The MLB trade deadline is nine days away and outside of the modest Casey Sadler trade, Friedman and company are yet to make any upgrades to the best team in the sport.
I don’t need to wait until the trade deadline to tell you who the Dodgers’ biggest acquisition is, however. Since the Dodgers “acquired” this reliever on the first of June, he has posted a 1.72 ERA and 1.69 FIP, all while not giving up the longball once.
Have an idea who I’m talking about yet? You should, odds are you wanted him off the Major League roster a mere two months ago. Now, the idea of him supplanting Kenley Jansen in the ninth is one shared by many fans.
Joseph William Kelly Jr. folks. The man who once gave all Dodgers fans heart palpitations is now the best Los Angeles has to offer out of the pen. He is also the team’s most significant midseason addition.
Despite being the best team in all of baseball at basically every point this whole season, the Dodgers bullpen was a massive weakness through the first two months of the season, in dire need of somebody who could throw strikes and keep the ball in the park.
And the $25 million offseason addition was more of a problem than a solution. Pitching to the tune of 8.35 ERA and giving up nearly two home runs per nine, many were coming for Kelly’s head, ready to cut ties not even halfway through the season.
Seemingly, as Kelly goes, so goes the Dodgers bullpen. Once the calendar flipped from May to June, the Dodgers bullpen transformed into a different unit, posting a Major League second-best 3.40 ERA, as well as a .236 BABIP (batting average on balls in play) that checks in at number one across all of baseball.
What is the correlation between the Dodgers’ disastrous bullpen over the first two months of the season and the excellence they’ve achieved since the first of June? Joe Kelly.
Kelly, over the last two months, bears a striking similarity to the flame-throwing Red Sox setup man with the nasty curveball who shut down Los Angeles last October.
Over the first two months of the season, an imposter, resembling the one and only Joseph William nearly fooled us all, dawning a big red “17” on the front of his jersey and the name “Kelly” on the back. This imposter believed he could successfully get away with the crime, but he failed miserably at it.
As Joe Kelly made the transition from starter to reliever in Boston, he adopted a three-pitch mix of a fastball, slider, and curve, with the occasional changeup. Last October, Kelly relied heavily upon just his upper 90s fastball and wipeout curve. As a result, he dominated three of the best offenses baseball has to offer, in the Yankees, Astros, and Dodgers.
Over the first two months of this season, however, Kelly removed the slider from his repertoire and threw both his changeup and curve over 20 percent of the time. We all remember how that went. Since that eventful day where May became June, Kelly’s curveball usage rate doubled, while his changeup rate has stayed below 10 percent.
While his meh (seriously the best adjective I could come up with) slider is yet to really make an appearance this season, the Dodgers pitching department is finally utilizing Joe Kelly to his full potential. By throwing his curve nearly as much as his fastball and all but eliminating the usage of that ineffective changeup, the man we all feared last October now is our asset. As for the imposter who impersonated Joe for months… he remains in prison, on Dodgers Twitter.
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