Dragons 2014 Preview, Part 2: Relief Pitchers

The competition for spots in the Dragons bullpen should be intense throughout spring training, with some of the players in this preview also competing for spots with the Bakersfield club. The Reds added several veteran Double-A and Triple-A pitchers during the off-season to provide depth for the big league team, which will make it more likely that some players at the Single-A level will begin the 2014 season in the same city where they finished the 2013 campaign.

Wandy Peralta is a left-hander from the Dominican Republic who spent all of 2013 with the Dragons. He was previewed last week as a possible starting pitcher for the 2014 Dragons. If Peralta does not work out of the Dragons starting rotation, he should fill a key role in the bullpen.

Alejandro Chacin, Joel Bender (pictured above), and Tony Amezcua all spent the entire 2013 season with the Dragons as well, and any or all could start 2014 in Dayton. Pedro Diaz spent part of 2013 in Dayton, mostly as a starter, and is a candidate to return as a reliever.

Click on the links below for complete career statistics and photos of the profiled players.

Alejandro Chacin is a 20-year-old native of Venezuela who improved tremendously over the course of the 2013 season and became a dependable reliever for the Dragons. He pitched in 44 games, going 4-3 with a 2.91 earned run average, and he notched nine saves. Opposing batters hit just .181 against Chacin, the second best mark in the league among relief pitchers. He also struck out 72 batters in 65 innings, an excellent ratio. From July 13 through the end of the season, Chacin allowed just three runs in 20 innings, a 1.35 ERA, and went 8-for-9 in save opportunities. 

Joel Bender is a native of Cincinnati who played at Oak Hills High School before being drafted by the Reds in 2010. The 22-year-old left-hander went 4-2 with a 3.79 ERA for the Dragons last season, working in 36 games, including one start. Bender had a 6.16 ERA at the end of May, but over the final three months of the season, he was solid. His ERA from June-September was 2.96 to go along with a 4-1 record. He was scored upon in just one of his last eight appearances.

Tony Amezcua is a 22-year-old native of the Los Angeles area who was signed as a seventh round draft pick out of the high school in 2010. Amezcua has a strong arm but has struggled to find consistency. In 37 games with the Dragons in 2013, he went 3-2 with a 5.95 ERA. 

Pedro Diaz was rated as the #17 prospect in the Reds organization entering the 2013 season. He made nine starts with the Dragons but struggled, going 1-6 with a 7.52 ERA. He was sent to Billings when the Pioneer League season opened but went 2-8, 5.28 in 13 starts with the Mustangs. Diaz's fastball topped out at 98 mph in 2012 in the Reds organization so he might fit in better in the bullpen where he can rely on the heater for one turn through the batting order.

From round six through round 22 of the 2013 draft, the Reds drafted six college pitchers, and any or all could start 2014 in the Dayton bullpen. Some of the arms from among this group could also contend for spots in the starting rotation. Last summer, five of the six saw action with the Billings Mustangs, the team one level below the Dragons in the Reds farm system.

The top reliever at Billings in 2013 was right-hander Joe Mantoni, a 22-year-old product of Merrimack College. Mantoni's numbers at Billings were eye-popping. He allowed just two runs over the entire Pioneer League season, appearing in 16 games and posting a 0.98 ERA. In fact, he started his professional career by going over a month without giving up his first run. Mantoni was 7-for-7 in save opportunities and struck out 30 batters in 18.2 innings. At Merrimack last spring, Mantoni went 3-0 with a 1.61 ERA and eight saves. He was also a dominant high school player, earning conference player of the year and Central Massachusetts Division III Most Valuable Player honors as a senior in Hopedale, Massachusetts. Mantoni was an 18th round draft pick by the Reds last summer.

South Dakota native Layne Somsen was nearly as dominant as Mantoni at Billings. Somsen, a 22nd round draft pick out of South Dakota State University, went 4-1 with a 1.66 ERA at Billings. While Mantoni was used mostly as a closer, one inning per outing, Somsen worked for longer stints--mostly in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings. He pitched at least two innings in 15 of his 17 appearances and tossed at least three innings in six games, but only once all season did Somsen allow more than one earned run in an outing. Somsen, 24, was at his best in the clutch. With runners in scoring position, opposing batters went a combined 5 for 45 against him. Somsen was outstanding last spring at South Dakota State, posing a 1.87 ERA as a Jackrabbits' starting pitcher. Somsen missed nearly two full seasons of action during his college career with an arm injury but has held up well over two full seasons since the inactivity.

For the second straight year, the Dragons roster could feature a key member of the defending college national champions. Third baseman Seth Mejias-Brean helped the University of Arizona to the 2012 College World Series title, and right-handed reliever Zack Weiss was the eighth inning set-up man for the 2013 CWS champion UCLA Bruins. Weiss appeared in 43 games last spring out of the UCLA bullpen, going 2-1 with a 2.25 ERA. The 43 appearances ranked second in the entire nation and was the third highest total in school history. Weiss made 10 appearances at Billings including five starts, going 2-4 with a 4.39 ERA. He walked only four batters in 27 innings. Weiss, 21, was a sixth round pick by the Reds. He could factor in as a starter at some point. He made 22 starts over his first two seasons at UCLA before moving to the bullpen full-time as a junior in 2013.

Scott Brattvet was the Reds eighth round selection last June out of Cal State-Bakersfield, a Division I school in the Western Athletic Conference. Brattvet enjoyed a tremendous senior season in college in 2013, going 9-1 with a 2.55 ERA in 15 starts to earn 1st Team All-WAC honors. He reported to Billings after the draft and appeared in 17 games out of the bullpen, going 2-3 with a 5.35 ERA. His stats were very skewed by his first two outings, when he was hit hard. But after getting his feet wet, his ERA over his final 15 games was a very respectable 3.56 and over his final 11 games, it was 2.96. Brattvet is a right-hander who was tougher on left-handed batters. They combined to go 6 for 43 (.140) against him.

Daniel Wright was the Reds 10th round draft pick last summer out of Arkansas State University. Wright made 14 relief appearances with Billings last summer, going 3-3 with a 5.91 ERA. He put together many strong outings but struggled with a few bad games that drove up his ERA. In his eight best outings, he allowed just seven earned runs over 27 innings for an ERA of an excellent 2.33. But in the other six games, he allowed 21 earned runs in 15.2 innings, an ERA of 12.06. At Arkansas State last spring, Wright tossed 110 innings (by far the most on the team), so he may have been a bit worn as the summer drew long. He posted a 6-5 record with a 3.18 ERA at ASU and had an excellent walk-strikeout ratio of 26-96.

Evan Mitchell was taken by the Reds in the 13th round in 2013 out of Mississippi State University. Mitchell is reported to have an outstanding arm, but he struggled to throw strikes in college and eventually saw his opportunities on the mound become limited. In 2013 at MSU, he tossed 21.2 innings and surrendered just eight hits, an amazing ratio, as opposing batters combined to hit .114 against him. But he walked 26 batters in those 21.2 innings while striking out 27. Mitchell's best day at Mississippi State came in 2011 as a freshman when he took a shutout into the ninth inning in the NCAA Atlanta Regional to earn a win over Austin Peay. Mitchell signed late with the Reds last summer and tossed just three innings in pro ball with the Arizona League Reds, allowing one run and striking out five.

Two pitchers coming off injuries could also be part of the Dragons bullpen picture. Nick Routt pitched at Billings in 2012 and impressed his pitching coach there, current Dragons pitching coach Tony Fossas. An arm injury caused Routt to miss most of last season, but he did come back to throw 22 innings and post a 2.86 ERA between the AZL Reds and Billings. Routt, a left-hander, was a 16th round draft pick in 2012 out of Mississippi State, where he was a teammate of the above-mentioned Evan Mitchell. Routt was a Freshman All-American pick in 2009 at MSU when he led the staff in wins. 

Ryan Kemp, who spent the entire 2012 season with the Dragons and enjoyed a solid year, returns to action in 2014 after missing all of last season with an arm injury. Kemp was a 14th round pick in 2011 out of St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Kemp, a one-time Baltimore high school player of the year, appeared in 46 games for the 2012 Dragons, going 3-5 with five saves and a 3.99 ERA. 

Other possible candidates for Dragons roster spots in 2014 who pitched at Dayton in 2013 could include right-handers Wes Mugarian, Austin Salter, Nick Fleece, Jesus Adames and Werleen Taveras. Other candidates from last season's Billings roster include right-handers Luke Moran, Austin Muehring, Fabian Roman, and left-handers Nolan Becker and Chad Jones.