Lucas Sims is the Cincinnati Reds Stabilizing Force in the Bullpen

Sims last season with Reds before free agency poised to be a strong one

Author:
Jeff Carr
Publish date:
Jan 26, 2024 12:37 PM EST

In this story:

The Cincinnati Reds longest tenured player is Lucas Sims.

The Reds have added to the bullpen in a big way this offseason. The 29-year-old remains a steady force out of the pen, but there’s one thing he needs to work on in 2024.

Sims is known for coming in and shutting down a rally. Inherited runners are a key part of being a shut down relief pitcher. When a pitcher enters the game and runners are already on base, if the reliever allows those baserunners to score, they aren't counted on that pitchers ERA.

MLB relief pitchers allowed 32% of runners to score on average last year. Sims only allowed 27%. He inherited 55 runners and only allowed 15 of them to score. For his career he’s only allowed 29% inherited runners to score, so that is something he is adept at limiting.

Sims also saw the second-highest leverage situations on the team. Baseball-Reference has a statistic called average leverage index. Above one means the player saw higher pressure situations and below one means the pitcher faced a lot of low leverage situations. Alexis Diaz had an average leverage index of 2.388. Sims was right behind him at 1.784.

What ailed him last year was walks. League average for walk percentage was 8.4% last year. Sims walked 15.1% of the batters he faced. That number needs to come down this season.

Sims still posted a 3.10 ERA. He was above league average in strikeout percentage (27.9%) and he set a new career mark for most innings pitched in a season (61). He will continue to be relied on as the consistent arm out of the bullpen to shut down the opponent.

This is Sims’s final year of team control and is set to become a free agent next year.

He's looking to have the best year of his career to not only boost his market, but help the Reds make a postseason run.

Check out our entire interview with Sims below:

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