The Downside of Small-Balling

 

In retrospect, perhaps trading away Andres Gimenez and Josh Naylor, only signing two oft-injured starters and a 39-year-old defensive whiz, and re-emphasizing a youth movement that hasn't been trusted to star in games yet wasn't a very good idea.

So now here we are. The Cleveland Guardians lost 10 games in a row, as the AL Central gets further and further out of their grasp. The truth is that there really isn't much to this team anymore. At best you'll get a good start from Gavin Williams or Tanner Bibee, or a mondo-RBI event from Jose Ramirez. At worst you'll see them get absolutely clobbered with no run support to speak of. This was a team that nearly dethroned the Yankees last year, and did so with guys nobody had heard of like Jhonkensy Noel, Joey Cantillo, Kyle Manzardo and Tim Herrin, and now literally none of them really factor into this team. 

And that's really the issue with this contact-first metric the Guardians have gone with: it's not consistent. With the exception of Ramirez and Steven Kwan, guys who'll have a contact frenzy one year will completely bottom out the next one. Brayan Rocchio, David Fry, Angel Martinez and Lane Thomas are all having really disappointing seasons. Rocchio was expected to step up following Gimenez's trade, and he now just looks lost out there. He's not hitting, he's below average defensively, it's pointless. Fry, an all-star last season, is hitting .150 as a bench bat. 

The most frustrating development has been the regression of Emmanuel Clase, who, for two months, was blowing saves left and right after years of dominance in the ninth. He's catching up since June, has lowered his ERA to 3.19, and at the very least has 19 saves, but Clase looks human again. Even if he excels the rest of the season, which is likely, people will remember his April slip-ups. And it's not like we haven't seen this before from Clase, but it happening now when so much more is expected of him hurts more. The bullpen in general is just spottier than usual, with a lot of ERAs closer to 3 and 4 than last year's sea of 1.50s. Gavin Williams is the only pitcher on this staff with a WAR higher than 1. 

It is nice, though, that the Guardians seem to be turning things around now that the Astros are playing them. They've won their last 2 games, and have just looked a ton better. I'd love for a sweep to happen and for the momentum to shift a little. But at this point, the Guardians are just looking to finish over .500, which is a far cry from where they were last year.

Coming Tomorrow- One of the most talented young infielders in the game right now.

Always Be Closing: Keeping it Clase

 

135 saves. That is how many saves Emmanuel Clase has notched since the beginning of the 2021 season. He led the league in saves 2 seasons in a row, and right now he's leading the AL again with 25. In that time, Kenley Jansen has 124 saves, Josh Hader has 115 saves, and Craig Kimbrel has 88 saves. The simple ability for a closing pitcher to get 40 or so saves in consecutive seasons seems to be so rare now that the closer designation seems more variable than ever, with more relief options than ever. And yet Clase has 135 saves in the past 4 seasons.

I've talked about this a lot, but many teams have a relief hierarchy that requires them to designate their highest-ranked relief pitcher as the team's closer, rather than someone who they know is a workhorse that can come into the 9th and make magic happen. Some of the best closers right now, people like Ryan Helsley, Clay Holmes, Kyle Finnegan, David Bednar, Jose Alvarado and Devin Williams, are just guys who are the best option to close, regardless of whether or not they are a good closer. There's also people like Josh Hader and Evan Phillips, who were given the ninth by default and then figured out they're actually pretty damned good at closing games. The inverse of that is people like Edwin Diaz and Hector Neris, people who have done well in the ninth but aren't really justifying being given the closing position at the moment. 

There's only a few proven, perennial closing guys out there right now. It's really just Clase, Jordan Romano, Raisel Iglesias, Camilo Doval, Kimbrel and Jansen. Everybody else is working from gig to gig, even the good ones like Helsley and Phillips. Clase, though, has proven that if this is how good he can be during his prime, he'll likely be closing games for the rest of his life. 

Even after last season, which had his ERA closer to 3, Clase still feels unhittable and hard to get past when he's up there. So far this season he has a 0.69 ERA, as he's only given up 3 earned runs in 39 innings. His hits-per-9-innings figure is a 4.8, which is pretty damned good for a closer. And the thing about Clase, which is honestly crazy, is that even if he does blow saves, which he does, he still piles up the most saves of anybody. Last season Clase blew TWELVE SAVES, which is a lot even for a bad closer, and he still led the majors with 44 saves. So far this year he's blown 3, and he's still leading the AL with 25. He's not perfect, and he can still have lousy days, but the Guardians rarely ever have to worry much when he's on.

And Clase is just another fantastic asset the Guardians are running wild with. They're seeing great seasons from Jose Ramirez, Steven Kwan, David Fry, Andres Gimenez, Josh Naylor and tons more. Now they've got this Jhonkensy Noel guy up, his power numbers have been pretty impressive so far. They're doing this without Shane Bieber, and without an overwhelmingly amazing rotation. This is the power of somebody like Stephen Vogt, and it's proving how good of a choice he was to manage this team after Francona retired.

The Guardians are lucky they're competitive, at powerful, at the moment they've come upon one of the best closers in the game. It doesn't happen like this very often.

Coming Tonight: The Orioles, let's be clear, won the Corbin Burnes trade. But this guy they gave up is no slouch.

Always Be Closing: Clase for Effort

 

Y'ever just...casually remember that Emmanuel Clase has 83 saves since the start of the 2021 season?

It's not the most in that stretch, Kenley Jansen has 89, but no other closer in that period has more. Ironically Clase has as many saves since 2021 as Josh Hader, another one of the few perennial closers we have right now. 

I'd honestly refer to the group of closers that has most dominated since the start of the decade as people like Liam Hendriks, Jansen, Hader, Clase, Edwin Diaz and Jordan Romano. That is, admittedly, a small sample size, but you don't see many other people right now who are guaranteed the closing spot wherever they go, and are guaranteed to dominate. You have a lot of veteran closers who are chasing what they had, people like Mark Melancon, Craig Kimbrel, Will Smith, Brad Hand and Aroldis Chapman, but some of those guys can lose the ninth. Some of them already have. 

What makes Clase a member of the small, dying breed of relied-upon closers is just how tough he is to face. We don't have a ton of pure intimidators as closing heroes anymore, guys like Lee Smith, Rod Beck or Trevor Hoffman who scare the shit out of you. Clase is as close as we have to that right now. He's not the tallest, he's only 6'2, but he's built like a brick shithouse and throws fire. I still have the memory of Clase being suspended for the whole 2020 season for PEDs, but even if that is what's made him into the pitcher he is, I think a lot of the work is just pure intimidation and workmanship.

Clase led the majors last year with 42 saves, and he's leading the majors again at the moment with 16. However, even with that said he's blown 5 already, and has given up too many earned runs. I don't know if this means the fans are turning on him, but his status as a sure thing is being tested this year, even with the amount of saves he's already racked up. Some of it is an indictment on the Guardians themselves, and how  often their bad luck gets in the way of what should be wins, especially if their contact-friendly play isn't amounting to many overpowering wins so far. But some of it may just be that Clase is getting too confident and might not be as much of a perennial standout as we thought.

The good news is that the closest challengers to the league mark are at 13 right now. One of them is Josh Hader, whose goodwill hasn't especially been harmed much by the last half of the 2022 season. We'll see if Clase can hold the throne for now, or if his blown saves will catch up to him.

Coming Tomorrow- All things as they should be.

Always Be Closing: Stay Clase

 

Alright. So. Rumors of the Guardians' ascent have been greatly exaggerated. I don't think this team has what it takes to be the spoiler in the AL Central anymore, they've had a very unlucky few weeks. But at the same time...look at what Emmanuel Clase is doing and tell me they have no shot.

The Guardians have a lot of heroes this year, and have gotten great seasons out of Jose Ramirez, Andres Gimenez, Shane Bieber and Amed Rosario, but perhaps the most promising great year has been coming from closer Emmanuel Clase, who the team got in exchange for Corey Kluber a few years ago. I saw his 2021 numbers and was intrigued, though as Clase and James Karinchak went back and forth as closer, I worried that Clase didn't have what it took to carry the ninth alone. This year there has been no Karinchak, at least not until recently, and Clase has had no real rivals in the ninth. As a result, Clase has 20 saves, a 1.34 ERA and a 1.9 WAR. He's still chasing his 2021 final numbers, but he's looking really good so far, and he's already got an ASG nod under his belt.

I think what makes Clase so valuable to the Guardians is that they're such a middle of the road team, and that sometimes somebody like Clase is the make-or-break guy for them. It's why a lot of the best closers this year have come from teams like the Padres, Braves and Blue Jays, lots of second or third place teams who need a strong closer to get them out of tight spots more than first place teams that are prone to more blowout victories. Clase guarantees them the ninth, there's four starters that guarantee them 6 or so solid innings, and four or five lineup guys that can deliver every night. It's the areas beyond that which sink this team more often than not. The Guardians are a good team, they are not a complete team, and having to hope that their fifth starter, who is currently Kirk McCarty, or any of their catchers get it right when the game's on the line is...not the best place to be in.

Clase is also at the head of a Guardians bullpen that isn't as composed as it usually is. These bullpens have the tradition of guys like Dan Otero, Bryan Shaw, Oliver Perez, Nick Wittgren and Andrew Miller. Now only Shaw remains, and he's not doing too great. What's funny is that a lot of the guys that are working bullpen innings this year, like Nick Sandlin, Eli Morgan, Sam Hentges and Enyel de los Santos, are all former starters just trying to stay in the league. And while it is possible to convert starters into great relievers [Perez and Miller alone], there's a surprising lack of true relief specialists on this team. Maybe one will come by at the deadline, but it's really just Clase, and that's only so comforting.

While I do think Clase will finish the season strong and prove to the club that he's worth keeping, I'm still not convinced that the Guardians can continue to be players in the wild card race. The White Sox have more assets and could get hot. The Guardians have to figure out what they're missing and stop them.

Coming Tomorrow- One of the all-time greats, getting in his last reps.

Clase Closed

 

Was gonna do a whole Always Be Closing post on this guy, but Emmanuel Clase is in a weird position, as are all Indians pitchers, it seems. For one thing, he's healthy, which is very rare indeed in that pitching staff.

Emmanuel Clase, whose claim to fame before this season was being the chief piece in the trade that sent Corey Kluber to Arlington, was given the closing job right off the bat this season. Brad Hand was gone, Nick Wittgren was laying lowe, it was between Clase and Karinchak and Clase won. Good for him. So he gets the gig, is pretty lights out for a month or so, and has a disastrous May, with 3 earned runs and a much higher WHIP. At which point, Francona untethers him from the ninth and slots in James Karinchak, who's been better so far. Since losing the closing gig, Clase has still been strong, with a 1 ERA in 9 starts in June, and some scoreless runs so far this month.

But while Clase was yanked out of the ninth for a few high-ERA starts, he's only the tip of the iceberg. This season might be quickly becoming the year of the blown save. Strong relievers like Hector Neris, Aroldis Chapman, Will Smith, Raisel Iglesias and Daniel Bard are all losing their grip on the ninth, and racking up losses and blown saves all over. It's especially heartbreaking for someone like Chapman, who used to be one of the most dominant closers in the game, continuously blow saves at this rate. Neris I understand, he does this every year. But it's looking like more and more of a trend. And it might not have anything to do with the substance ban, though Chapman's drop-off looks slightly suspicious. 

Closing pitching, as I've discussed on here before, is less of a guaranteed job than it's ever been. You don't have like 10 guys like Dan Quisenberry and Jeff Montgomery and Bruce Sutter having closing gigs for a decade or so anymore. You have Chapman, Jansen, Kimbrel, Melancon, and Hader. That's honestly it. Everyone else is year-to-year. Emmanuel Clase has a stellar season, that's great, but it's no career certainty. Edwin Diaz is even year-to-year after chasing K-Rod a few years ago. It's less stable because there are more relievers now. And if anyone can be a lights-out closer...the truly great ones are even rarer. 

Still, the Indians bullpen is one of the few things the team has going for them right now, so I hope they stay in good shape.

Coming Tomorrow- Perennial contact hitter that only really soars in the midwest.