• The secret to Kimbrel's, Walden's success

  • By Jason Grey | July 19, 2011 10:22:54 AM PDT
The 2011 baseball season has shown us yet again that you can still get saves, even elite stoppers, on the cheap. The No. 1 reliever on our Player Rater, the Braves' Craig Kimbrel, was the 22nd reliever picked, on average, in ESPN live drafts this preseason. The No. 3 reliever, the Pirates' Joel Hanrahan, was picked 27th. The Angels' Jordan Walden, 19th on the Player Rater (15th when you toss out the starting pitchers who qualify as relievers) and climbing, was, on average, the 36th relief pitcher taken this spring.Kimbrel has always possessed the raw stuff that ranks right up there with any pitcher in baseball. He can be unhittable when he's on, and this year he has been able to find his control, for the most part, dropping his walk rate to less than four batters per nine innings while still being able to fan more than 14 batters per nine."It's always been 'throw the ball over the plate and you're going to be more successful,'" Kimbrel told me last week. "I give a lot of credit to my pitching coach and my catchers. Some of it is pitch selection, with those guys figuring out what guys are going to swing at or not swing at."His improvement has resulted in a strikeouts-to-walk ratio of 3.75-to-1 and helped him convert 29 saves in 34 chances. Kimbrel's high-90s fastball and sharp slider are both so tough to get the barrel of the bat on that he has allowed just one homer in 68 2/3 big league innings.Kimbrel's mechanics aren't any different than they were a year and a half ago, but they are more consistent and he repeats his delivery better, which has resulted in the control gains. His arm doesn't come through late as often as it once did, and he seems to have better tempo. I asked Kimbrel if he just thinks more experience has been the difference."I'd say so," Kimbrel agreed. "I understand my mechanics a little better, and what I can and can't do, and it's worked out."It certainly has thus far, and barring injury I expect it to continue to do so.• Although Walden was a minor league starter initially, I had him pegged as a late-innings reliever from the first time I saw him in instructional league play in 2007. (You can view my original pro-style 20-to-80 scouting report from then in this August 26, 2010, profile of Walden.)"The best thing that ever happened to me was going to the bullpen," Walden said when I spoke to him shortly after talking to Kimbrel. "As a starter, my arm was never healthy, and it wouldn't bounce back."Very few people expected Fernando Rodney to keep the Angels' closer job for long, and Walden was clearly being groomed for the role. Indeed, Rodney's time in the ninth inning was over by April 5, and Walden replaced him."I didn't expect it to happen at all," Walden said. "But [manager Mike Scioscia] made the decision to put me in there, and I'm very happy I'm a closer. I don't know what I'd be doing without [the job]."Walden's 97-99 mph heater is a heavy ball that is tough for hitters to elevate, especially with some of the funkiness in his delivery, and like Kimbrel, he can keep the ball in the yard (two homers allowed in 54 1/3 major league innings), which is a key trait for a consistent stopper. Though his control can be shaky at times, he has kept the walks to just less than four per nine innings, acceptable enough when he's posting a strong strikeout rate.Walden went through a rough three-game stretch at the end of June, blowing three consecutive saves. However, he had converted 10 straight opportunities before that and has closed his last four opps since then. He's probably never going to be an extreme strikeout pitcher, but he should be able to keep the free passes down enough to get the job done."Walking guys or walking the leadoff guy, that's what hurts me," Walden said. "That's what can lead to blown saves. I have a weird delivery, so if my mechanics are off a little that day, my arm slot is off, and then the ball doesn't do what I want it to do."I expect Walden to increase his strikeout rate in future seasons as he improves his fastball command and sharpens his slider, yet still show enough command to have no problem maintaining his role.• Hanrahan converted to relief work with the Nationals in 2008 after being hesitant to make the move earlier in his career. According to Hanrahan, ESPN's own Jim Bowden saw him record eight out of nine outs via strikeout in a spring training game that year and told him, "You're going to be a big league closer."Hanrahan was told even before spring games started this year that he was going to be the man in the ninth inning for the Pirates this season, and that he wasn't going to be on a short leash, according to Hanrahan. "I was going to be their guy," as Hanrahan put it when I talked with him during the All-Star Game festivities. "When you're trying to compete for a role or compete for a job, you put so much pressure on yourself. It felt good that they trusted me and believed I could have success doing it. It gave me a chance to go out there and do some things I might need to pull out of my pocket during the season, like throwing breaking balls on a 3-1 count. It was nice to not have to worry about it every outing during spring training."Hanrahan suffered his first blown save of the season in his first opportunity after the All-Star break as the team tried to have him get one extra out in the eighth with a runner on, but he bounced right back on Monday with a save, and is now 27-for-28 in save chances this season.Hanrahan credits a 2009 dinner with some ex-Dodgers teammates just before he was traded from the Nationals to the Pirates for helping things start clicking for him. They told him how he looked on the mound despite his good stuff and a fastball that could reach the high 90s. "A lot of it was mental. I was looking defeated on the mound. I had zero swagger out there," Hanrahan said. "I told myself I was going to go out there, stick out my chest a little more and be more aggressive. I'm not worried if they put the ball in play. Just throw strike one, and locate it down in the zone. I feel now if I make my pitch, the defense can get an out."That aggressiveness has paid off with a much-improved walk rate -- he's walking less than two batters per nine this season (after 4.8 and 3.4 marks, respectively, in 2009 and '10) -- and while his willingness to pitch more to contact has resulted in a sharp drop in his strikeout rate to under a batter per inning, the trade-off has resulted in the best strikeout-to-walk ratio of his career. He's not as concerned with trying to set up batters to chase his slider out of the zone, relying a lot more on his fastball velocity and movement this season.The common thread among all three of the closers I discuss today is limiting home runs. Hanrahan has allowed just one long ball this season and has become more of a ground-ball pitcher with his emphasis of working lower in the zone rather than trying to go up high with his heat for the strikeout. To hear Hanrahan tell it, going for strikeouts all the time was part of his past issues: "I was trying to make the perfect pitch," Hanrahan said. "You can't go for a strikeout by trying to make a nasty pitch when the count is just 0-1. My failures were from trying to be perfect. You can't go out putting that much pressure on yourself. Things aren't going to work if you do that."Better command of and trust in his fastball have paid off for Hanrahan, and it's a good enough pitch that it can continue to do so. His slider can still get swings and misses as well, even though he's using it more judiciously, as he's working ahead in the count more often.All three of these closers can continue to perform around their current levels and are obviously worthy keepers, especially in leagues in which their keeper status is set by the round they were drafted in or by their cheap auction price. I would rank them in the order I wrote them in here. All three hurlers have great stuff and all have been able to harness that stuff better this season. You can see the results.

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