The walks are a real concern. The results aren't. Hogan Harris might be the A's closer whether the the phone rings in the ninth or not
With Jack Perkins sliding back into the A's starting rotation on Saturday, that takes away arguably the biggest arm in terms of closer potential for the green and gold — at least for the time being.
So with Perkins out of the mix, who should be closing games for the A's? On Wednesday night in Chicago, Justin Sterner earned the first save of his career, not allowing the inherited runner to score from second in the 10th inning.
He's come a long way since the first game of the season against the Toronto Blue Jays, where he gave up a run in the bottom of the ninth and walked away with the loss. The righty holds a 3.30 ERA this season with a 1.03 WHIP, and has the lowest walk rate in the bullpen at 6.0%.
There is plenty to like in that profile, but the numbers suggest that Hogan Harris could be the best guy for the job.
Hogan Harris, A's Closer?
For the first six weeks of the season, we were clamoring for the A's to add a second left-hander to the bullpen so that Harris could be deployed more freely, and on May 15 they brought in José Suarez, who has been solid in his 11 innings, holding a 3.27 ERA.
Meanwhile, Harris has continued to be fantastic, posting a 2.48 ERA this season while also leading the team in win probability added (+1.12) and Clutch (0.48). Those two stats signal that he shows up in key spots in the game, which is more or less the role of a closing pitcher.
Not only does he lead the A's in those two stats, but he ranks 21st in MLB in Clutch (how much better or worse a player does in high leverage situations than he would have done in a context neutral environment) and 23rd in win probability added. Harris is one of only eight relief pitchers in all of baseball who rank that highly in both categories.
In other words, Harris was made for big situations. As we've discussed this week, he also has the right mentality on the mound and has been fine-tuning his approach in relief over the past couple of seasons.
The one wrinkle here is that in today's game, sometimes the biggest outs come in the earlier innings, and that has been how the A's have been deploying him. If the game is on the line in the seventh, Harris will come in. Last night he pitched the ninth with the A's trying to force extras, which they did.
It also helps that Harris has been able to pitch consistently, appearing in 32 of the team's 61 games thus far.
Working on Walks
The red flags for Harris are pretty straightforward too. His walk rate of 16.9% is extremely high, which leads to his high WHIP which sits at 1.52. That's more traffic than you'd generally like to see on the bases in a win-or-go-home situation, and it's self-induced traffic at that.
"The only time I get beat is when I walk people," Harris told AthleticsRoundtable on Sunday. "When they do get a hit on me, it's typically a hard-hit ball." He also mentioned that he's felt more in control of his body than ever recently, so he recently dove into why the walks are continuing at such a high rate with the coaching staff.
In his last five outings, spanning 4 2/3 innings, Harris has allowed just one walk, which has knocked his WHIP down to just 0.55 in that span.
Harris has the demeanor, the stuff and the mentality to be the A's closer. The question for the team is whether they want to formalize the role of "closer," with Harris being the clear-cut frontrunner for the position, or if they're looking to keep this a freelance gig based on the situation at hand.
