Cleveland Indians: Nick Goody made a name for himself in 2017

Cleveland Indians reliever Nick Goody had the best season of his career in 2017 and should receive even more time on the mound in 2018.

Nick Goody‘s arrival at the end of 2016 was overshadowed by the big news surrounding the Cleveland Indians‘ acquisition of Edwin Encarnacion, but Goody earned himself some recognition in 2017.

He wasn’t immediately set to be part of the Opening Day bullpen, but Goody made his first appearance on April 14, logging two scoreless innings. He would not allow a single earned run until June 3.

Goody didn’t have a massive workload in 2017, but still logged 54.2 innings in 56 appearances. He allowed 17 earned runs and 20 total runs, but eight of those earned runs came in just three appearances.

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With Bryan Shaw now gone, Goody figures to have a more important role in this bullpen. At the top is the dominant duo of Andrew Miller and Cody Allen, while it will be a competition between Goody, Dan Otero, Tyler Olson and Zach McAllister to see who can become the go-to third option.

Olson may be exempt as he could become the matchup guy against lefties.

The best thing about Goody is that it is easy to forget his name when mentioning the bullpen because he didn’t make any major mistakes.

He never had a truly horrific outing, and quietly did his job for most of the season. He had two outings in which he allowed at least three earned runs, but never had a game that made fans hate him like some hated Shaw.

2017 was Goody’s first year of regular work in a major league bullpen, so fans should expect an even better year from him in 2018. His sample size is small, but his strikeouts increased with the full year of work while his walks went down when considering the extra work compared to his short year in 2016.

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Some fans are panicking a bit now that both Shaw and Joe Smith will be playing elsewhere in 2018, but Goody should do just fine in a bigger role. The panic can set in at the end of the 2018 season when Miller and Allen are free agents.