With Adam Ottavino now a Yankee, the Boston Red Sox have few remaining free agent closers to chose from. Is a reunion with Craig Kimbrel suddenly inevitable?
And then there was one. Well, okay, Craig Kimbrel is not the only closer left on the free agent market. But he is probably the only one that would seem clearly better than the Boston Red Sox own in-house options, such as Matt Barnes and Ryan Brasier.
However, Dave Dombrowski insists that the team is comfortable with the current collection of suspects, including Barnes, Brasier, Tyler Thornburg and… Steven Wright? And Dombrowski has previously stated he does not intend to spend major dollars on a closer this season.
"“I do know we have the ability to close with the people we have on our team,” Dombrowski said. “We’ll see if we get to that point or not.”"
Still, for a team expected to contend for another World Series title, the uncertainty surrounding the endgame is a little worrisome.
Or is it?
First, the role of “closer” seems to be evolving, or perhaps devolving, reverting to the “fireman” role of an earlier era. More managers seem amenable to bringing in the team’s “best reliever” to get the most important outs of the ballgame, whether those are in the seventh, eighth or the ninth inning. Think about how Oakland deployed Blake Treinen or Milwaukee used Josh Hader last season.
And remember, one of the reasons the Boston Red Sox hired Alex Cora to replace John Farrell was his strong embrace of analytics. Cora was, of course, the Astros’ bench coach when they won the 2017 World Series and discovered the value of having shutdown relief options outside the ninth inning (Chris Devenski, Brad Peacock etc).
Second, one need only look back at last year’s playoff teams to see how early season uncertainty over the last three outs did nothing to derail their fortunes. Treinen entered 2018 a failed closer in Washington. The Dodgers’ Kenley Jansen scuffled mightily in April before finding his dominant form. And Cleveland (Brad Hand), Houston (Roberto Osuna), Atlanta (AJ Minter) and Milwaukee (Jeremy Jeffries) all ended the season with different players saving games than they began it.
So maybe a reunion with Kimbrel is not such a foregone conclusion, at least not at Kimbrel’s rumored asking price.
Internal Options
Indeed, Matt Barnes exhibited the kind of dominance last season that lends itself to the role of closer. He posted a 24.5 percent K-BB percent, just a shade below Ottavino’s own 24.6 percent and better than established closers like Jansen, Felipe Vazquez and Wade Davis.
Brasier’s 1.60 ERA does look a little fluky. His .198 BABIP and 86.2 percent strand rate is probably due for some regression. But Brasier also exhibits terrific control, walking just 5.7 percent of the batters he faced, which makes him far less likely to get himself into jams than talented but erratic relievers like Aroldis Chapman (14.2 percent), Kyle Barraclough (13.9 percent) and free agent Brad Boxberger (13.6 percent).
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Let’s also note that Thornburg briefly emerged as a genuinely dominant closer in Milwaukee (24.7 percent K-BB and 13 saves) in 2016 before being derailed by surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome. While a return to form is certainly not guaranteed, he’s now nearly two years removed from the procedure and could absolutely be a factor in higher leverage situations.
Wright, being a knuckballer and, until recently, primarily a starter would seem an odd inclusion in the list of potential closers. But his numbers during September and October of last season, when he posted a microscopic 0.66 ERA over 13.2 IP, suggest he might actually be a unique and effective late inning weapon, though his underlying metrics (8.6 percent K-BB and 4.04 FIP) also suggest he was pretty lucky. Still, this is a franchise that once had Tim Wakefield saving games, so anything is possible.
An intriguing dark horse might be Heath Hembree. He has better swing-and-miss stuff than people realize. His 14.2 percent swinging strike rate ranked alongside Jeurys Familia and Alex Colome and well ahead of Jansen, Hand and David Robertson. Of course, it takes more than pure stuff to close and Hembree would need to cut his 10.8 percent BB rate to earn a shot at a higher leverage role.
External Options
Craig Kimbrel, of course is still available and clearly no one, not even our Boston Red Sox, is interested at his current asking price. Much was made, however, of Kimbrel’s late season and postseason struggles, which may also be putting a damper on his market. Still, his peripherals suggest no degradation of his stuff but rather a struggle to harness it (17.2 percent SwStrk, which is outstanding, coupled with a 36.6 percent Zone, which is not). Kimbrel’s first season in Boston was quite similar, in fact, leaving no reason to believe the issues are not correctable.
If Kimbrel remains too rich for Dombrowski’s blood, he could roll the dice and bring in the likes of Boxberger, AJ Ramos, Brad Brach, Bud Norris or Sergio Romo, all of whom have had stretches of dominance over the later innings.
Or, frankly, Dombrowski could just stand pat. By July, maybe Texas is ready to shop current closer Jose Leclerc. Or maybe Cincinnati’s offseason activities fail to put them into contention and Raisel Iglasias becomes available.
San Diego’s Kirby Yates, San Francisco’s Will Smith and Mark Melancon and the White Sox’ newest acquisitions, Kelvin Herrera and Colome, could all become targets for the kind of midseason reinforcement contenders aim for at the trade deadline.
Regardless, Dombrowski, Cora and the rest of the Boston Red Sox top brass seem to have a plan. Whether or not that plan will include Kimbrel, or any other relievers not yet on the roster, remains to be seen.