Anthony Bender

Bender fully recovered from his late 2022 Tommy John surgery but never ascended into the closer role that he was beginning to embrace before his injury. Bender saved just one game but won five others out of the pen and resumed his effective approach of getting strikeouts and ground balls while allowing three homers in 53 innings of work. The primary reason the closer role has evaded him is that Bender has some extreme splits. His sinker/sweeper approach to righties limited them to a .251 wOBA last season, but lefties were much higher at .375, reaching base nearly 40 percent of the time. Bender lacks a usable weapon against lefties so he must rely on batted ball luck and location to find success against lefties, and neither of those happened often enough for him to find that success in 2024. His sinker/sweeper approach does not exactly lend itself to a new third pitch unless he were to add a cutter and lean on that against lefties. Until a new pitch shows up, Bender is unlikely to climb the leverage ladder in Miami with any success. Read Past Outlooks