Hey, a little love and congrats to Jeremy Jeffress, who didn’t just have a great year for the Chicago Cubs, he had a (nearly) award-worthy year.
Congratulations to @JMontana41 on being nominated for NL Reliever of the Year!
Jeffress finished the 2020 season with a 1.54 ERA and eight saves in 22 relief appearances. pic.twitter.com/SVCdkJCo2K
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) October 19, 2020
I say nearly award-worthy because the other finalists for this one include Trevor Rosenthal and the by-far-the-best-reliever-in-baseball Devin Williams:
Who should be your NL Reliever of the Year presented by @TheHartford?
The winner will be announced before Game 4 of the #WorldSeries.
— MLB (@MLB) October 19, 2020
Over his 27.0 innings, Williams posted a 0.33 ERA and 0.86 FIP for the Brewers, with just comically ridiculous peripherals (among them: ERA- of 7, a 61.1% groundball rate, a 0.33 HR/9, a 11.1% line drive rate, a 9.0% BB rate and … LOL a 53.0% K rate). Yeah, he’s gonna win this. He should win this.
BUT JEFFRESS HAD A GREAT YEAR!
No, the peripherals weren’t great (by his FIP-, he was merely 8% better than league average), but he got the results. His 1.54 ERA was 65% better than league average, his 23.1 IP led the bullpen (5th most overall on the team), and only two NL relievers reached at least 20 innings with a better ERA (Williams and A.J. Minter (0.83)).
Moreover, Jeffress’s whopping 1.52 Win Probability Added was third on the pitching staff, behind only Yu Darvish (2.30) and Kyle Hendricks (2.00). Indeed, the only better WPAs in the NL this year among relievers? Williams and Rosenthal.
When the Cubs needed a big appearance out of the bullpen, it was consistently Jeffress.
Signed to a modest one-year, $850,000 deal with incentives before the season because of his down/injured 2019 season, it’s not a lock that the Cubs could retain Jeffress on a similarly modest deal, even given the financial environment. You’d love to have him back, in part because of his success, but in even larger part because he got that success at age 32/32 after working through “the velocity drop.” He might be a pretty good bet, as a frequent FIP-beater, to age pretty well into his mid-30s. Are you signing him to be your closer or a sub-2.00 ERA guy? No, no. But a quality veteran arm who can handle any role in the pen? Yup. And as a beloved teammate who pretty clearly fit in well with the Cubs? Yup.
I don’t expect, or necessarily want, the Cubs to devote too many of their scare financial resources this offseason in the bullpen, but finding a way to bring back Jeffress on a reasonable deal is something worth exploring.