The Three(!) Oakland A’s Relievers Who are Among the Best in the League
The Oakland Athletics are having a strange 2018. They’re eight games over .500, which is a much better mark than what most people were expecting from them. However, they sit eight and a half games back of the first place Houston Astros, and seven games back of the second wild-card spot (currently held by the division rivals Seattle Mariners). The team’s been hot lately, winning 14 of their last 17 games. The A’s are one of the best teams in a rather noncompetitive American League, and a lot of the credit for their performance has to go to their stellar bullpen. The Oakland A’s relievers rank ninth in the league in ERA (fifth in the American League), and they have a handful of guys who have proven to be shutdown arms. Most teams are lucky to have one reliever who can fill this role; the Athletics have three. Let’s break them down.
Pagán came to Oakland from Seattle in the Ryon Healy trade, and is putting up even better numbers than he did in 2017. He has a 2.75 ERA and a stellar 1.19 WHIP. He also ranks ninth in the league in leaving runners on base, with a 92.9 LOB%. With such a low WHIP, this means he isn’t necessarily letting a lot of runners on himself, but rather he is cleaning up jams left by other pitchers. With runners in scoring position, his strikeout rate jumps to 10.80 per nine innings, and his WHIP drops to 0.86. This makes Pagán an extremely valuable (and underrated) reliever, even if you want to argue that he’s been a bit lucky.
It’s hard to believe this is Trivino’s first year in the majors. In 35.2 innings pitched, the 26-year-old right-hander owns a 1.49 ERA and an outstanding WHIP of 0.99. Those are dominant numbers, but we can add to those with some advanced stats:
- He’s averaging over a strikeout per inning,
- As seen in the graph below, he has a BABIP of .205, a rate that has been impressively declining as the season has progressed (image courtesy of Fangraphs). This number ranks seventh best among all qualified relievers and puts him up with names like Kenley Jansen and Archie Bradley.
- Opposing hitters are batting just .160 against him, a mark which ranks 14th best in the league among relievers, as he’s able to shut down lefties just as well as right handed hitters.
Treinen is the highest profile player of this great trio of A’s relievers. He came to Oakland last year in the deal that sent Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson to the Nationals (Jesus Luzardo, a top 100 prospect also came to Oakland). Treinen is now having the best season of his career. The 30 year old has become the Athletics’ closer, posting an incredible 0.84 ERA and 0.94 WHIP over 42.2 innings pitched. He recently collected his 22nd save, and has given up just one run in his past 23.1 innings. He ranks tenth among all relievers in homeruns given up per nine innings. He’s likely heading back to Washington in a few weeks, but as a member of the AL All-Star team, and could be given the chance to close out the game for the AL squad.
If the A’s end up being sellers at the deadline, they would certainly get some impressive prospect packages back for these three guys. It would, of course, be exciting to see Oakland continue to shorten the gap between the Mariners for the second wild card spot. If the Athletics do make the AL playoff picture a little more interesting, the three-headed monster of Pagán, Trivino, and Treinen will be a big reason why.
-Michael Gonzalez
