Boston Red Sox: Checking in on the bullpen
By Ryan Sanders
Colten Brewer
When I wrote about Colten Brewer a few weeks ago, I had identified him as possibly the next Ryan Pressly. While 5.2 innings is hardly a sample at all it at least gives us something to look at.
Brewer has continued his wild ways, walking six batters, but at least he has struck out nine. The explosiveness of the stuff is clearly not the question but rather commanding it. There are positives though, Brewer is limiting hard contact and inducing weak contact at an average exit velocity of 84.4 (league average is 87.4).
He is still relatively green, with less than 20 MLB innings in his career so far. As mentioned, he still is showing the stuff that made him an interesting pick up in the first place, with one of the top curve balls by spin rate in the league. In fact, hitters have whiffed at 12 of his curves already, which is tops in all of MLB. He is also throwing his fastball harder than he has in the past and locating it up in the zone to generate swings and misses.
Brewer is one of the X-factors for the bullpen because if he puts it together, he could make Red Sox fans forget all about Craig Kimbrel. Don’t believe me? Consider this NSFW hook that falls off the table.
It is, of course, still early for the entirety of Boston Red Sox bullpen to course correct. While early results haven’t been great and there is a lack of star power closing out games, there are still some talented guys in the bullpen who could get more innings and contribute to a turnaround. There will also be a number of guys who could be had at the trade deadline as every team seeks out improvement for the second half in the postseason.
dark. Next. Kimbrel finally lowers asking price
Moral of the story, it is still early. Let some of these interesting guys pitch and see what you have in stock. Someone may break out and fill the shoes of Kimbrel/Kelly. Worst case scenario, they could just go get Kimbrel to fill his own shoes.