ZIPs doesn’t love either of them, but this pair of southpaws has defied expectations before.
The Orioles bullpen picture is looking a little hazy these days, what with DL Hall now in Milwaukee and two starters delayed by injury (gulp). All the more reason the Orioles need a big performance this season from a pair of left-handed relievers: Danny Coulombe and Cionel Pérez.
The two lefties had very different 2023 seasons. For Coulombe, it was a lovely start to his Orioles career. Acquired for cash in March, the journeyman southpaw turned into a high-leverage reliever for a 101-win team, then signed a $2.3 million contract (with a $4 million option for 2025) in the offseason.
For Pérez, not as nice. Recall that the Cuban lefty was claimed by the Orioles off waivers in the winter of 2021 with a career 6.02 ERA in parts of four seasons. In 2022, he came out of nowhere, just like the 2022 Orioles, to post a 1.40 ERA in 66 innings while halving his walk rate from the season before.
But 2023 was a bummer for him: Pérez’s ERA jumped by two runs (3.54 ERA), his K/9 dropped about a batter a game (7.43 K/9), and his walk rate increased by about 40% (4.56 BB/9).
What will 2024 look like for these two southpaws?
Let’s start with Pérez. Here’s what Fangraphs’ ZiPS projection system has to say about him:
ZiPS projections (Pérez): 4.31 ERA/4.34 FIP; 8.3 K/9; 4.1 BB/9; 1.00 HR/9; 0.2 fWAR
If you’re looking strictly at ERA/FIP, this one seems mean, like Fangraphs writers are asking themselves not “Will the 2024 Pérez look more like the 2022 or the 2023 one?” so much as “How much worse will the 2024 Pérez continue to get?”
Recall that, even through his 2023 struggles, Pérez’s ERA was still just 3.54, and his FIP was pretty close, at 3.84. He also allowed way fewer home runs than this prediction: 0.34 HR/9, about a third as many as they’re predicting for him.
On the other hand, in other ways this is generous: it assumes that the lefty will have a bounceback season in strikeouts and it sets his walk rate and fWAR somewhere between the two seasons.
This is to say, FanGraphs anticipates a Cionel Pérez who gives up a ton of hits, especially hard ones, but whiffs batters at a high rate and walks them at an OK, not horrible one. And, all told, is worth more to his team than last season.
The case for the over
With Pérez, it’s really all about command. And walking batters has always been his Achilles heel. Even in his breakout ’22 season, he still walked too many hitters (over three a game). If he keeps up last season’s worrying trends, it’s going to lead to free baserunners, which is going to lead to hittable fastballs in the zone to overcompensate, which is going to lead to exactly that crush of home runs that Fangraphs is predicting.
The case for the under:
Pérez was dealing with left forearm soreness for much of last July. That can mean pretty much anything for a pitcher. So while he didn’t miss significant time other than a stint on the 15-day IL, it’s possible that his struggles with control were injury-related, not the sign of an incorrigible Wild Thing whom even Orioles pitching coaches can’t fix. His second-half ERA was 2.35 and his K/9 rate was 8.6, right around his 2022 rate.
Plus you’ve gotta love his pure stuff: when he is locating his missile of a fastball, his slider is absolutely unhittable. Perhaps he just needs to be healthy.
OK, so how about Danny Coulombe? What does ZiPS think this left-handed reliever is going to do in 2024? Well, it doesn’t love him either.
ZiPS projections (Coulombe): 4.11 ERA/4.28 FIP; 9.6 K/9; 3.3 BB/9; 1.4 HR/9; 0.2 fWAR
Huh. There is not much in Coulombe’s 2023 season that predicts a regression like this. Then again, maybe there wasn’t a ton in his eight seasons before that that predicted he’d be really good with the Orioles?
In 2023, Danny Coulombe pitched to a 2.81 ERA in 51.1 innings with a 1.110 WHIP and a 1.2 fWAR that ranked behind only Kyle Bradish, Félix Bautista, Yennier Cano, Tyler Wells and Dean Kremer among Orioles pitchers. WAR doesn’t tell you everything, but here it feels accurate: Coulombe, a total dark horse before last season, ended up one of the bullpen’s most reliable arms.
In fact, these numbers understate his value: after Cano and Bautista, who had simply ridiculous years, Coulombe was brought in to wriggle out of high-leverage situations more than any other O’s reliever. Brandon Hyde’s usage patterns makes very clear whom he trusts and doesn’t. Danny Coulombe was in the trust circle.
Besides that, his peripherals were very good. In 51.1 innings, he struck out 58 batters and only walked 12. His expected ERA ranked in the top 10% of MLB pitchers, and his average exit velocity (85.5 MPH) put him in the 94th percentile. For a guy with a 91.5-mph fastball, putting up a 29.3% whiff rate is no joke.
The case for the over
Um, maybe you believe that all Orioles relievers must inevitably go through a sophomore slump? (See, Pérez, Cionel or Voth, Austin.)
The case for the under
Coulombe’s 2023 success was sustained over the course of the season, with a 2.67 ERA in the first half and a 3.00 ERA in the second. About the only troubling peripherals I can find are stark home/away splits: Coulombe had an ERA of 1.63 in Camden Yards but 4.18 elsewhere, and similarly, a 0.33 home run rate at home versus 1.16 HR/9 on the road. So I guess he shouldn’t be brought out against right-handed hitters at Fenway Park.
Otherwise, Coulombe’s been on an upward trend over the past years, and Orioles pitching coaches made appreciable changes to his arsenal last season, both in the pitch mix and in the stuff itself. That suggests that his newfound form is sustainable. So even if Coulombe experiences some regression, I don’t think it will look like this.
What do you guys think about Fangraphs’ prediction for this pair of lefties in 2024?