NL 1st Half Bullpen Usages/Second Half predictor?

[Klements Bratwurst]

With all the talk of bullpen misuse and starters not going deep enough into games, I thought I would look up some information on bullpen usage from last year and this year.

 

To set up the discussion, it was late July 2007, when Doug Melvin made a move to bring in Scott Linebrink with hopes to improve the Brewers beleagured bullpen and thus help the Crew push toward their first playoff birth in 25 years. Ultimately as many of us want to forget, the Derrick Turnbow's, Chris Spurlings, Matt Wise's, and even Linebrink and Cordero wore down in the second half and the Brewers fell two games short of the Cubs.

 

Or did the relievers really wear down? Here is the list by National League Team of total innings thrown by the bullpens in ALL of 2007. The Brewers ranked 11th of all National League teams for innings pitched for the bullpen arms. (Caveat- anyone with a paid membership to baseball-reference.com can get these stats just to the All-Star Break from 2007). Here is the roster of Brewer relievers that accounted for all the bullpen innings in 2007.

 

With all of that stats that are posted there, I think it just came down to the fact the Ned Yost just didn't have the horses to get the job done down the stretch. In high leverage situations last year he basically used Turnbow,Wise, Spurling, Shouse, and Linebrink to get to Cordero in 2007. There wasn't a lot of quality there. It could be argued that Turnbow was effective earlier in the season and he did get overused by Yost, but considering Turnbow was DFA'd in early 2008 it suggests that he just wasn't a quality trustworthy arm. I think when looking at 2007, I don't know that it was completely fair to say that the bullpen was abused when looking at the total innings pitched in 2007. I think the bullpen failed because collectively they were not very good. Old news.

 

Now fast forwarding to 2008. As non-Ned Yost supporters might ask, Has Ned Yost learned his lesson in regards to bullpen misuse and abuse of relievers? Here is the list by National League team of total innings thrown by the bullpen this year (All-Star Break). The Brewers rank 15th of 16 teams in total innings pitched suggesting that the starters are going deeper this year either by Ned Yost forcing the issue by keeping the starters in for an inning or more this year than last or just plain and simply the starters are better in 08 than 07. Here is the list of Brewers relievers that have accounted for those innings in 2008. The problem that I see again in 2008 is the same in 2007 regardless of the fact that the Brewers relievers have thrown the second fewest innings of all teams in the NL. We have too much of Mota which equals the 2007 Turnbow. On the positive side, we have better relievers in Villy and Riske to replace Wise and Spurling which should bear out better results. Obviously we need to replace Mota.

 

I guess, I hear and get caught up in a lot of friendly discussions about bullpen abuse throughout the course of the season. While I don't agree with Ned on a lot of his bullpen decisions, (Sheets start in Colorado game in Colorado), I think the "bullpen innings thrown abuse metric", can be quite overblown as a whole. It still comes down to quality relievers getting the job done.

 

Now you may convince me otherwise if Marmol burns out completely down in Chicago, because he "seems" way overused, but even as a team the Cubs don't have too many innings in them either. (There I go contradicting myself!!!)

[TooLiveBrew]

Interesting stuff, KB -- I wanted to give this thread a bump since I think it'll be a good resource/discussion in the second half. It's compelling to me to see that, so far, the 'pen just hasn't been much mightier than it was last season. Hopefully Ned won't continue to misuse both Stetter & Shouse, and will keep the bullpen rotation primarily to Torres/Shouse/Stetter/Villy/DiFelice/McClung. That's a group imho that has the talent & potential to outperform 2007's second half bullpen.

[nate82]

If you use VORP as a guide for the bullpen and starting pitchers you get a picture like this. I know what it means but I am horrible at explaining what statistics mean.

 

Rank	Player	W	L	SV	G	GS	IP	H9	BB9	SO9	HR9	ERA	SNLVAR	WXRL	http://www.baseballprospectus.com/images/down.gif VORP
1	Ben Sheets	10	3	0	18	18	123.0	7.98	2.05	7.90	0.95	2.85	4.3	0.000	38.3
2	Manny Parra	8	2	0	19	18	100.0	8.91	4.50	7.02	0.81	3.78	2.4	0.011	17.6
3	Salomon Torres	4	2	15	43	0	49.3	7.84	3.65	6.02	0.55	2.74	0.0	2.516	13.0
4	Seth McClung	5	5	0	21	10	75.7	7.85	4.28	7.61	1.19	4.16	1.2	0.265	13.0
5	Brian Shouse	3	1	2	44	0	33.0	6.82	2.18	5.73	1.09	1.91	0.0	0.318	11.7
6	Dave Bush	5	8	0	18	17	106.7	8.18	2.19	5.57	1.27	4.39	1.9	0.001	11.2
7	Yovani Gallardo	0	0	0	3	3	20.0	8.55	2.70	5.85	0.90	1.80	1.0	0.000	8.8
8	Mitch Stetter	2	1	0	22	0	22.0	4.50	6.14	11.45	0.82	2.45	0.0	0.682	7.8
9	C.C. Sabathia	2	0	0	2	2	15.0	7.80	3.60	8.40	0.00	2.40	0.5	0.000	4.6
10	David Riske	1	1	1	27	0	29.0	8.69	4.34	5.59	1.24	4.66	0.0	0.669	3.3
11	Carlos Villanueva	3	5	1	25	9	76.0	10.30	2.49	7.11	1.78	4.97	-0.2	0.882	3.2
12	Mark DiFelice	0	0	0	10	0	13.7	8.56	0.00	10.54	2.63	3.95	0.0	0.023	1.7
13	Jeff Suppan	5	6	0	18	18	101.3	10.48	3.91	4.88	1.07	4.71	1.5	0.000	0.9
14	Zach Jackson	0	0	0	2	0	3.7	12.27	4.91	2.45	0.00	4.91	0.0	-0.018	0.3
15	Guillermo Mota	2	5	1	34	0	34.3	9.96	4.46	8.13	1.57	5.77	0.0	-0.594	-2.4
16	Eric Gagne	2	2	10	24	0	23.3	11.19	6.17	8.10	2.70	7.33	0.0	-0.390	-4.2
17	Tim Dillard	0	0	0	8	0	8.3	10.80	5.40	3.24	1.08	5.40	0.0	0.224	-4.7
18	Julian Tavarez	0	1	0	7	0	7.3	15.95	6.14	12.27	0.00	8.59	0.0	-0.392	-5.3
19	Derrick Turnbow	0	1	1	8	0	6.3	17.05	18.47	7.11	1.42	15.63	0.0	-0.228	-6.9

[Klements Bratwurst]

Ugh. Suppan at a .9 VORP. I guess that is what happens when you go into a mid summer swoon again of throwing BP fastballs for the better part of 4 starts. I would have said a month ago he is performing over his head with his ERA in the high 3's. I guess he fell back to the median numbers and then some.

 

In regards to the bullpen, Melvin was on WTMJ this morning and said he made some phone calls about improving the club over the break but didn't elaborate on what he was looking for. He did say that it would probably be under 50% chance something gets done at this time. He likened any move as to more of a "tweak" here and there versus a major change. He said there are still too many teams sorting through whether or not they are in it or not.

 

I would say though that he must be looking for some relief help, but certainly didn't sound willing to give up another high end prospect for a rental. Mota just needs to be replaced. I think Brian the Automator said as a joke that Gagne was French for Turnbow. I would say that Mota is Spanish for Turnbow as well. We just can't seem to get that guy off our roster!

[Team Canada]

Nice post KB. Reading this made me reflect on the fact that even if our bullpen is no worse than last year, I really miss Cordero. I don't blame DM at all for that one, but it'll be interesting to look back at the end of the season and see if that was a significant loss or not. Torres has been fantastic, no doubt, but imagine if he was our 8th inning guy. If Doug doesn't pick up someone else, or Gagne doesn't do a complete 180, we may have problems down the stretch. On the other hand, if McClung is moved back to the bullpen and maintains his success, that could help immensely.

[Tbadder]

Again, this bullpen has a ton of potential I think. With McClung and Villy able to give three innings at a time if necessary. If they were used truly in long relief (sorry for repeating--three innings at a time when needed) then bullpen use would be down for the other pitchers, which I think would make them better down the stretch, fresher, etc. if we nuke Mota for DeFelice or Dillard we would also marginally improve. The tweaking can be done with the current roster. I'd have Melvin concentrate on Durham right now.

[TooLiveBrew]

I know what [VORP] means but I am horrible at explaining what statistics mean.

Am I the only one that gets this image whenever VORP/WARP is discussed?

http://www.discountgames.org/NES%20Nintendo%20Web/NES%20Images/Super%20Mario%20Bros%20SS11.png

He likened any move as to more of a "tweak" here and there versus a major change.

Sounds like a bullpen target to me, and that people hoping that Weeks will get replaced at 2B are going to be disappointed.


If they were used truly in long relief (sorry for repeating--three innings at a time when needed) then bullpen use would be down for the other pitchers, which I think would make them better down the stretch, fresher, etc. if we nuke Mota for DeFelice or Dillard we would also marginally improve.

I think that at this point it's pretty clear that at least Mota (& perhaps Gagne too) needs to be taken away from Ned. I'd prefer DiFelice, but Pena or Dillard would probably do better than Mota as well. I'd also like to add that the visual imagery of 'nuking Mota' is very satisfying... thank you, Tbadder. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Klements Bratwurst]

Here are the updated stats for the "bullpen abuse metric" (LOL). Ned still has the Crew ranked second lowest in bullpen innings thrown.

 

The Cards relievers have thrown 44.2 more innings than that of the Brewer relievers. When I was watching the Cards game last night on the MLB ticket, they were saying that Adam Wainright might well be ticketed for the closers role when he comes back off the DL soon. A fresh arm out there might very well help them, and maybe stop the bleeding of them blowing games late with the combination of Franklin and Izzy.

 

Regarding the Cubs, Marmol hasn't pitched enough lately to implode. It might be getting late for that one. The Cubs can't score 11 runs a game every day, can they?

 

 

Team Aggregate Stats: 2008
RK	TEAM	GP	W	L	ERA	Sv	CG	SHO	IP	H	ER	R	BB	SO	BAA
1	Pittsburgh	112	25	19	4.50	25	0	0	404.1	416	202	210	180	284	.267
2	Florida	114	23	16	3.72	24	0	0	390.0	347	161	179	192	334	.236
3	Cincinnati	115	16	14	3.51	22	0	0	381.2	377	149	172	151	341	.257
4	San Diego	112	15	25	4.43	24	0	0	380.0	398	187	202	149	300	.271
5	Washington	111	19	20	4.16	19	0	0	374.1	345	173	186	171	311	.247
6	Atlanta	112	12	18	3.86	15	0	0	372.2	327	160	187	156	306	.236
7	St. Louis	114	19	24	4.22	31	0	0	370.2	384	174	182	177	274	.269
8	Colorado	112	14	18	4.24	25	0	0	369.1	365	174	193	143	298	.260
9	Houston	113	19	22	4.09	31	0	0	365.1	349	166	181	144	287	.251
10	LA Dodgers	109	21	14	3.06	24	0	0	364.2	324	124	136	124	341	.238
RK	TEAM	GP	W	L	ERA	Sv	CG	SHO	IP	H	ER	R	BB	SO	BAA
11	NY Mets	112	16	18	4.23	28	0	0	357.2	339	168	188	141	300	.249
12	Chicago Cubs	114	21	16	3.96	33	0	0	349.2	326	154	170	126	335	.246
13	San Francisco	112	14	23	4.26	32	0	0	348.2	342	165	189	159	290	.257
14	Philadelphia	111	25	15	3.18	32	0	0	334.1	310	118	133	155	277	.247
15	Milwaukee	109	21	16	4.00	38	0	0	326.0	309	145	165	154	270	.250
16	Arizona	110	10	18	3.98	27	0	0	323.0	307	143	159	117	271	.249

 

(cleaned up code --1992)

[cwolf2012]

Did anyone else notice how Turnbow managed to be -6.9 in only 8 games? That's pretty impressive in a not-good way.

[TooLiveBrew]

Part of what has to be considered in this is that (obviously) teams with better SP will need their RP less. I wonder what CC's impact has been.

 

IMO Florida & St. Louis are the two that need to be looked at as 'in trouble'. And in that sense, moving Wainwright to the bullpen would really be a kind of lateral move. I'd rather see them move him to the 'pen, and given LaRussa's obsession with the bullpen having strict roles, I bet that's what they do.

[Klements Bratwurst]

TLB,
It surely sounded that Wainright was going to the pen. The Cards have something like 27 blown saves and I believe are on pace to be close to set the MLB record. I believe the record is somewhere in the mid 30's for blown saves. WOW!

It is just amazing what has happened to Isringhausen. It is close to Turnbow'esque.