The Rangers made a surprising bullpen call in the ninth inning of Game One of the American League Division Series against the Blue Jays.
Holding a 5-3 lead and facing the heart of the vaunted Blue Jays lineup, manager Jeff Bannister overlooked typical closer Shawn Tolleson and instead sent Sam Dyson out to finish the game.
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Dyson got the job done and sealed the Rangers’ surprising win , so could this be a sign of things to come? What is the best way for Bannister to manage the Rangers’ pen in the rest of the postseason?
The Rangers have four very clear top relievers: Right-handers Tolleson, Dyson, and Keone Kela, and left-hander Jake Diekman. Other relievers could see minor roles, but based on their body of work during the regular season, Bannister would be best served maximizing the usage of his top four and limiting the usage of everyone else.
The ideal pattern would be to play matchups with his top four relievers based on the leverage of the situation and the projected outcomes of each batter-pitcher matchup. However, it is still 2015 and that ideal has yet to become a trend, so we will operate within the restraints of the traditional bullpen structure with a designated closer.
In this bullpen structure, the closer is the most important role to fill, and everything else falls into place once the closer is designated. Once that happens, the three good non-closers slide into setup roles and will be expected to be deployed in high-leverage situations in the middle innings.
Candidate one: Shawn Tolleson
The closer for most of the season, Tolleson recorded 35 saves this year — many more than Dyson’s two, Kela’s one, and Diekman’s zero. A blow up against the Angels in the last series of the season aside, Tolleson has been very reliable as a closer this season. With only two blown saves and a stellar 3.27 Win Probability Added, the righty has been essential to sealing late leads in Arlington.
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Tolleson is not overpowering, but throws in the low-90s and spots three solid pitches very well. Command of his off-speed allows him to keep batters guessing, even in hitter-friendly counts. It is not a sexy closer profile, but Tolleson has been effective all year in the role.
Candidate Two: Sam Dyson
Last week I mentioned Dyson in the same sentence as Orioles’ closer Zach Britton, a terrific compliment for any reliever. Like Britton, Dyson throws a power sinker in the upper 90s that generates both whiffs and ground balls. Since coming to the Rangers midseason, the righty has wisely thrown his power sinker over 80 percent of the time, helping his ground ball rate rise to an enormous 75.9 percent. Couple that with a steady 25.2 percent strikeout rate, and the result is a an underrated reliever finding a way to combine the two most desired results for a pitcher — strikeouts and ground balls — in a way rarely seen outside of Baltimore.
Dyson is the best pitcher in this bullpen, and if the idea is to use the best reliever as the closer, he is the obvious choice. The Rangers got a steal when they identified the value of his power sinker and traded for him midseason. Bannister used Dyson to close Game One and the bearded right-hander did not disappoint.
Candidate Three: Jake Diekman
Acquired from the Phillies midseason, Diekman has been a revelation in the Texas bullpen. The lefty sits in the upper 90s and can simply overpower opposing hitters but struggled with control in his time in Philadelphia. Since coming to Texas, he has reduced his walk rate to a modest 8.2 percent while keeping a typically strong strikeout rate.
As good as Diekman has been, as the sole left-hander in the Rangers’ top four, it would make more sense to use him in a setup role to match up with top left handed hitters in the seventh and eighth. Bannister still could have the option of using Diekman to face a tough lefty in the ninth on occasion, but cementing him in the closer role would limit the versatility in matchups for his best lefty.
Candidate Four: Keone Kela
You want strikeouts in the ninth? Kela is your guy. The rookie, who completely skipped Triple-A, strikes out 28 percent of opposing hitters, the best figure in the Texas bullpen. Kela uses a 95 mph fastball about 60 percent of the time, a sharp curveball about 30 percent, and mixes in the occasional changeup ten percent of the time. The big fastball-curveball combo is more representative of a traditional closer profile, and someone who can escape a jam with strikeouts.
Kela is an interesting dark horse candidate to close. Do not let his entrance in the sixth inning of Game One fool you into thinking that he is simply a middle reliever; I see him as the second best arm in this bullpen. If staying with a traditional closer profile in the ninth inning is the priority, Kela’s big fastball and curveball fit the mold perfectly.
Verdict
We can rule Diekman out as the lone left-hander, but good cases can be made for Tolleson, Dyson, and Kela. Deciding between the three may not come down to comparing the talent of these three relievers, but deciding on the ideal Platonic form of a closer and the best way to balance the closer selection with a quality setup corps.
If the closer is simply the best pitcher, Dyson is the clear answer. If the closer is a talented pitcher who fits the traditional role of a hard-throwing right-hander with a good breaking ball, Kela is the clear answer. If the answer is sticking with comfort and the guy who has been reliable as the closer all year long, Tolleson is the clear answer. These are legitimate, philosophical disagreements and it is very difficult to pick one. Instead of focusing on the closer first and working forward from there, perhaps we can work from the setup positions back to the closer.
In a setup role, Dyson may be best used as a high-leverage setup guy who can escape any jam with a strikeout or a double-play ball. Often the biggest rallies and the highest leverage situations come before the ninth inning, so waiting until the ninth to use the best reliever could result in games lost prior to the ninth while the best man to shut down the rally sits and watches. With his ground ball abilities, he can enter and give the team a great chance of escaping an inning with a double play.
With two quality setup men, the righty Dyson and the lefty Diekman, in place, this leaves us with Kela and Tolleson as options for the ninth. Does Tolleson’s track record in saves during the regular season outweigh his home run rate that is nearly twice as high as Kela’s? Does Kela’s slight advantage in strikeout rate make him a better fit for a setup role and rally killer? Tolleson has been good this year, but Kela’s ERA is a full 0.60 runs lower, his FIP is a full 0.80 runs lower, and his ground ball rate is eight percent higher. Especially against the powerful Blue Jays, the ability to keep the ball on the ground is critical in the late innings, helping give Kela the edge.
Like the middle of the Blue Jays’ batting order, any differences between the ordering of these players are small. With Kela as the closer, Dyson can be used as the primary rally killer in the middle and late innings, entering in a high leverage situation to diffuse or prevent a rally at the most important time. Diekman can be leveraged to face a lefty-heavy part of a lineup, while Tolleson returns to his former role as a quality middle reliever. The change is not a result of Tolleson’s blow-up against the Angels or poor performance; rather the change is a result of two midseason acquisitions and a rookie developing into top relievers much more quickly than anticipated.
This is a less rigid, matchup and leverage based bullpen that has all of the pieces necessary to make it very difficult for opposing teams to construct any sort of rally in the late innings. They have the flexibility to always put the matchup in their favor, and could be an essential part of the surprising Rangers’ postseason chances. Kela has the talent to succeed in the ninth, and with two quality righties and one quality lefty setting him up, the Rangers are well-equipped to hold more late postseason leads.
— Dan Weigel is a pitching expert at Sporting News. A former pitcher at Bucknell University, he has since spent his post-graduation time playing, coaching, and working in the international baseball arena, working in and writing about sabermetrics, and constantly learning more about the science of pitching. You can follow him on twitter at @danweigel38.