We took an early look at Ozzie last month, and while we’ll check back on him in June, we move onto Raisel today.
“I’m terrified. One of my biggest fears is that Iglesias’ peripherals have been heading in the wrong direction, and the lack of rotation depth is going to expose everything else. If anything else, I’m disappointed in how the team approached this area of the team. At least, you can always find help on the waiver wire or the trade deadline, but you’ve gotta actually do something.” – Me on Raisel Iglesias and the Atlanta Braves bullpen
It seems borderline unfathomable to me that Iglesias was signed by the Reds in 2014. It feels simultaneously both forever ago and not that long ago. The then 24-year old was the next hot Cuban prospect after the Reds signed the previous one in Aroldis Chapman, and the Reds tried him in the rotation. It went fine, but the Reds ultimately turned him into a reliever.
For most of the next decade, he has been one of the best relievers in the game.
But there have been some warning signs over the last few years. In 2021 as a 31-year old, Iglesias had arguably his best season, pitching 70 innings, striking out over 13 per 9 innings, walking less than 2 per 9 innings, and tying a career-high with 34 saves … and as the joke goes, the Los Angeles Angels still didn’t make the playoffs. Every year since, his peripherals have gone the wrong direction.
His 3.38 xFIP in 2024 isn’t exactly bad, but it’s not great for a closer-type reliever, either. His FIP was almost a run lower, but with a home run rate half of his career average, that was likely due more to the small sample variance of 69 innings than any real skill. Heading into his age-35 season, I think I had every reason to be worried.
Statcast didn’t agree, however …
That’s a lot of red for a guy who I was concerned was declining. When a fantasy team owner offered me Iglesias this offseason, I had to decide between trying to shore up a real need in the saves department or siding with my interpretation of his peripherals. I decided to sign Trevor Megill instead.
Fast-forward to the middle of May, and the season is off to a rocky start for our friend. His ERA is 6.06. His FIP is 6.29. He’s already blown three saves when he’d only blown four in each of the last two seasons, and six is his career-high.
But his xFIP is a full runs lower than his ERA and FIP. With relievers, I tend to stick to xFIP for most of the season because it normalizes the HR rate a bit, and it gives me a better feel for where they might be. To be clear, 3.26 as an xFIP still isn’t great – it’s effectively what he did last season – but it definitely suggests Iglesias has run into some rough luck that likely wouldn’t continue if he continued to pitch like this.
And the peripherals agree. The strikeout rate is back around 10.5, and the walk rate is around 2. The homer rate is at 30%, and there’s basically no way that’s possible as a season-long statistic.
But there are some bad signs still. Let’s head to Statcast …
Gulp. The velocity has dropped, and there’s a lot less red and a lot more blue in this chart. You’ll also note that while his K/9 has risen, his K% has not. He’s getting more strikeouts, but he’s also facing more batters, which levels out a bit. The groundballs have also disappeared, and that might be an indication that hitters are able to make better contact.
Stuff+ also thinks he’s backed up significantly.
Baseball Prospectus agrees …
His sinker remains above average, but nothing else is.
So we’re faced with an interesting situation. On one hand, the veteran right-hander doesn’t deserve what has happened to him so far. He’s not a 6-ERA reliever, and we should expect much better results moving forward as long as something weird doesn’t happen. But on the other hand, there are a number of underlying issues that still warn that he’s not the reliever he was a few years ago, skewing more toward middle reliever than closer. He might heat up as the summer starts, though, so we’ll check back in sometime in a couple months.
Atlanta largely ignored the bullpen this offseason, choosing a shotgun spray method of grabbing a bunch of arms while not investing much in terms of money or prospects. As they head toward the deadline, they should be forewarned that they probably can’t ignore it if the team wants to make a playoff run.