Cleveland Indians Acquire Relief Pitcher Dan Otero from Philadelphia Phillies

Trade adds more depth to a Cleveland Indians bullpen that has lost some arms and could have question marks in 2016

Earlier today, the Philadelphia Phillies traded Dan Otero to the Cleveland Indians for cash considerations. Otero, 31 in February, spent the last three seasons pitching for the Oakland Athletics, but the Phillies claimed him earlier this month after the A’s designated him for assignment.

The right-handed reliever dominated as recently as 2014 when he pitched over 80 innings from the pen while allowing just a 2.28 earned run average. While advanced metrics, such as fielder independent pitching, were not quite as optimistic of his work, they still agreed that he was a dominant pitcher.

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This success followed a quality 2013 when he accumulated 15 saves in the A’s Triple-A affiliate before moving up to the big leagues. He accrued an impressive 0.8 fWAR in just 39 innings due to his 1.38 ERA and 2.12 FIP. Despite this success, he mostly pitched in low leverage situations, and he has saved only one ballgame in the major leagues.

Constantly posting high ground ball rates, Otero thrives by forcing contact with an underwhelming arsenal. He has thrown his sinker, which clocks in around 90 miles per hour, around 55% of the time. To complete the sinker, Otero mixes in a four-seam fastball, changeup, and slider. PITCHf/x rates only his sinker and changeup as above average. The other pitches rates as slightly worse than average.

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At the very least, this move, while not high profile, gives the Cleveland Indians more bullpen depth. Some of the bigger contributors last year now are gone, and many of the others have a risk of regressing. Zach McAllister, Ryan Webb, and Jeff Manship combined to pitch 155 innings last year; and although all three have shown great improvement, the Cleveland Indians cannot rely on them to reproduce breakout seasons.

The recent activity by the Indians’ front office at the least shows they realize the team as it finished in 2015 needed to be improved. While not all that noteworthy the moves are at least a step in the right direction as opposed to standing pat.