The Indians have granted right-hander Carlos Torres his unconditional release, Jordan Bastian of MLB.com tweets.
Over the past four seasons, only Dellin Betances has topped Torres’ 304 2/3 relief innings. In other words, he’s been a reliable workhorse out of the bullpen for the Mets and Brewers during that time. However, he was informed today that he won’t make the Tribe’s bullpen, as the seventh spot will go to fellow right-hander Matt Belisle.
Torres owns a 4.00 ERA and 7.88 K/9 at the major league level, most of that coming in relief. Last season, however, his K/9 figure dropped below 7.00 for the first time since his rookie season, and his walk rate ballooned to 4.06 per nine. While his 4.21 ERA doesn’t seem disastrous, ERA estimators such as FIP, xFIP and SIERA suggest that his true talent was close to that of a 5.00 ERA pitcher.
I would’ve guessed 200 other relievers before him if the question was who is second most used reliever of the past 4 years
Yeah he wasn’t the best reliever in the brewer bullpen but he’d take the ball every day if you asked him to, there’s value in that sort of endurance/mentality.
He’s a workhorse and versatile. Can pretty much fill any role a bullpen needs. He should latch on somewhere.
He just would have been a worse version of Brian Shaw.
Shaw might have had you grabbing the Tums, but when all was said and done he was very good. I’m sure a lot that wanted him gone will wish he was back at some point his season.
Averaging more than 70 innings a year for any length of time is usually detrimental to a relief pitcher.