Craig Kimbrel reached 186 saves within his first five years with Atlanta. Even if it took him 9 years to get the other 227, that's still an amazing stat. Being able to lead the league in saves for four years running, and finish the season with over 45 saves on three of those occasions is pretty incredible. There is the ugly truth that he has only topped 40 once since then, but he's still been a consistent ninth inning option for several more teams, and while he wasn't initially the answer there, Kimbrel has become a very nice closing option in Philadelphia.
Like Kenley Jansen, what's stopping him from being immediately named as one of the all-time greats is the pile-ups of blown saves and inconsistent moments. Kimbrel's been piling more of those up recently, and just last night he blew a save against the Nationals, and broke a tie in the ninth. You also have years where it took him a while to find his footing, like 2019, where he was a late addition to the Cubs and never really found his stuff, taking til 2020 to really get the hang of things, only to struggle to adapt to the other side of Chicago. This season was initially a tricky one for Kimbrel, but once he got the hang of things he was incredible, made an All-Star team, and notched his 400th save.
Kimbrel is currently rocking a 3.31 ERA, with 68 Ks and 19 saves. He is on pace to outdo totals from the last four seasons and have his best campaign since leaving the Red Sox. I used to make Rod Beck comparisons with Kimbrel, and while Beck petered off after a certain point and failed to really impact things in the majors again, Kimbrel learned to rebound, reestablished himself and has used this season in Philadelphia to raise his stock. I assume he'll be a free agent by the end of the season, and something tells me there'll be several teams lining up to have him in the ninth next year. There could even be a Boston reunion at this point, you never know.
All that remains is for Kimbrel to finish strong and hang onto his momentum with Philly, because this is a very cool Phils team he's on. As important as the big stars are, like Harper, Castellanos and Realmuto, a lot of the best moments are coming at the hands of people like Bryson Stott, Brandon Marsh, Taijuan Walker and Johan Rojas. Now you have Weston Wilson coming in and impressing with his opening moments in the majors. This team has a surprising amount of depth, a lot of nice failsafes, and several pieces that are working super well. I'm relieved that Kimbrel is one of them, and I hope he keeps things up.
UPDATE: Okay, I wrote this post before 8 PM last night, so I didn't have time to make any mention of Michael Lorenzen or anything, but...can I just say how happy I've been with his material for my team? I'll elaborate later when I can get a custom together.
Coming Tonight- One of the many rookie pitchers keeping the lights on in Cleveland.
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