverage innings every night drains you mentally and physically and his June output reflected that. With an easier workload and less intensive innings, Barnes got hot to the end of the season. He had the best SO/9 in the American League, second in baseball to the Milwaukee Brewer’s Josh Hader
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Barnes is a serious candidate for the 2020 closer role as he has experience, the 2018 postseason specifically, and still possesses an electric fastball and a disgusting curveball to break in the dirt. He walks too many batters, seemingly a common theme of the Boston bullpen, but he proved effective in a high-leverage role this past season.
By the end of May, his ERA was 2.08 and he was still consistently facing the heart of the order. Those numbers clearly show that if his workload is managed correctly, Barnes can be one of the most effective high-leverage pitchers in baseball.
Because of his overall impressive 2019 performance, if paired with the young lefties (Hernandez and Taylor), they can form an elite bridge from the middle innings to the ninth inning. For those reasons, it seems likely that Barnes will not be the closer in 2020, rather an elite high-leverage pitcher.
Brandon Workman
As we all know by now, Workman was impressive in his break-out 2019. He took over as the Red Sox closer role and had one of the lowest ERA’s (1.88) in baseball. Entering the season as a depth-piece on Boston’s roster, he exited the season as a top arm in baseball.
The righty walked lots of batters in 2019 (5.7 BB/9), but made up for it in not allowing any hits (3.6 H/9). Because he walks so many batters and throws so many curveballs in the dirt, Brandon is better in a spot where he can start an inning clean. If he comes on with runners on base, there is a good chance they will advance on a ball in the dirt.
Proving he was effective in the closer role, Workman seems most likely out of all of the internal options to become the closer. Cora may want to try the closer-by-committee route once again in 2020, but it seems risky.
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In the sprint to the World Series in 2018, Kimbrel was always the anchor and traditional closer of the shaky bullpen. Now more than ever it seems like the Red Sox could use some stability. Until an external option such as Dellin Betances, Kirby Yates, or Will Harris are shaking their hand with Chaim Bloom, Workman should be regarded as Boston’s 2020 closer.