The Athletics have designated right-hander J.B. Wendelken for assignment. Left-hander A.J. Puk has been called up from Triple-A to take Wendelken’s spot on the 26-man roster.
Wendelken posted a 2.61 ERA over his first 10 1/3 innings of the season before a couple of shaky outings preceded a stay of almost two months on the injured list due to an oblique strain. Over 25 relief innings this year, Wendelken has a 4.32 ERA/4.29 SIERA and a below-average 22.2% strikeout rate, though a .355 BABIP has been working against him. Wendelken has continued his trend of keeping the ball in the park by allowing only two homers this year.
Apart from a 2017 season wiped out by Tommy John surgery, Wendelken has appeared in five of the last six MLB seasons, all with the A’s. The 28-year-old has been quite solid over most of his 112 career innings in the Show, including an excellent 1.80 ERA over 25 frames out of Oakland’s bullpen last season.
With teams perpetually in need of relief pitching down the stretch, it wouldn’t be surprising to see another club make a waiver claim on a pitcher who is controllable (through 2024) and has had such recent success at the big league level. Wendelken is out of options, so the Athletics’ hand was forced in having to DFA him rather than just option him to the minors.
Puk pitched in one game for the A’s before being placed on the 10-day injured list due to a biceps strain. After being reinstated from the IL and sent to the minors, Puk got off to a brutal start at Triple-A but has since settled down — the southpaw has a 1.64 ERA over his last 22 innings, following a ghastly 11.50 ERA in his first 18 frames. Long considered one of baseball’s top pitching prospects, Puk’s star has been dimmed by multiple injuries, though the A’s will give him another look to see if he can contribute to their bullpen during the pennant race.
Why Wendleken? He has been solid for us
By rule, they can only have so many initialed names on the team.
Phillies could use him except they already have JT Realmuto and recently signed TJ Rivera. Not sure if this would put them over the initialed names quota.
JD Hammer on line one.
With that 1.68 WHIP? Yikes
“Puk got off to a brutal start at Triple-A but has since settled down — the southpaw has a 1.64 ERA over his last 22 innings, following a ghastly 11.50 ERA in his first 18 frames. ”
Anyone who comments without reading the article, or who doesn’t have the reading comprehension to understand that this quote encompasses a lot of that 1.68 WHIP, should be banned from commenting forever.
ERA is sporadic check the LOB rate
To be fair, they shouldn’t have an opinion. If one doesn’t care enough about a specific topic to inform themselves of the details so that they can inform their opinion, then they don’t care about the topic enough to have an opinion on it; therefore, it’s a waste of their own time to espouse an opinion and a waste of everybody else’s time because it doesn’t lead to productive discussion.
I was referring to Wendleken but I guess you can’t “comprehend” that so therefore under your own “law” you should be banned. Go punch a wall.
My dude, my reply was to KJS1313. You know, the one asking about “reading comprehension” and, more specifically, opinions.
I still stand by my assertion that if you don’t care enough to attempt to understand a topic, that you don’t care enough to have an opinion on it. It doesn’t do anybody any good to have an uninformed opinion, because it’s neither pragmatic nor productive. Anybody’s observation can be productive (whether it be through a fresh set of eyes or a honed understanding), but not everybody’s opinion is.
On that note, that 1.68 WHIP that you were talking about was in 25 IP. That’s okay if you’re looking at trends (that’s plural, meaning using more than one statistic; I’d recommend also looking at LOB%, BABIP, SwStr%, K%, BB%, HR/FB%, and batted ball data to get an idea on whether a pitcher is performing to baseline or over/under performing). But if you’re only looking at one stat in a small sample size to form a narrative, that’s just disingenuous (and there are multiple studies pointing towards needing more time for stats to stabilize). It doesn’t matter whether it’s baseball or stocks.
There were no personal attacks, and nobody was discredited. People should understand the importance of the words they use. I was always taught that one’s opinion is a tool that should be finely honed and used at the proper times (which can’t be done if it’s not maintained). But that’s an opinion as well; so like every other opinion, you’re free to take what you find useful.
Opinions are beautiful because they give us an insight into how other people think, so why should an opinion that’s isn’t thought out be weighed just as heavily as an informed one? Stay safe out there, and remember that not every disagreement is an altercation.
Nah just you
Maybe he’s being punished for his Poor conditioning? He got a little chubby. Starting to resemble Kent Bottenfield.
A’s still have Domingo Acevedo in Triple-A if they need another Relief pitcher. Daulten Jefferies and Paul Blackburn could also pitch out of the Bullpen down the stretch.
Because he is right handed. And has a 4.32 ERA… It’s a bias game.
Who else gets sent for Puk?
Puk has a 6.08 ERA in AAA. Interesting decision.
He’s given up 4 runs in his last 22 innings while K’ing 26. He got blown up in May and when he got back from his rehab assignment. I’d bet they aren’t putting any stock into that 6 ERA whatsoever.
His recent performances have been good and I assume they have good reports on his velocity being back where it needs to be. Also, at this point I think it clear that you can not put much weight into the stats put up by hitters or pitchers who play in Vegas.
Playing in the PCL does that to most pitchers.
No, its interesting you cant understand that a season ERA from an RP doesnt mean a damn thing and can be ruined by literally 1 bad performance. Puk had 5 to start but has been nails since. You made this comment for no reason, learn to read.
@asfaninuk
Agreed, the man has been great as of late.
A team expecting an open spot on their 40 man roster after the season is over might want to give Wendleken a shot. I’d rather use the 40-man spot on a guy not far removed from solid numbers than a Rule 5 draft pick or prematurely elevating a guy who isn’t yet eligible to be taken in the Rule 5 draft.
I’m definitely hoping that he can slip to the Diamondbacks, the current bullpen is a damn tire fire.
A bit of a odd decision, J.B. Wendelken is a good reliever. Hopefully, some other team gives him another shot! Puk has electric stuffs but question remains to his health. Wait and see game here…
Wendelken was probably available for 6 min before the paperwork was sent.
Hopefully Puk can finally have a healthy run.
Wendelken has been around for awhile and has not been impressive. He doesn’t pitch multiple innings and isn’t about to be considered a closer or converted to a starter. He has never thrown more than 33 innings in a season despite being around for 6 years. When your value swings violently due to BABIP relief pitching may not be your thing.
A middle reliever can still be valuable, especially one that’s already consistently above replacement level at 28 years old (with three years of control left) and the last time he was negative was as a 23 year old in his smallest sample size. He’s still above replacement in a season where he’s having BABIP struggles, I’d say that’s pretty impressive. Plenty of teams would be happy to have him, maybe even some also in the playoff hunt. I don’t think he’s gets too far down in the waiver order though.
Serious question: why do Sabremetrics/analytics people hate on and discount ‘batting average’, but love to throw around BABIP, like it means everything to pitchers?
It doesn’t. It has always been a decent stat to see if a pitcher has been lucky or unlucky. Now, with defensive shifts it’s also gives you an idea if the defense has been set up correctly for the batters that pitcher faces. Has he been getting beat by flyballs or groundballs?
The pro lame with ERA+ with relievers is that it doesn’t take into account innings pitched or starter vs reliever. So a garbage time pitcher who throws 20-25 innings in blowouts might have decent ERA – does not mean they are effective in high leverage situations.
With Wendelken, the A’s have never trusted him in high leverage situations unless he’s the only arm in the cupboard. There are 5-6 guys like him in every organization. The sad part is the A’s don’t have 5-6 like him ready to go and even if they did – they would be getting shelled in Las Vegas.
Because BA can be dragged down by strikeouts and dragged up by HR, if neither of those factors are considered (situations where the ball is never playable by the defense) then the sample is only the PAs that end with a ball in play (hence Batting Average on Balls In Play). Which is theoretically a better measure of true contact hitting ability/quality of contact.
BA is so nonspecific that everything that it captures is already captured in OBP, so the more analytical crowd focuses more on BABIP and OBP.
Granted, BABIP isn’t everything; groundball pitchers have a tendency to have higher BABIPs than flyball pitchers because groundball have higher BABIPs on average than flyballs, but there’s a very small chance that a groundball goes for extra bases. So people have a tendency to also look at Batted Ball data to see if performance is consistent with peripherals.
I hope that this was able to answer your question!
Heat, do you know why HRs are excluded from BABIP? I understand Ks, but I don’t understand why a triple off the top of the wall is included in BABIP, but a ball just 3 feet higher is an HR and gets excluded.
Because it’s technically not a “Ball In Play”, the same reason the wording for many HR robbery calls talk about how he pulled it back into the field of play.
The defense (almost) never has an opportunity to make to make a play on it, so there’s no reason it’s considered when measuring the ability to hit against a defense.
Think of BABIP as a measure of the ability to “hit it where they ain’t” within the field of play.
@heat, thanks that is helpful, but seems any and all ‘stats’ have their purpose and their caveats. Just like stats in other walks of life.
Every stat does have its purpose, but some are more useful than others; I’ll tell you the main reason I don’t use BA, which is because it’s based on ABs.
With ABs, it doesn’t factor in BBs at all, and walks are a huge part of the modern game. So ABs account for every single negative outcome, but not all of the positive outcomes. It just cuts up the sample size arbitrarily.
That’s also a big reason people look at OBP, because it’s based on PAs so it looks at everything that’s happened.
The only time BA is useful is for Fantasy Baseball purposes. Even then, BA is so wildly prone to fluctuation that guys that have high BABIPs and are at the top of that leaderboard will be the best bets to hit for average.
I would like to not lose Wendelken as he has been a plus in the past but he has not been that effective since his return at the end of June. If Puk is sound then he can be a positive addition and the A’s bullpen could use some swing and miss arms
more like AJ Suk
Wow. I see what you did there. 3 letter word. Replace the consonant P with consonant S. Yo mama be so proud.
Should I pick up Puk in fantasy then? I’m in a dynasty league