Optimizing The Bullpen
by Lord Duggan on May 20, 2010 7:03 PM EDT
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PrintYes, I'm writing a fanpost about the bullpen, not because I want to call it "teh pen", not because I want to talk about Joba, and not because I want to talk about some of the recent meltdowns. I've been writing/thinking about this for a few days, so please don't take my ideas of change in the pen as reactionary or doomsday. Now that all of the disclaimers are aside, let's talk about using the bullpen in the best possible way.
After the league expanded and free agency struck, the most watered-down talent area has always been in middle relief. With very few exceptions, MLB teams have three, maybe four, relievers that they're comfortable with, and everyone else is an implosion waiting to happen, a journeyman, a prospect, or a washout. With that said, and the fact that the even the best relievers can't be effective every day (Mariano's career high is 74 appearances, so less than half of the regular season games), you can only expect to get two innings from your top relievers on any given night.
My claim of two innings of quality relief per game is something of an oversimplification, but let's assume that it's true (In fact, for the Yankees last year, the combo of Rivera / Hughes[pen only] / Aceves[pen only] / Robertson logged 241 1/3 innings last season, or just a shade under 1.5 innings over 162 games, but D-Rob spent some time in AAA and Hughes/Ace in the rotation). So on any given game, you can only expect 6 quality outs from the bullpen before you're in Brian Bruney, Boone Logan, Chad Gaudin, and Jose Veras territory.
With that said, that average figure doesn't really speak to the way the bullpen is used. In a close game, all of your best pitchers might be used, and in a blowout, all of your best pitchers may be rested, but quality bullpen outs are certainly a finite quantity, and the way that they are currently used across MLB isn't even close to optimal.
When dealing with a limited quantity of good pitchers/innings in the bullpen, the only logical way to negotiate the end of a game is to use your best pitcher in the highest leverage situation, regardless of inning, and use your worst pitcher, regardless of inning, in the lowest leverage situation. How many times have we seen the game slipping away in the 7th or 8th inning, with the heart of the lineup due up, and our best arms (Hughes in '09, Joba in '10, Mariano) stay in the pen, while a lesser pitcher (lookin' at you and your 5 blown saves last year Phil Coke) gives away the lead?
The Yankees bull pen was very solid last year, allowing the fewest blown saves (15) in the AL East (Sox: 18, Rays: 22, Jays: 16, O's: 22), and when you consider how many games they had the lead in, that's a pretty impressive achievement. However, Phil Coke also had 1/3 of the teams blown saves. And the problem isn't necessarily with Phil Coke, he's a pretty mediocre pitcher who was put into the game far too often in high leverage situations because he throws with the wrong hand (never trust a lefty).
To truly optimize a bullpen, the closer, 8th inning, 7th inning, system would be scrapped, to be replaced by a simple pecking order. Mariano, in all of his glory, would obviously be at the top of this group. Then when we play the Twins and we're up 3-1 in the 8th inning with 2 on and Mauer and Morneau due up, we don't have to suffer through a Damaso Marte appearance (cuz.....he's a lefty). If we get through that 8th inning with Mariano, and are up 3-1 going into the 9th inning with the bottom of the order due up, there's something like a 95% chance that we win, and a lesser pitcher can be used.
Unfortunately, everything that I just said will fall upon deaf ears at the MLB level. Tony LaRussa made Dennis Eckersley his 9th inning man (if I'm not mistaken) and the closer was born. The closer gets paid the most, and needs the ego boost and the familiarity of only pitching in the 9th inning. And also, could you imagine the media flogging that Girardi would take if he used Mariano in the 8th inning, or God forbit the 7th, and some other pitcher blows the game later. He would be murdered on the spot.
In today's game, it's easier and acceptable to be conventionally wrong than unconventionally right.
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Bullpen
My Lord: Well said, I have mantained for years the game can be “saved” from the 7th inning on. If you need Mariano in the 7-8th why not put out the fire and use someone else in the ninth…I do understand the Girardi roasting by the press if chan ho park blows the game in the ninth…lol
TEH PEN!
Its all contingent on WHO’s in your pen. Cuz if you have one great reliever, but a few more very good ones…you can do something like this.
Then again, if you got say..3 very good releivers..what’s the difference? If you got something like the Astros did in 2005, with Chad Qualls, Dan Wheeler and Brad Lidge..3 very good RP’s at the time, you can do such a thing.
The Yanks right now, can’t do this. Cuz while it may make sense to put someone like MO in there, once the starter’s gone..to kill any rally. But then you give the other team hope cuz they’re facing Dave Robertson in the 9th.
I think the conventional “wisdom” is that way for a reason..cuz it kinda makes sense.
Especially in the AL, every team wants to think they got a chance in the 9th inning. Imagine how many games the Yanks would win if they were facing someone like Dave Robertson in the 9th instead of the closer?
It gives a team hope.
Just keep winning
I'm not saying you have to use Mo earlier
in plenty of games the highest leverage time is the 9th inning. But if the middle of the lineup is coming up for the last time in the 8th inning, what’s the point in waiting?
If option A is Robertson in the 8th against the 3-4-5, Mo in the 9th against the bottom of the order
option B is Mo is the 8th against the 3-4-5 and Robertson in against the bottom of the order
I’m going with option B every time. The game doesn’t play out like that every time, but the times that it does, MLB managers don’t even consider option B, because they have to have a “closer.”
And to your point of a team with a bunch of good relievers. In this case, matchups and history should play into who goes in where, not simply what inning it is. And conventional wisdom also used to say that the only good players were 100 RBI men and 20 game winners…..
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A couple of problems with that logic
1) Pretty much every relief pitcher will say that it’s much easier to be effective when they have a good idea of when they’re going to be used. It allows them to get in a routine and prepare, and almost all athletes are more successful when they have a routine.
2) A manager isn’t psychic. The problem with saying “the most important outs could be in the 7th inning” is that in the 7th inning you don’t know that those are going to be the most important outs. If you use Mariano and take him out, and the guy that comes in for the 9th gets in trouble, you have no recourse. Also as you go deeper into the game, the leverage increases as your offense has less of an opportunity to retake the lead if it is surrendered.
The one thing I completely hate about how managers use bullpens is the lefty on lefty thing. Good left handed hitters crush bad left handed pitchers. You are doing Joe Mauer a favor by putting in Damaso Marte or Boone Logan to face him. We saw it for years when opposing managers would bring in bad lefty pitchers to face Hideki Matsui and he would destroy them. Yes, there are certain lefty power hitters who struggle against lefty junkballers, but for the most part it isn’t the case. A bullpen should be made up of the 6 or 7 best pitchers you have available. It shouldn’t include scrubs who are there only because they throw with their left arm.
by Let's Talk About Tex Baby on May 21, 2010 12:49 AM EDT reply actions
Ok
1) I think there is some validity to the routine idea, but I’ll take a slightly thrown off Rivera/Chamberlain over a non-thrown off Boone Logan at any critical point in the game. And the more that they are used in different types of situations, the more they will become accustomed to coming in in different points of the game.
2) Yes, the managers don’t know for sure that some point in the game is going to be the most important. But they do know when the most dangerous hitters are coming up, and that should give them a pretty good idea about when the most difficult and important outs are, on top of when a team starts up a rally with getting some runners on.
As a general rule of thumb, the outs do become higher leverage to the outcome of the game as the game goes on, but that’s not the case every time. Look at the ‘play of the game’ at the end of most games, and it’s often not in the 9th inning. I’m not saying you use your best pitcher right away every game, but it should at least be a possibility.
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by Lord Duggan on May 21, 2010 12:01 PM EDT up reply actions
Uhm...somehow I get the feeling that if the Yanks used
Mo in the 7th and were forced to use Logan, Marte or Robertson in the 9th, the play of the game would more frequently happen in the 9th—even if they entered the 9th with an 8 run lead.
You want the guy with the best chance of closing out a game with a victory pitching last. That’s Mo. He may be a great option in the 7th with 2 out and two on and a two run lead, but the team is better served to have him, the most reliable reliever, to preserve a victory when that victory is at hand…9th inning.
Memo from the Old School:
Please talk to Rich Gossage about the 3 inning save from the closer.
There is no real reason why Rivera, Robertson (who seems to be rounding into form), Joba, and Aceves couldn’t come into a game in the 7th, finish it, and have 2 or 3 days off.
There’s also no reason not to have a starter occasionally finish a game, but that’s another rant for another day at the old folks’ home.
by designatedquitter on May 21, 2010 11:08 AM EDT reply actions
Oh I definitely agree with this
everything has to have a set formula in the late innings, and there really isn’t any reason for it. Look at Aceves. When healthy, that dude can be ready in any inning, comes in, and throws strikes.
Unfortunately, most relievers are coddled into this idea that they can only be used in one set circumstance, and anything outside that, they get “thrown off.” Man up.
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by Lord Duggan on May 21, 2010 11:55 AM EDT up reply actions
That's where I agree
When a reliever has pitched an inning+ or 2, and has done so “lights out”, I think that is where he should be left in to go ahead and finish the game.
Yeah and one more thing
is I feel like every time you get another pitcher out of the pen, you’re at risk of getting someone who doesn’t really have their good stuff today.
You see that a lot with relievers. They have to pitch often, and so in some appearances they have a flat breaking ball, no velocity, etc. and the few batters that they come in to face tee off against them.
More pitchers in the game = more chance of putting in a pitcher with nothing.
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+1
Every pitching change invites another guy to be ‘that guy’ having an off day. If Robertson is shutting them down, let him keep doing it, especially if his pitch count is reasonable.
"Have faith in the Yankees, my son. Think of the great DiMaggio."
3-inning relief appearances
I can see the validity on both sides of this argument. On the one hand it would elminate the need for 2 or 3 relievers to pitch well on the same night. On the other hand if you use your best reliever for 3 innings one night you’re screwed the next 2 nights unless you happen to have a bullpen with more than 1 closer-calibur reliever which is rare. Overall I think if given the choice of my best reliever being available for 3 innings 2-3 times a week or for 1 inning 5-6 times a week, I’d take the latter.
Realistically you can’t just start using Mo for 3-inning stints at age 40 when he’s pitched that long 3 or 4 times in the past 14 years. You COULD start using Joba this way. There would be a few advantages to this. You could rest Mo on Joba’s 3-inning nights if he was effective and if a starter went down long term it would be much easier for Joba to move into the rotation. With him, I like the idea, but I also see no chance of it happening.
by Let's Talk About Tex Baby on May 23, 2010 11:40 AM EDT up reply actions
Good Post...but
Yes it will fall on deaf ears because of these stupid formulas and salaries that dictate when to pitch someone. But let me take it from a different angle…I think the relief core should be skipped on those days when the game is tight and the starting pitcher is dominating like CC was the other day against the Sox . He didn’t have his best stuff but his soso stuff is better than most relievers on any given day. Yea he had 116 pitches..let him pitch the 8th or until he proves he’s done. Pitch count is bs, performance is what counts.
by RollingThunder on May 21, 2010 12:26 PM EDT reply actions
Well I'm not totally against the idea of a formula
especially in the area of pitch counts. Every arm has a finite number of pitches in it, and I don’t know if I’d condone throwing our ace 130-140 pitches in a game in May.
Maybe in the playoffs if you really don’t have confidence or availability in the pen.
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by Lord Duggan on May 21, 2010 12:35 PM EDT up reply actions
One of my most important points in this post
is that you’re going to have some guys that suck in your bullpen, it’s pretty much unavoidable. There just isn’t enough talent to have 7-8 guys in your pen that you can rely on.
If you accept that guys like Boone Logan are going to be on the team (because really who are we going to replace him with that’s better) you have to do your best to make sure he’s in the game in very low leverage situations.
I have absolutely no problem with Boone Logan eating up some innings in a mop up role, because not every game is going to be close, but if he’s in a high leverage situation that frustrates me, and if he’s in a high leverage situation because he’s a lefty that frustrates me even more.
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This would be nice
but in all of his time up here, he’s been the last man out of the pen and gotten very inconsistent work, and I have to wonder if that’s the best thing for his development.
We need him to come up and be ready to translate his stuff into results, and I’m not really sure what the best way is to do that, as he’s gotten really sporadic playing time in the majors.
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Then apply a generous layer of SuperGlue, and press tightly for 10 seconds.
For best results, allow to cure overnight. Caution, please avoid inhaling the fumes.
Melancon will not stick any other way.
by designatedquitter on May 24, 2010 10:10 AM EDT up reply actions
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