Arizona Diamondbacks: Is Archie Bradley the next great super reliever?

Once a disappointment as a top-10 draft pick, Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Archie Bradley has redefined his career in the bullpen.

It was June 2011, when the Arizona Diamondbacks thought they had found a future ace in high school right-hander Archie Bradley. Lauded for his power fastball and advanced body at just 18 years old, the 6’4”, 225-lb. prospect was thought of as a rather sure thing for a high school pitcher.

However, the Diamondbacks had to be disappointed with the trajectory of Bradley’s pro career up until this season. Prior to 2017, Bradley had struggled at multiple levels of minor league baseball and was shelled in his two stints with the team in 2015 and 2016 as a starting pitcher. Bradley also had an unfortunate event when he was hit in the face on a live drive just two years ago. This stunted Bradley’s 2015 campaign to only eight starts.

With the struggles and the lack of development as a starting pitcher, the Diamondbacks made a decision to switch Bradley to the bullpen in a multi-purpose relief role a la Andrew Miller and now Chris Devenski of the Houston Astros. So is Bradley following suit? Well, the answer is a resounding “yes.”

Through 31 innings pitched so far, the former highly touted prospect is finally showing the dominance that many thought he would show in the big leagues. As of now, Bradley has posted an ERA of 1.16 while striking out 11 batters per nine innings and producing an outstanding BB-K rate of 5.43.

Like Miller and Devenski, Bradley has been performing this way not as a closer: That role has been given to longtime closer Fernando Rodney, much to mixed results. However, the veteran right-hander has been much better in the ninth inning recently.

Bradley did start out the season throwing multiple innings, but has shifted to a more traditional set-up role given the success that he has had in that position. But the Diamondbacks still probably feel comfortable in his ability to maintain his success through multiple innings because of his background as a starter, just like Miller and Devenski, who began their careers as starting pitchers as well.

So Bradley has a similar profile to these super relievers, but does his pure stuff match the likes of Miller in terms of the likelihood that he will maintain this type of production throughout the entirety of a Major League Baseball regular season?

While Bradley has been much more successful in the bullpen, his batted ball numbers are strikingly similar to the numbers he put up in past years with the Diamondbacks.

According to FanGraphs, his line drive, ground ball and fly ball percentages are a measly few percentage points off from last year to this year and his hard contact rate has only gone down by 1.5 percent. This doesn’t show much progress in terms of what happens when hitters barrel up balls, even though they have fewer chances to since he faces much fewer batters as a relief pitcher.

However, where the main difference lies is in his ability to throw with considerable velocity in 2017. Bradley is now throwing around 96 mph on average, meaning that he does have the ability to pump his fastball up to the upper 90s on occasion. This is around a four-mph spike from last season when he as only throwing about 92 mph.

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This is fairly common for starters who convert to the bullpen because they no longer have to conserve as much energy since they are usually throwing just about a single inning. Still, this must now be taken into account on what type of player he will be moving forward.

I’m under the impression that this dramatic increase in velocity is forcing more bad swings when he is on the bump. According to FanGraphs, Bradley is getting 11 percent swings and misses on pitches that he throws in the strike zone. This is an improvement of nearly 5 percent from 2015 and 3 percent from 2016. This means that hitters are just flat-out making less contact on hittable pitches that they probably would have done damage to last year.

He is walking significantly fewer batters, but he is also striking out more, which can probably be attributed greatly to his newfound fastball velocity.

Whether or not Bradley will maintain this elite level of production from the pen is still up in the air given his lack of major league track record. But based on the jump in his pure stuff and the advanced statistics that back up his improved performance, I think it’s very possible that the Diamondbacks could use their new bullpen star in a role similar to Andrew Miller. I do not believe he has the same pure stuff (that slider is just too filthy), but Bradley certainly has what it takes to do what many converted starters have done before him, which is to become an upper-tier relief option for a big league ball club.

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What do you think the Diamondbacks should do with Bradley moving forward? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.