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Do the A’s need another left-hander in the bullpen?

By Jennifer Rainwater

Oct 2, 2015; Seattle, WA, USA; Oakland Athletics relief pitcher Sean Doolittle (62) throws out a pitch in the ninth inning against the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field. Mandatory Credit: Jennifer Buchanan-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 2, 2015; Seattle, WA, USA; Oakland Athletics relief pitcher Sean Doolittle (62) throws out a pitch in the ninth inning against the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field. Mandatory Credit: Jennifer Buchanan-USA TODAY Sports /
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The 2017 Oakland A’s are going into spring training with a primarily right-handed bullpen.

Assuming the team carries six pitchers in the bullpen, Sean Doolittle would be the Oakland Athletics‘ sole lefty reliever.

The right-handers would then be Ryan Madson, Ryan Dull, John Axford, Santiago Casilla and Liam Hendriks.

Together the six make up a pretty solid bullpen. With the exception of Casilla, the other five combined to be one of the few redeeming factors for the 2016 A’s team.

They were overworked quite a bit and by the second half tailed off a little bit but overall they were reliable.

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Still, it seems questionable that the A’s would only have one southpaw in the bullpen.

Obviously, there is Doolittle, however,  he has had injury issues that have kept him out for the majority of the past two seasons, since his breakout season in 2014.

If Doolittle were to get injured this could leave the A’s with a hole to fill and quite frankly, it feels like they have one even now.

Twenty-seven-year-old left-hander Daniel Coulombe is always an option. He doesn’t have much major league experience, however, and his splits don’t point to him really being that much better against left-handed hitters with the exception of his strikeout to walk ratio.

Coulombe walks right-handers at a much higher rate than left-handed batters. For batting average against he holds right handers to a .234 clip and left handers to .230, so not much of a difference.

Oakland Athletics
Sep 2, 2016; Oakland, CA, USA; Oakland Athletics relief pitcher Daniel Coulombe (57) reacts after walking in a run against the Boston Red Sox during the sixth inning at Oakland Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports /

As noted the only main difference comes in his strikeout to walk ratios (2.05 vs. RHB, 3.33 vs. LHB) and on-base percentages between the two types of hitters (.322 for RHB, .282 for LHB).

While the A’s are technically starting a move towards a much younger team, vice president of baseball operations Billy Beane has repeatedly said that the team will not rush any of their younger players to the majors.

Coulombe has played in the majors in parts of four seasons so he isn’t exactly a newbie but he doesn’t really have experience either.

This is a situation that could be solved as the free agent market for lefty relievers is about to break open, according to ESPN’s Buster Olney.

With the A’s being on this trend of signing ex-A’s this offseason (Casilla, Adam Rosales, Rajai Davis) why stop now? There are plenty of lefty relievers on the free agent market, including two former Athletics, Jerry Blevins and Craig Breslow.

The A’s should stay with their movement of bringing back old friends and, in this case, they should be talking to Blevins.

Oakland Athletics
Apr 13, 2015; New York City, NY, USA; New York Mets relief pitcher Jerry Blevins (13) pitches against the Philadelphia Phillies during opening day at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports /

Of course adding another reliever to the bullpen would mean either removing one of the right-handers which would be a difficult choice to make or having one less guy on the bench.

That would also be a difficult decision as it appears that the A’s are likely to carry three catchers in Stephen Vogt, Bruce Maxwell and Josh Phegley.

It seems like Blevins would be a perfect fit with one exception (plus the two issues with adding another player stated above); his age.

At 33, Blevins would be one of the youngest in the bullpen with the exceptions of Dull and Doolittle, but does that really matter when the youth movement won’t fully be hitting the big league club for a year or possibly two?

Blevins was great over his seven seasons with the Athletics, posting a 3.30 ERA over 267 innings pitched.

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His career statistics against left-handed batters are far better than those of Coulombe, albeit the sample size for Blevins is much larger.

Blevins has held left-handed batters to a .214 batting average and .266 OBP against him and his strikeout to walk-ratio is vastly better against left-handers than against right-handers (5.02 vs. LHB, 1.62 vs. RHB).

It is also vastly better than Coulombe’s.

Sure, the easiest and cheaper answer is simply to leave things as they are.

However, adding a player and fan favorite like Jerry Blevins back into the mix would not only (slightly) help Oakland’s attendance issues, it would help Oakland have a better chance at competing in the completely unpredictable American League West.

Next: Adam Rosales is back in green and gold

The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum likely doesn’t rank high on this list, being one of baseball’s older stadiums and being its last two-sport stadium. The A’s hope to have a new stadium site announced by spring training 2017.