Cleveland Indians: The Joba Chamberlain Injury Leaves the Bullpen in Sorry Shape

The Cleveland Indians’ bullpen was weak before the injury to one of the team’s best relievers – now the time has come for the others to step up

The Cleveland Indians had an excellent bullpen last season. Posting a collective earned run average of 3.12, Fangraphs ranked it as the sixth best in baseball according to wins above replacement. While much of this greatness came from Cody Allen, Zach McAllister, Jeff Manship, and Bryan Shaw all pitched well by traditional statistics. Fielding independent stats loved Marc Rzepczynski and Nick Hagadone as well. 

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This season has been quite a different story. Both Shaw and Manship have failed to repeat last year’s success, and off-season addition Ross Detwiler failed to impress in his brief stint with the team. Even Cody Allen, who has long been the foundation of the Indians’ relief corps, has struggled so far. On the bright side, his velocity has rebounded a bit from when I identified it as a problem, and his recent results have been a bit better.

When looking for successful relievers in the Tribe’s ‘pen, one is left with few good options. Dan Otero has broken out so far, posing as a lethal weapon for Terry Francona to use. His 1.00 earned run average is a little lower than the estimators would suggest, but he has a history of providing success with his high groundball rates and well-managed contact.

Other than Otero, Tommy Hunter has looked good so far, but he has yet to throw ten innings. So far he has shown an ability to prevent runs and to limit base runners, but he has yet to strikeout many batters and his velocity is down. Both ZiPS and Steamer projection algorithms, feel that he can be somewhat valuable to the Indians although neither foresees him becoming anything better than average. 

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McAllister, who played an integral part of the relief unit last season, has appeared to be just as good on the surface. An artificially high left-on-base rate and a worsened strikeout-to-walk ratio, however, leave him likely to regress in the near future. Even worse, his batted ball rates have worsened, and more batters are squaring up his pitches.

After filtering through these options, Joba Chamberlain stands out with Otero as the sole highlights of this disappointing bullpen. The right-hander has shown a propensity to limit base runners, as batters have managed just six hits and six walks across 14 innings of work. Coupling this with 15 strikeouts and a 50 percent groundball rate has helped Chamberlain to establish himself as a dominant member of the Tribe’s bullpen. While his ERA and FIP have not been quite as shiny as Dan Otero’s, they still come in at well above average.

Now, Chamberlain is gone for the foreseeable future. The Indians placed the former first-round pick on the disabled list earlier this week with a rib injury, and there does not appear to be an estimated return date for the reliever. It is certainly promising that he is only on the 15-day disabled list, and it is quite possible that he will be back in action in just two weeks.

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Nevertheless, with Cody Allen assumed to be reserved for the ninth inning, the other relievers need to settle down and pitch better. The Indians are just out of the playoff picture at the moment, and the American League is looking to be highly competitive at the moment. For the Tribe to have a meaningful fall, they need to position themselves well in the present. They cannot afford to waste stellar pitching from Corey Kluber or Danny Salazar with sloppy late-game play. Joba Chamberlain’s injury may make this more difficult but it does not render this an impossible task. Remember, this team still has many of the same players that managed a 10-game surge to reach the postseason in 2013.