Is the Boston Red Sox bullpen the Achilles heel?
Craig Kimbrel is one of the best closers in the world. His 2017 season was as dominant as it gets, finishing with a 1.43 ERA, a 1.42 FIP and a 1.50 xFIP. In other words, he was exactly as dominant as his ERA suggests. He struck out an insane 49.6% of batters he faced. So there is plenty of room for him to fall and still be dominant in 2018.
To date, he hasn’t allowed a run, and his FIP is just 2.11. He’s striking out 34.5% of hitters, and his s, winging strike rate is down to 15.6% which is in line with his 2015 and 2016 rates. He’s getting fewer swings outside of the zone by 7%, but he’s trading 19.1% of hard contact for 18.5% more medium contact and 0.6% more soft.
We may be in for more of the 2015 version of Kimbrel, but that would be more than enough at the back of the pen. It’s the rest of the pen that may be the problem. The 2017 Red Sox didn’t start the season with a real 8th inning option on the roster.
Joe Kelly and Matt Barnes did a decent job of mimicking that guy for a while, but eventually, Dave Dombrowski went out and traded for Addison Reed to fix the problem.
The problem children.
In 2018 they returned to the field with Kelly and Barnes being two of the leading names for that roll again but added Carson Smith to the mix as he had recovered from Tommy John surgery. Smith, who was known as a control pitcher in Seattle, has not looked good, walking 9.53 batters per 9 innings. Control is usually the last thing to come back after TJ surgery, however, so there is reason to hope that will improve going forward.