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Expect plenty of ups and downs with new Phillies reliever Craig Kimbrel

Craig Kimbrel reportedly agreed to a one-year contract with the Phillies. (Photo by John Adams/Icon Sportswire)

New Phillies reliever Craig Kimbrel is one of the greatest closers in MLB history. The 34-year-old has a career 2.31 ERA and is six saves away from 400. Only six relievers in MLB history have accomplished that feat.

Barring a disaster, he will reach that milestone as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies.

His peak is behind him, but that doesn’t mean the Phillies are paying for past performance when they reportedly agreed to a 1-year, $10 million contract with Kimbrel.

In fact, he’s only a couple seasons removed from the most dominant half season of his career. He allowed only two earned runs (six unearned) over 35 1/3 innings in 2021 with the Chicago Cubs. Hitters slashed only .102/.183/.144 against him in that time frame. He was a hot commodity at the trade deadline and the Phillies had interest, but they did not want to part with top prospect Mick Abel. The Cubs ended up trading Kimbrel to the White Sox for second baseman Nick Madrigal and reliever Codi Heuer.

Not trading for Kimbrel turned out to be a great move as he struggled mightily with the White Sox and was moved to the Dodgers in the offseason in a trade that sent A.J. Pollock to Chicago.

2022 was an OK season for Kimbrel. He went 6-7 with a solid 3.75 ERA and 3.23 FIP, but he wasn’t consistent enough and it cost him both the closer’s job towards the end of the season and a spot on the Dodgers’ NLDS roster.

After allowing only one run through his first nine games, Kimbrel had a 6.52 ERA and a 1.98 FIP from May 16 to July 7. His luck began to turn around as he posted a 2.81 ERA and 4.30 FIP from July 9 through the end of the season.

The strikeouts were up and the home runs were down in the beginning of the season, but the batting average on balls in play was an absurdly high .395 during the first half. The second half was better from a results standpoint, but Kimbrel’s average fastball velocity dropped from 96 in April to 95 in September. It doesn’t seem like that big of a difference, but when you add in an outing on September 19 against the Diamondbacks where his fastball velocity dropped all the way down to 93, you can see that there could be some concerns with Kimbrel when he gets up there in innings pitched.

The Phillies expect to play deep in the postseason again, so they’ll have to be cognizant of the entire staff’s workload during the regular season. Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Seranthony Domínguez, José Alvarado and David Robertson all faded to a certain extent down the stretch. Building up depth in both the minor leagues and through free agency is one way to combat this issue and Kimbrel, along with Matt Strahm, could take some of the load off Alvarado and Domínguez. At the same time, they can’t be in a position where they are relying too heavily on Kimbrel since his effectiveness could diminish as the season progresses.

Once the physical is completed and Kimbrel speaks with the Philadelphia media for the first time, we’ll know more about Kimbrel’s potential role with the Phillies. Even though Rob Thomson prefers to play matchups in the later innings, it’s possible the Phillies promised him the ninth inning in order to land him on an affordable one-year contract.

It’s not a bad plan considering it frees up Thomson to deploy Domínguez, Alvarado and Strahm to pitch in high leverage spots before the ninth inning, but the Phillies have to be willing to pull the plug on Kimbrel closing if it doesn’t work out. Doing this before it’s too late could lead to some frustrating late-inning losses Phillies fans are all too familiar with.

But it’s not all doom and gloom when it comes to Kimbrel. If the Phillies get anything close to Kimbrel’s first half production in 2021, Dave Dombrowski will look like a genius for snagging his former prized closer on a one-year deal.

With any free agent reliever signing, you have to take the good with the bad and that’s definitely the case when you have MLB’s active saves leader in the back end of the bullpen.