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Opening Day of the 2019 Major League Baseball season is as soon as March 28, yet one of the greatest closers ever still doesn’t have a job.
It isn’t because there aren’t fits for Craig Kimbrel. He might go back either to the Boston Red Sox or Atlanta Braves, both of whom are World Series hopefuls with major questions in their bullpens. Other noteworthy possibilities include the Philadelphia Phillies and Washington Nationals.
Still another is the Tampa Bay Rays, whose ace knows what he would do if he were in charge.
“I want Kimbrel,” reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell told Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. “He’s a veteran. He’s established. He’s the best. Who wouldn’t want the best closer on their team?”
Kimbrel’s credentials back up Snell’s assessment that he’s “the best.”
The 30-year-old is a nine-year major league veteran with 333 career saves. Among pitchers who’ve logged at least 500 innings, he holds the all-time records for strikeouts per nine innings (14.7) and adjusted ERA+ (211).
The name just below Kimbrel in the latter category is none other than Mariano Rivera, who recently became the first unanimous Hall of Famer. According to Baseball Reference, Kimbrel has also accumulated more wins above replacement through the age of 30 than Rivera did.
Kimbrel’s 2018 season with Boston wasn’t his best, but it was plenty good. He saved 42 games while whiffing 13.9 batters per nine innings and racking up a 160 ERA+. He was rightfully selected to his seventh All-Star Game.
A rough October that may or may not have resulted from his tipping pitches didn’t keep Kimbrel from winning his first World Series.
Billie Weiss/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images
But the elephant in the room has a clear message on its side: “It’s the money, stupid.”
According to Jayson Stark of The Athletic, Kimbrel wants a six-year contract worth more than $100 million. Such a deal would shatter the current record for a relief pitcher, which belongs to Aroldis Chapman and his five-year, $86 million pact with the New York Yankees.
As many (including Travis Sawchik of FiveThirtyEight) have noted, teams dislike paying top dollar for free agents anymore. Not unless they bring a special profile to the table, and Kimbrel’s isn’t above scrutiny.
Whereas Kimbrel is coming off his age-30 season, Chapman was only coming off his age-28 season when he signed his megadeal with the Yankees in 2016. Ditto for Kenley Jansen, who got five years and $80 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers the same winter.
The bigger problem is how easy it is to speculate Kimbrel won’t remain an all-time great for much longer.
Most of his red flags are planted in his fastball. Though perhaps not as much as Rivera’s cutter, it’s legendary in its own right because of its extreme velocity and uncanny rising action. But in 2018, both its average velocity and its average spin rate decreased.
Of the two, the latter dip is easier to shrug off. The benefits of spin rate are notoriously nebulous, and it’s a positive that lower spin didn’t correlate with less action. In fact, Kimbrel got more rising movement out of his heater in 2018.
The velocity dip, on the other hand, is notable for being a first for Kimbrel’s career. It also closed the gap between his heater and the average reliever’s to its narrowest point since 2010:
Not so coincidentally, the swing-and-miss rate on Kimbrel’s fastball took a big hit. So did his swing-and-miss rate within the strike zone.
Kimbrel’s curveball, meanwhile, remains a pretty pitch to look at, but it’s several years past its peak as a weapon for drawing swings and swings and misses. Evidently, hitters have wised to it.
Such things don’t point to a pleasant aging process for Kimbrel. In all likelihood, his fastball will continue to decline. As that happens, the degradation of his curveball figures to become easier to notice.
Other concerns with Kimbrel include a walk rate that’s been above the league average more often than not throughout his career, as well as his relative unreliability outside of save situations:
- Save Situations: 1.71 ERA and .442 OPS allowed
- Non-Save Situations: 2.36 ERA and .574 OPS allowed
This would be neither here nor there if the closer role wasn’t evolving, but baseball is firmly moving toward a future in which the most important outs aren’t necessarily the last three. Save-situation-only closers like Kimbrel may soon be an anachronism.
But while the case against Kimbrel has its merits, it’s far from strong enough for anyone to conclude that he’s suddenly a bad pitcher.
Even with lesser stuff, he still posted the lowest contact rate of any relief pitcher in 2018. Hitters also had a difficult time squaring him up even when they did make contact. His hard-hit rate plummeted, and his .293 expected slugging percentage ranked 20th among all qualified pitchers.
Then there’s the eye test, which…well, let’s let Rob Friedman demonstrate how Kimbrel’s statistical imperfections aren’t much of a comfort to opposing hitters:
Rob Friedman @PitchingNinja
Craig Kimbrel, 98mph Fastball and 88mph Knuckle Curve, Overlay.
Good luck. https://t.co/U0kZATGLhQ
The market has ushered Kimbrel into the same boat that Greg Holland was in last winter. Though he was coming off a 41-save season, Holland’s red flags caused teams to steer clear up until the first day of the 2018 season, when the St. Louis Cardinals signed him to a one-year contract.
Even if he isn’t an Aroldis Chapman or a Kenley Jansen, Kimbrel deserves to be treated as more of a Wade Davis than a Greg Holland. While he’s an older reliever who’s probably past his prime, he can still be trusted with a high-paying closer gig.
If Davis could get a three-year, $52 million deal coming off his age-31 season, Kimbrel ought to get at least that much. A four-year deal worth $60 or even $70 million wouldn’t be unreasonable.
No team has signed him to a deal like that yet. But frankly, some team should.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs, Brooks Baseball and Baseball Savant.
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