TORONTO — For the second straight year, a Toronto Blue Jays bullpen that started out doing a pretty good impression of a raging dumpster fire wound up being one of the team’s great strengths by the time the season was over.
Now the Blue Jays are going to have to build themselves a brand new bullpen for the third consecutive season as they begin the work of putting together the 2017 team.
This season, the Blue Jays had seven blown saves in their first 38 games. The rate slowed down dramatically after Jason Grilli arrived in a late-May trade with Atlanta and there were only four blown saves in the 75 games between June 9 and Sept. 6. Jesse Chavez, Drew Hutchison and Drew Storen each had one of those four (Roberto Osuna the other) and they’ve all since been shipped out of town.
The Jays’ relief corps struggled in the final week of the regular season with a staggering five blown saves in the final eight games, but in the post-season was almost perfect.
In the extra-inning wild card win over the Baltimore Orioles, five relievers combined to throw five innings of no-hitter, with just one walk. In the extra-inning clincher over the Texas Rangers in the ALDS, Joe Biagini gave up a two-run double to the first man he faced, then he and three other relievers combined to retire 13 straight before Rougned Odor threw the series away.
In the entirety of the ALCS against Cleveland, the Blue Jays bullpen threw 13 2/3 shutout innings, allowing only five hits.
As general manager Ross Atkins walked out of his media availability on Monday afternoon, he was on his phone. I asked if he was about to do a radio interview, as is often the case after these things, and he answered, “No, I’m calling Jason Grilli.”
That phone call was likely to discuss the fact Atkins had earlier called picking up Grilli’s $3-million option for 2017 not only “realistic” but “seemingly as close to a no-brainer that you could have.”
Even with hitting a rather large bump in the road in September, Grilli was magnificent as a Blue Jay in 2016, allowing opponents to hit just .189 against him and striking out 58 hitters in 42 innings. He gave up one hit in 3 2/3 post-season innings with no walks and three strikeouts, facing 12 batters and recording 11 outs.
Grilli turns 40 next month and barring any unforeseen circumstances will come to spring training to prepare to set up Osuna, the closer who turns 22 in February. Along with Biagini, Brett Cecil and Francisco Liriano, Osuna and Grilli recorded all but one of the Blue Jays’ relief outs in the playoffs.
Next year, it’s possible that none of Biagini, Cecil and Liriano will be back in the Jays’ bullpen.
Cecil is a free agent, and though he has expressed strong interest in returning, he might find greener pastures on the open market where non-closer relievers of his ilk have recently been signing three-year contracts worth close to $20 million.
Liriano is pencilled in for a spot in the starting rotation, joining Marco Estrada, J.A. Happ, Aaron Sanchez and Marcus Stroman. The lefty was terrific after coming over from Pittsburgh at the trade deadline, posting a 2.92 ERA in 10 regular-season appearances (eight starts) with a 1.18 WHIP and 52 strikeouts in 49 1/3 innings.
Biagini is an interesting case, and leaves the Blue Jays with a decision to make. The Rule 5 pick had an unexpectedly phenomenal rookie season, going from a mediocre minor-league starter to a reliable, high-leverage, late-inning reliever. The Jays need to weigh his contributions in relief against his previous work as a starter, and maybe his success in the majors would indicate that his 2015 season at double-A Richmond was no fluke.
The righty had a 4.73 ERA and 1.51 WHIP combined in his first three pro seasons in the San Francisco Giants system, but in ’15 reached a career high with 130 1/3 innings pitched while also recording career lows with a 2.42 ERA and 1.12 WHIP. Even with his success in the bullpen, the temptation to have Biagini as a mid-rotation starter rather than a seventh-inning reliever may be too strong to resist.
“We’ll have to consider it,” said Atkins. “The only reasons we can think of not to consider that are how good he has been as a reliever. If (starting) is something he’s open to and motivated and really wants to do, it’s something that we have to look at doing.”
So if Cecil leaves, Liriano goes to the big-league rotation and Biagini heads to Buffalo to start, where does that leaves the Blue Jays bullpen next season?
According to Atkins the Jays need to “add to the bullpen significantly, though that might not mean significant numbers.” So maybe it’s a big splash (or two) and they fill out the rest with what’s already here.
Who might be the big-splash possibilities? Well, there happens to be a glut of strong-pedigreed relievers on the free agent market this winter, including closers Kenley Jansen and Mark Melancon, recent closers Santiago Casilla, Neftali Feliz, Kevin Jepsen, Sergio Romo, Joe Smith and Brad Ziegler, set-up men Andrew Bailey, Joe Blanton, David Hernandez, Daniel Hudson, Fernando Salas and Junichi Tazawa (who gets everybody out but the Blue Jays — problem solved).
Among the lefties on the market are J.P. Howell, Boone Logan, Javier Lopez and Marc Rzepczynski, and there are some bounce-back-from-injury candidates as well, including Wade Davis, Greg Holland, Bryan Morris, Jacob Turner and, of course, Joaquin Benoit, who gave up one run in his two months with the Jays before tearing his calf muscle running in from the bullpen to join a fight.
Aroldis Chapman is a free agent, as well, but he’s expected to return to the New York Yankees, who were only too happy to trade for him last winter after his value dropped because of a domestic violence incident.
One wonders if the significant add the Blue Jays might make could wind up becoming an Andrew Miller-style “bullpen ace,” working in early high-leverage spots while Osuna stands by to slam the door shut in the ninth. It’s an intriguing possibility, indeed.
As far as internal options go, the Jays have a group of young righties who throw very hard in Ryan Tepera, Bo Schultz and Chris Smith. There’s Danny Barnes, who had a ridiculous season in the minors, threw some high-leverage innings in the majors and made it onto the ALDS roster (but not into a game) after Liriano was hurt.
Lefty Matt Dermody rocketed to the majors after starting the season in high-A Dunedin, pitching five innings with the Jays in September, and Aaron Loup is still here, as well.
Trades are always a possibility, though the Jays’ system is still not yet where they’d like it to be in order to dangle prospects for immediate help, and the volatility of relievers in general makes it scary to give up a big piece to get one. There are minor-league free agents, of course, and the Jays got themselves a pretty good reliever in the Rule 5 draft last winter — expect them to dive into that pool again.