Blue Jays: Cimber’s Great, But What’s Next For The Bullpen?

After watching his depleted bullpen hand over countless leads late in games, General Manager Ross Atkins had seen enough and was able to work out a trade to acquire veteran right hander, Adam Cimber from the Miami Marlins.  Cimber, a four year veteran at the big league level is in the midst of a fantastic season, posting a career low 2.88 ERA in 34 ⅓ innings for the Marlins.

Bringing Cimber into the fold is a great start to repairing what has been a dreadful bullpen over the last month.  The Oregon native ranks 19th amongst all relievers with at least 100 batted balls against in barrel percentage (according to Baseball Savant) and is a master at eliminating hard contact.

Cimber immediately improves the Blue Jays bullpen, and gives manager Charlie Montoyo a legitimate arm to pitch before closer Jordan Romano.  There’s no doubt that the relief core is stronger than it was a couple of days ago.  Even though it has been reinforced, more needs to be done if this team is going to make a real push for the playoffs.  A playoff caliber team needs more than just two relievers if it is going to withstand playing meaningful games in September, and hopefully October.

Despite the amount of success Cimber has enjoyed this season, he hasn’t pitched in a ton of leverage situations for the Marlins and may be better suited in a middle relief role.  The Jays need more depth in the back of their bullpen and because of this, they may need to go out and give up a little more prospect capital to acquire an arm that can pitch in high leverage situations, and even close games if necessary.

Thankfully, there is never a shortage of relief options at the deadline and as July 30th roles closer, more and more teams will turn into sellers and look to move on from some of their leverage relievers, in hopes of adding young talent for a future playoff run.

I wanted to break down three potential trade targets that I think would be fantastic additions to follow up the Cimber trade and add to the back end of the bullpen which is still lacking depth.

Raisel Iglesias RHP LAA

Back in December, the Los Angeles Angels attempted to strengthen their bullpen by going out and acquiring Reds closer Raisel Iglesias.  Iglesias was coming off a fantastic 2020 season, posting a 2.74 ERA, while striking out a career-high 12.1 batters per nine, in 23 innings of work.

The Angels were hoping that the Cuban native would be able to repeat his stellar season and shore up the ninth inning for a team that has had issues closing out games in years prior.  Unfortunately for the Halos, Iglesias hasn’t helped them inch any closer to a playoff spot, and because of this, the right-hander may be on the move again within the next couple of weeks.

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Iglesias had a dreadful beginning to his 2021 campaign, posting an ERA of 6.00 in the month of April. This slow start really hurt the Angels and although Iglesias has looked like his normal self in May and June, posting a 3.00 and 2.84 ERA in those months respectively, the Halos haven’t been able to make up any ground and are still eight games out of a playoff spot and on their way to missing out on October baseball for a 7th consecutive year.

Eight games isn’t an impossible amount to make up, All-World center fielder Mike Trout is still on the IL for at least another couple of weeks, which will make it even more difficult to catch one of the Wild Card teams.  GM Perry Minasian may elect that the best course of action to take is to sell at the deadline.  If the Angels do look to unload talent, the Jays should be all over Iglesias.

The right-hander would be a perfect complement to Jordan Romano at the back end of the bullpen.  Though he doesn’t have the same kind of fastball that the Markham native possesses, Iglesias can still run it up there, with a heater that averages 96MPH and has high spin rates, giving it a little extra life.

He combines his plus fastball with two offspeed pitches, a sharp slider, and a power changeup that both play well off his heater and have helped him punch out 14.1 batters per nine innings this season.  Due to the fact that Iglesias is a rental, he shouldn’t break the bank from a prospect standpoint and will probably demand a similar return to which the Blue Jays had to cough up to acquire Cimber.

If the price point is right from a prospect trade view, Raisel Iglesias would be a great addition to the back end of the Blue Jays bullpen and would provide an experienced option to pitch in the eighth inning ahead of Romano while also providing a safety net in case someone else needs to pick up saves.

José Alvarado LHP PHI

The name José Alvarado should be a familiar one to Jays fans.  The Venezuelan-born lefty spent four years in the Tampa Bay Rays organization, where he appeared in 149 games, a number of those coming against the Blue Jays.

Alvarado is known as a pitcher who has a phenomenal arsenal but struggles with command, which has prevented him from fully tapping into his potential thus far in his career.  The left-hander has one of the best fastballs in all of baseball.  Alvarado’s heater sits in the upper 90’s and regularly touches triple digits, with a tremendous amount of arm side run.  He combines his fastball with a mid 90’s slider and a slower curveball that has plenty of movement.  When Alvarado has all three pitches working, he provides a super uncomfortable at-bat for hitters, due to the elite velocity and insane amount of movement he possesses.

The issue for Alvarado is that he rarely has all of his offerings on point, and because of this, he struggles to throw strikes consistently.  Over the course of his career, the hard-throwing lefty has walked a whopping 5.3 batters per nine innings.  This year alone he’s allowed 7.4 free passes per nine but has still managed to post a very impressive 2.79 ERA in 29 innings of work.

Alvarado has become a quality relief pitcher, despite his erratic control thanks to his strikeout stuff, as he is able to pitch himself out of jams due to how electric his arsenal is.  If the left-hander was able to harness his command and wasn’t always pitching himself in and out of trouble, that already impressive ERA would be a lot lower than where it is right now.

The Blue Jays have pitching coach Pete Walker at their disposal, who was able to fix a similar issue with Robbie Ray this past offseason, which has turned him into a legitimate All-Star candidate.  I believe that if Walker is given the opportunity to get his hands on Alvarado, that he has the chance to work the same magic that he used on Ray.  If he’s able to do so, Alvarado has the arsenal to turn into one of the better pitchers in the game, and a true shutdown reliever that can come in and pitch in high leverage situations.

Alvarado does have two years of control left after this season.  Philadelphia was a team trying to compete this year and with the amount of money they have invested in their core, I believe they will attempt to do the same next season.  They may want to hold onto Alvarado to help them down the road, however, the Phillies may be frustrated with the lefty’s erratic command and could be ready to move off from him because of this.

If GM Dave Dombrowski is willing to listen to calls on Alvarado, I think he could be an interesting addition to this ball club.  He’s already a quality reliever and would instantly become one of the best in the Blue Jays bullpen, but also has the upside to turn into a special talent, he just has to harness his command to do so.