Not a Bad Idea? Lopez as closer

[Frobby]

I’d say the idea of Lopez as closer is looking pretty good right now.  

[wildcard]

6 hours ago, Frobby said:

I’d say the idea of Lopez as closer is looking pretty good right now.  

Yes, I was wrong about Lopez not having the mentality to be a closer.  He is very fun to watch.  His confidence is a big difference makers from last year.

[Frobby]

17 minutes ago, interloper said:

And people wanted to DFA him, even after seeing what he did as a reliever last season.

Who said that?    I don’t recall anybody being ready to DFA Lopez.  

[BRobinsonfan]

On 4/15/2022 at 12:54 PM, BRobinsonfan said:

While a quick glance at his history in relief seems to indicate he's better as a reliever, he still gives up more than a hit per inning in that role.  At 29 years of age, with more than 350 major league innings behind him and a 1.558 WHIP I'm not sure what we're waiting for. 

 

So far, happily, my above post has not aged well.  

[O's84]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

Who said that?    I don’t recall anybody being ready to DFA Lopez.  

I forgot who, but I remember at least 1 person wanted him DFA.  Either way, the majority didn't want him gone.

[interloper]

5 hours ago, Frobby said:

Who said that?    I don’t recall anybody being ready to DFA Lopez.  

Oh, several people for sure.

[SteveA]

48 minutes ago, interloper said:

Oh, several people for sure.

Considering some of the guys we carried on the roster all winter I would find it hard to believe Jorge Lopez was ever anyone's FIRST choice to DFA.

Now if someone went on a rant about wanting to clean what they saw as dead wood off the roster and stock it with prospects and said "I'd get rid of Him and Him and Him and Him and Him and Him and Him and  Him and Him" and Lopez was the 7th or 8th Him....maybe.

[Aristotelian]

40 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Considering some of the guys we carried on the roster all winter I would find it hard to believe Jorge Lopez was ever anyone's FIRST choice to DFA.

Now if someone went on a rant about wanting to clean what they saw as dead wood off the roster and stock it with prospects and said "I'd get rid of Him and Him and Him and Him and Him and Him and Him and  Him and Him" and Lopez was the 7th or 8th Him....maybe.

I may have had him 2 or 3.

[foxfield]

1 hour ago, SteveA said:

Considering some of the guys we carried on the roster all winter I would find it hard to believe Jorge Lopez was ever anyone's FIRST choice to DFA.

Now if someone went on a rant about wanting to clean what they saw as dead wood off the roster and stock it with prospects and said "I'd get rid of Him and Him and Him and Him and Him and Him and Him and  Him and Him" and Lopez was the 7th or 8th Him....maybe.

Raises hand

Looks behind him at everyone else...come on, you know you did.

[Tony-OH]

Lopez has been scoed upon in just one of his outings and he's throwing a 98-99 MOH singer that;s moving 7.5 inches horizontally. I dont want to say I told you so yet, but the stuff looks fantastic as a 1-2 inning guy!

[sportsfan8703]

A nice article on Jorge Lopez,

https://www.mlb.com/news/each-mlb-team-s-most-under-the-radar-dominant-pitcher

Orioles: Jorge López
Key stat: Sinker has gained 2.4 mph of velocity
The Orioles are starting to get a little bit of a reputation as a team that can get stuff out of older pitchers that no one else could, and Lopez is Exhibit A. He’d struggled through two years in Baltimore (and three years in Milwaukee, and three years in Kansas City) before becoming the shutdown guy he is now. He’s still walking too many guys, and eventually he’s going to give up a homer, but for now, he’s one of the best relievers in the game.

[Just Regular]

I was poking around with May splits and Jorge Lopez was 83rd out of 90 qualified AL relievers for the month in K-BB%.

Given the depth of his repertoire and lack of dominance, I wonder if some of the adaptation to ~80 Grayson Rodriguez innings vanishing is testing Lopez in the Akin-sized role.    Bautista perhaps has more potential for one-inning dominator.

[LA2]

7 hours ago, Just Regular said:

I was poking around with May splits and Jorge Lopez was 83rd out of 90 qualified AL relievers for the month in K-BB%.

Given the depth of his repertoire and lack of dominance, I wonder if some of the adaptation to ~80 Grayson Rodriguez innings vanishing is testing Lopez in the Akin-sized role.    Bautista perhaps has more potential for one-inning dominator.

Perhaps. We're lucky to have possible alternatives this season not only for closer, but also for set-up guys to take Bautista's place if necessary. I shudder to recall the recent seasons we didn't--like the season we were forced to use Tommy Hunter in the 9th or last year after the Cesar Valdez and Adam Plutko bubbles burst and later Fry and Scott imploded (not to mention Shawn Armstrong, Tom Eshelman, Travis Lakins Sr., Conner Greene et al). Such a difference this year!

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

Lopez picked up his ninth save and his ERA is now 0.88 and he has a good chance at being the Orioles all star game representative. I thought Lopez would be better coming out of the bullpen, but I never expected him to be this good. 

[Sports Guy]

BABiP is 178.

xFIp is 3.58.

K rate is relatively mediocre and he is missing bats below the league average.

His BB rate is also high.

The flip side to that is there have only been 2 barreled balls on him this year. His exit velocity is almost 3 MPH better than the league average.  The average launch angle is 12.1%.  His is -.9.

xBA is 208 and xObA is 204, both well under the league average.  He is inducing weak contact 7.7% of the time.  League average is under 4%.  His Gb% is about 65%, which is where he’s getting so many of his outs.

He has some Zach Britton in him.  Lots of weak contacts, low launch angles (although Brittons were normal in the -5 to -8 range), lots of ground balls(not as many as Zach but still a lot)…the thing is though, Britton missed a lot of bats.  
 

I made a comment elsewhere in 2014 that Britton wasn’t an elite closer that year because his FIP was a lot higher, the Ks weren’t there and his BB rate was a little high.  He had great “regular” numbers but some of peripherals weren’t there.  That said, I liked the chances of his numbers getting better because he was missing so many bats..and then the next 2 years he was one of the most dominant closers the sport had seen in quite some time.

Lopez’s stuff isn’t quite to that level.  The lack of missed bats is what bothers me longer term.  It tells me more balls will be put into play and when the stats normalize, his ERA will go up.  
 

The fact that the batted ball data is so good is encouraging but for him to truly be a dominant reliever, the missed bats and Ks have to go up and the walks have to come down.