Lord, I was born a gamblin’ man…
I used to travel a lot for work. Like 80% of the time. It was a lot.
When you are out on the road like that, everyone thinks it must be a ton of fun – fun new cities, new experiences, new food, etc. In reality, there’s a decent shot you end up in Warsaw, Indiana in January where there are no museums and the food is basically a Mexican restaurant and … well, we’ll call it a brewery. Even in the nicer cities, a lot of the “experiences” you think about when traveling are usually closed by the time you’re done working.
It’s not all bad, though, but you have to work at it. It’s very easy to fall into a routine of sleep, work, eat, Neflix, sleep, work, eat, Netflix … you get the idea. Especially when you’re not going to New York or Boston, you have to actively seek out something to do. One of the things I usually advise new associates to the department (I don’t travel anymore) is to find something to “collect”.
This doesn’t have to be shot glasses (though it’s not the worst thing). One woman I worked with would go to a local arts and crafts store and get a ball of yarn. Someone else collected pens from the various hotels. I tried to collect two things.
The first was baseball stadiums. If I was in town during baseball season, I was looking to see if the local nine were playing. And I went to a lot of the MLB stadiums east of the Mississippi, and I collected a number of minor league parks along the way.
The second was … more of a vice. I collected casinos.
See, I really love to gamble. On my 18th birthday, I was given $20, and I decided to buy some scratch-offs.
You have to do that, right?
Well, I won bupkis.
And I really wanted to go back in and get more.
I was going to win that next time.
I really wanted to.
Luckily, I didn’t have anymore money to spend.
Fast forward a few years later, I had per diem money to blow, so when I got to a new city, I looked to see if a casino was nearby. But I had rules. Strict rules.
- I brought $100, and I would not go to the ATM to get more. I left the debit card in the hotel room.
- If I won $100, then that first $100 went back into my wallet. I wasn’t allowed to re-play that first $100 that night. Every subsequent $100 won followed suit.
- I could only spend per diem money.
But I do love to gamble. I do not partake in sports gambling through apps because it’s much harder for me to follow the above rules (or anything like it) when I can just hit a few buttons and send more cash to the app. But I do love a good casino.
Mark, we’re like 8 paragraphs in.
Bullpens are a lot like gambling. We know all about reliver volatility, and teams should probably set themselves specific rules about how they invest in them. But well, you do have to invest in them. And they are fun – usually wild, usually throw hard, and usually with some nasty breaking ball.
As of right now, the Atlanta Braves have the below bullpen:
Well, it’s not … terrible. Raisel Iglesias is a stalwart, and while I’m really worried about how the peripherals have trended down, he’s been effective. Pierce Johnson and Aaron Bummer are perfectly fine, if not exciting, set up men. Dylan Lee is a really nifty lefty to have. But that’s where we start getting a little concerned.
Daysbel Hernandez is like the definition of a reliever I had above – fun but … not exactly reliable, but Austin is getting close to convincing me. The rest are just arms.
Now, we could go back to the free-agency well and buy some relievers. But let’s think back to the gambling. Do we really need/want to spend more money on the bullpen (at least significant money – $1-5 million for like a one-year deal is fine) when the first 3 make $26.5 million and injured Joe Jimenez makes another $9 million?
Our other option is to go pillaging other teams’ pitching staffs. Now, spending quality prospects on a reliever is a bad form of gambling, but I could see it if someone really good was available. But what I’d rather do is, if we’re going throw darts at the wall, to find some fun darts to throw.
Our own house
Before we go looking elsewhere, what do we have here?
One fun idea is Hurston Waldrep. Now, I don’t think they’d do it because the goal is to have him become a dominant starter, but there is some logic to letting him air it out as a multi-inning bridge from the starter to the 4 good arms the team does have in the bullpen. You could just as easily say the same for AJ Smith-Shawver. I honestly wouldn’t hate doing both if Atlanta went Chris Sale, Spencer Schwellenbach, Reynaldo Lopez, Grant Holmes, and Ian Anderson/Bryce Elder/FA starter yet to be signed.
Rolddy Munoz is another option. His strikeout numbers are gaudy, but they dipped in moving up to AA along with the walk rate creeping toward concerning. He might be an option at some point in 2025, but it’s probably not the beginning of the year.
Domingo Gonzalez puts up his own gaudy K rates, but the walk rate is still a bit concerning.
Jhancarlos Lara would be another fun one because of the stuff, but the control went way backward in 2024.
So let’s go look elsewhere.
Colorado Rockies
For the purposes of this exercise, we need to find teams who might actually be willing to part with relievers, so we’re going to stick to the bad teams.
The Rockies are a fun team for this exercise because they are both bad and also play in a ballpark that makes trying to figure this out a bit harder. They all look terrible.
Justin Lawrence is probably the most notable name, but … yikes 2024.
Tyler Kinley has the best projection, and his Statcast looks pretty good.
But he doesn’t get a lot of grounders, and he walks a lot of dudes.
Unfortunately, I don’t see a lot here.
Chicago White Sox
I mean, this is the White Sox we’re talking about.
Justin Anderson is interesting because he throws really hard and gets some whiffs, but he basically falls in the exact same category as Kinley.
Jairo Iriarte might be the most interesting name as he was recently a top 100(ish) prospect before the 2024 season. Then the 2024 season happened, and almost everything backed up. He had a dreadful 6 inning cameo, but it’s 6 innings and he just turned 23. His fastball was pretty average by MLB standards, but he gets good extension. Normally, rebuilding teams hold onto these guys to see if they can be patient and get something out of it, but it might be worth a call.
Miami Marlins
Ah, finally. We have some ideas.
Hello Andrew Nardi.
Nardi would be a fascinating addition, though Atlanta isn’t in dire need of lefties. Even though he had a 5.17 ERA last year, his XFIP was nearly 2 points below that with a very good K rate and perfectly acceptable walk rate. He’s 26 and still in his pre-arbitration years, so I don’t expect the Marlins to just toss him overboard. But Sam and I are onboard here.
Calvin Faucher was the late-season darling, but the underlying metrics aren’t as good as Nardi along with being 3 years older. Meh.
Jesus Tinoco is interesting.
The metrics put him closer to Faucher, but I prefer the Statcast look here along with a walk rate under 3. Tinoco was once a top(ish) prospect, and he might be finding his stride as a reliever at 29.
Anthony Bender had a breakout 2021 before blowing his elbow out in 2022, and his return in 2024 was fine.
His underlying metrics were pretty similar to his 2021 numbers, but his ERA ballooned to a little over 4. I’d be interested in poking around here as he signed a $1.42 million contract as his first year of arbitration.
Declan Cronin … I can’t decide.
There’s not a lot of bat missing here, but he did strike out more than a batter per inning while getting a borderline insane amount of ground balls. I feel like I’d feel better about this if I felt better about the team’s infield defense.
Washington Nationals
Not a ton here.
Evan Reifert gets a ton of Ks with over 14 per 9 at most stops in the minors, but he’s never pitched above AA.
I also can’t imagine Washington moving on from Jackson Rutledge, even with his minor league numbers being iffy, but he does throw the heck out of the ball.
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Once you get past that, you get to teams that are “trying”, so I wouldn’t expect to pry anyone away right at the moment.
If I were Alex, I’d be looking hard at Miami and trying to bring in some combo of Nardi, Tinoco, and Bender while they’re just selling things off (and especially in addition to say … Sandy Alcantara).
Mark, no.
While teams have learned not to lean too hard into ERA and Peter Bendix (former Tampa Bay Rays acolyte) is definitely not likely to either, I don’t imagine any of those relievers having a ton of trade value. Tinoco and Bender have iffy pasts, so he might be willing to accept something decent. Nardi … Bendix might try to showcase him a bit this year to see if he can’t get something actually good in return, and not surprisingly, that’s the one I would try to grab.
Acquiring them would probably cost more than I’d prefer to give up, but given where Atlanta is in terms of their competitive window, I’d probably push some chips in. But what can I say? I love to gamble.