In action, Kevin Cash appears to have finally cemented what we have been championing since January on the site. Forget what the team says about Closer by Committee, there is one closer and his name is Bryan Baker.
Baker earned his first save in a Rays uniform yesterday, at the home opener for Tropicana Field’s refurbished debut, and it was a beaut’:
Baker’s arsenal is pretty straight forward: 97 mph at the top of the zone with plus vertical
movement, a change up at the bottom of the zone that’s particularly deadly for the opposite handed hitters, and a slider he’s able to work with more variable drop this year.
Among the three, the change up is the star of the show thanks to his plus feel for the pitch. It has above average movement, following the trend of his fastball, and successfully fools hitters accordingly. Overall, it’s a relatively safe — and, dare I say, boring — profile, but there’s nothing wrong with a classical approach to pitching when it works so well.
While Baker only has one save for Kevin Cash, that hasn’t stopped others from taking notice of his potential to be the Rays star reliever this season. Our own Jason Collete flagged Cash’s usage pattern on a guest spot with Rates & Barrels on Friday, while Jason Martinez at FanGraphs has already moved Baker into the closer role on their excellent Depth Charts resource.
This is handy news for Fantasy Baseball purposes, but in real life I’m hopeful the Rays will give the nod to Baker formally to allow the player to enjoy a well deserved spotlight.
