Will Neftali Feliz reclaim his value before the midseason trade deadline?
Losing the closing role isn’t a death sentence.
Plenty of accomplished closers have handed off their ninth-inning duties to assume a setup role during stretches of poor performance, comparative inefficiency and sheer bad luck, only to return to form later in the season. Many more have permanently stepped down from the limelight to find success in the heart of the bullpen.
Unfortunately for Neftali Feliz and the Milwaukee Brewers, it may not be that simple.
After seeing only three games in his first major league foray in 2009, Feliz took the league by storm in 2010, earning himself an All-Star nod and taking home Rookie of the Year with a 2.73 earned run average, 40 saves and 71 strikeouts to only 18 walks in 69 1/3 innings. His 2011 season brought much of the same, albeit with a rise in walks and a sinking strikeout rate (2.74 ERA, 32 SV, 54 K, 30 BB), with his overall effectiveness seemingly staying in tact.
But only eight games into the 2012 season (seven as a starter), he sprained his UCL, resulting in Tommy John surgery that kept him out of all but 4 2/3 innings in 2013 as well. While his numbers in 2014 sparkled on the stat sheet (1.99 ERA, 0.979 WHIP) his home run rate more than doubled from previous years and his strikeouts continued to fall to a career low 6.0 K/9.
Even more worrisome, was the fact that he wasn’t pitching as well as his numbers implied, exemplified by a FIP — a stat that attempts to isolate a pitcher’s performance from luck or defense to provide a more accurate measure of efficiency — nearly three earned runs higher than his ERA at 4.90.
Since 2015, those same issues have continued to manifest in a borderline predictable way. Even after a 2016 season with the Pittsburgh Pirates that was largely considered a bounce back thanks to the best numbers he had posted in two years (3.52 ERA, 1.137 WHIP), his issues did not cease. His FIP (4.32) was still a full earned run higher than his ERA and his walk and home run rates (3.5 BB/9, 1.7 HR/9) continued to balloon away from a promising future.
Despite the issues, the Brewers signed him to a $5.35 million contract in the offseason, likely as an attempt to buy low at a premium position, only to turn him around to a needy contender come the midseason trade deadline.
But that is looking less and less likely by the day.
Even though Feliz has exceeded his average of 97-mph with his fourseam multiple times this season and has been able to deploy it with some success, batters are absolutely destroying his secondary pitches including both his changeup and his slider, and he’s not fooling anyone with them either.
He has been able to work around the ineffectiveness of those pitches in the past, including both 2015 and 2016, but combined with his astronomical 4.8 BB/9 and 2.6 HR/9 this season, he is doing himself and the team no favors in the earned run department — especially in one of the most hitter-friendly ballparks in the majors.
But possibly even more ruinous than his poor numbers is the fact that he’s been similarly bad in both medium and high leverage situations, regardless of save opportunities and inning — and that has continued since being relieved of closing duties on Friday, leaving little room for rapid redemption.
Only a month and a half into the regular season, it’s difficult to say that the trend will continue. Even in his worst seasons Feliz has posted some dominant stretches, so regardless of the numbers he’s posted in the past, he’s also proven that he possesses enough talent to rebound in a meaningful way. But then again, the way he’s progressed this year also proves that there’s still room to dig as long as there’s a shovel — and right now, he looks like a stainless steel spade.
Regardless of how things turn out, one fact remains very clear. Every day he is not on the mound in the ninth is gouging the team’s potential return on investment — if they even get one.
Jonathan Powell is the Managing Editor of Outside Pitch MLB and the Milwaukee Brewers writer. Follow him on Twitter @jonathannashhh.
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