I have always had an idea that the major league bullpen does not matter. Not to say that the performance of the bullpen is irrelevant, but the constitution of the bullpen is overstated. I don't believe any team needs any high priced or high reputation guys in the pen. The cliche that a team can't win in the playoffs without a strong bullpen is accurate, but it seems most GMs take it to mean you need a bunch of millionaires.
Firstly, bullpen pitchers are failed starters. They are inherently flawed in not having great stuff, or not having enough pitches to go all 9 innings. What do Ryan Franklin, Joe Nathan, Mariano Rivera, Carlos Marmol, and Rafael Soriano have in common? They are all failed starters but are considered among the elite relievers. Hence, an argument can be made that every team has a bad bullpen. No team would prefer to face the starting pitcher as opposed to the relievers. You always want to get into the bullpen.
Secondly, there is very little predictive value into which teams/players will have good and bad years. You can look through the best and worst bullpens per year on ESPN, and it will show you that there is no rhyme or reason to who has the best bullpen on a yearly basis. The Dodgers are best this year, but who could have known? Who even knew who Ramon Trancoso, Ronald Belisario, Cory Wade, of Hong-Chih Kuo were before this year? Who could have guessed that Guillermo Mota would wake up from the dead? Relief pitchers are awesome one year and atrociously bad the next. What happened to Grant Balfour, Marmol, Putz, Rafael Perez, and Brad Lidge? Just fell off the map, just like relievers every year.
Thirdly, can you think of any great bullpens of the past? I can think of a handful in the past decade, out of 10 x 30 = 300 bullpens in the last 10 years. The 2001 Mariners with Suzuki, Jeff Nelson, Arthur Rhodes. The 2002 Angels with K-Rod, Percival, and a great Scott Shields. The 2004 Astros with Wagner, Dotel, Lidge. The 2005 White Sox with Jenks, Hermanson, Cotts, and Politte. That is it! Everyone else sucked
Conclusion: Stop paying people 4 million, let alone 10, to relievers when your team probably has an equivalent replacement in the minors for 400K. If the Cubs are smart next year, they should dump Gregg, Heilman, Gorzy, Grabow, and anyone making over 2 mill for John Gaub, Blake Parker, Jeff Stevens, And Jeff Samardjia. They can't do much worse than the 19th ranked bullpen we have now
As you know from our discussion the other day I totally agree. Relievers are failed starters or prospects you want to get their feet wet before you move them into the rotation. So many times you seem teams give up on starters when they fail as starters. More times they should make it standard to then try them in the bullpen where I think most top prospects would succeed for an inning at a time. Yes, you would like to see more out of your top pitching prospects than as a reliever, but it is better than nothing and just giving up on them totally. The Cubs have many prospects like Berg, Atkings, and Stevens that like a lot from what I have seen. I don’t know if any have what it takes to be a starter now, but I think all three could be decent relievers if not very good.
ReplyDeletei think you understate the impact of bullpen on a team. For one, not all relievers are failed starters. some are just pitchers with less endurance or injury risk. not all pitchers sought or seek to be SPs.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, the reason that teams with bad bullpens change from yr to year is that they go out and acquire fixes in the free market. Plenty of teams -- esp those with playoff aspirations -- fix their prev. year's primary holes in the free agency market. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but there a lot of credence that needs to be given to this in reference to "there is not rhyme or reason" to who has the best/worst bullpen. Lots of best bullpens also lose guy to FA.
Finally, I totally knew who Cory Wade and Hong-Chih Kuo were preseason and am offended you doubt this. boo
I actually drafted Hong-Chih Kuo in one of my leagues. Needless to say it was a terrible draft pick, but he had a 4.57 K/BB ratio last year. I was hoping he would be this year's Duscherer, but clearly that didn't pan out.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, Matt Thorton couldn't find the strike zone in '05 and now he's fucking amazing yet Joel Zumaya still sucks....
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, look at teams great bullpens from year to year. Very few teams have consistent bullpens year to year. You can make the argument that the Red Sox and Twins in recent memory have had consistent bullpens, but it really is a crap shoot
Cliff Polite was fucking awesome in '05 then had an ERA of like 10 the next year. How are them Cubs likin Neil Cotts? David Aardsma is top 5 in AL saves! WTF!?
Adam Wainwright is one guy that comes to mind that was a good reliever and then a good starter. Dempster was a shitty closer and a pretty good starter. Brandow Morrow has gotten mixed results in both the bullpen and while starting (mainly last year). Douche-r was a damn fine reliever and an All-Star last year. There are obviously SOME examples of relievers becoming effective closers but more often, i think, shitty starters become closers and bullpen guys.
The obvious reason for this is because those guys only have like two, maybe 3 pitches, which you can't really do as a starter, but can be amazing as a closer. Mo really only has two pitches, right?
Wainwright was a top Sp pitching prospect for atlanta, traded for JD Drew. He only pitched out of the bullpen for half a year, cause there wasnt any room for him as a starter, so they made him the closer, a la David Price.
ReplyDeleteDempster was a an all-star but league average pitcher before blowing out his arm. He pitched out of the BP while coming back from surgery. Now healthy, he is back to starting.
Morrow has sucked as both, as has lindstrom. Duche has been good at both, but really should stay in the pen in my opinion. But good points overall. Mo only needs one pitch actually.
Eckstein, I am sure that if you go through the transaction list for the past 5 years, at relievers who signed at least 3mil/yr you will find most have not lived up to it. If you think about this past offseason, the only guy who comes to mind is jeremy affeldt. If we only had the time to analyze this
ReplyDeleteI knew Kuo 4 years ago when i sent an email about him to jim rome and had it read on the air. Booya!
Bullpens are a big part of the game. I don’t mean to understate the importance of it. Many games can be blown in the late innings by the bullpen. We have seen that many times in Chicago on both sides of town. But most relievers are not consistent. That is why in most cases signing relievers to three or four year deals for relative big money is not worth it. You usually see them struggle for at least some of that time where they are awful. The Cubs saw this with Bob Howry, Scott Erye, and Latroy Hawkins. The Cubs gave all three big contracts for relievers and they all struggled for most of their tenure in Chicago. All three have gone on to be good again after they left Chicago. All players are streaky, but relievers seem to go in bigger streaks for an entire season or longer. Just look at Brad Lidge who is a great example of a reliever who has great stuff and has struggled for years at a time and then can also get really hot for stretches of years.
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone is arguing that bullpens aren't important (despite the misnomer of the title), I think what TBO is arguing is that you can't can't really go on fangraphs and judge how a good or bad pitcher will be from one year to the next like you can with starters. Hell, you can't really judge bullpen guys by looking at them either. Guys look like they have great stuff one year and then they suck the next.
ReplyDeleteIt's really frustrating trying to create a bullpen year after year after year just because there's no consistency. There's a line in Moneyball that's like "there's a reason guys are relievers because they're not good enough to be starters" And its weird that even if they are good, its hard as hell to be consistently good and its even harder to have like 6 guys that are consistently good.
Again, I think it goes back to the fact the vast majority of relievers only have three pitchers tops (if that) and because they're a reliever they probably don't have the greatest control (Hamels only have two fastballs and a change up but motherfucker, normally, can locate it).
So if you only have two pitchers that you can't control you're obviously not good enough to go through a full line-up nevertheless two or three times, but are good enough to go through a few batters. I think its obvious to see the irony in this and why its so hard to get consistency
I also think that's why you see shitty starters (although im think Boof Bonser couldn't even do this) become relievers. Those guys probably only have a few pitchers but their manager/ team probably thought they could go out and they obviously could not
Ooh, Phil Hughes and Joba are good examples of awesome relievers yet shitty starters