Ned Yost Yay or Nay thread: Hardball Times rips Yost (part 3)

[Thurston Fluff]

I do have a problem with watching Spurling and Aquino getting to pitch in close or tied games and never seeing Cordero in the same game. Especially in the 12th inning at home when it's imposible to "wait until a save situation". Those are the types of decisions I think Yost made that cost us games.

 

The problem wasn't that he used them. The problem was, if he didn't use CoCo every game that was close, Spurling and Aquino were his best options. Who else was there? Wise and his 4.19 ERA and inability to get anyone out after he hit someone? McClung and his career 6.16 ERA? At first people say he abused his top pitchers. Then that myth gets debunked and now he should have used them more. Is he supposed to ride a couple horses until they drop or is he supposed to spread the wealth and see if some of the guys Melvin gave him are capable major league pitchers? So far he's been bashed for doing each of them. All of it sounds a lot like blaming the messanger type stuff. Maybe, just maybe it's the players who he had to work wiht that sucked. There was no way to make that bunch of second rate clowns into a valid reliaf core. To blame someone who couldn't make chicken soup out of chicken you know what is missing the real problem. A bullpen with few vialbe options and a GM who didn't do enough to get some better options. I'm fine with what Melvin has done for this franchise but when it comes to the pen I'm sure he'd agree he didn't do Ned any favors this season.

[Thurston Fluff]

At the time he was sent down Villy had the second most innings pitched of any reliever in the majors. He was badly overworked and was able to get back into a routine in Nashville.

 

So was he overworked or was he out of sinc? One would seem to indicate Ned did something wrong the other would indicate a young pitcher not making the adjustments he needed. If he was so badly overworked how could a few weeks in Nashville have turned him around? Wouldn't it have taken rest instead of a starters workload? He became a starter and was getting stretched out for the return in Spetember. He took his turn every 5th day and got back into a routine he was comfortable with. If his arm was fatigued or he was plain wore out that couple week stretch in the minors was not enough to do what he did in September. If he was tired then Yost got the most out of him with no damage to his arm or losing a valuable player in September.

If anything the use of Villy was masterful when you look back at it. Not that I believe Ned did so on purpose but all things considered it worked out pretty well for him. If someone would have asked you in March we could have a guy in the pen who would be tremondous for April, May, June, part of July and be a key cog in the starting rotation in September but the cost would be a month of poor pitching and a couple weeks regrouping in the minors in August would you have thought it a fair price to pay for the production? Before you answer I'll add to that. During the time that pitcher is struggling you will be able to trade for one of the better setup men in the league for minorleaguers. Would you have thought that to be a fair tradeoff? I would.

[don1481]

Do you have some sort of evidnece that Ned does this more than any other manager? If not that is a completely baseless accusation. There are reasons to believe Ned does know this and hasn't abused them in this way. ...

 

Since Ned knew Turnbow was really bad when he was bad and didn't have another pitcher warming up with him every time he pitched it leads to more evidence that Ned didn't have any more pitchers with dry runs than any other one in the league.

 

As has been mentioned Turnbow is tied for 17th in the league in appearnaces. All of those above him logged more innings and had an ERA under 4. The one who was tied with him had a lover ERA but over 4. So there are guys who can and most certainly do log more innings with a greater number of appearances. Does that mean every one of those managers are worse at handling the bullpen than Yost. Given the reasoning so far from those critisizing Yost you'd have to say yes. Washington had 2 relievers who pitched more games and logged more innings than our most overworked guy. The dodgers had 2 1/2, the Yankees 1 1/2, Baltimore 2, Toronto 1, Mets 2, Padres 2, Atlanta 1, houston 1, Cubs 1, Colorado 1

 

...

 

After looking at actual stats instead of just reinterating the same false accusations it appears, to me anyway, the bullpen problems were caused far more with the pitchers and the man who aquired them than it does the one who was stuck trying to figure out how to use them.

Ok... here's where I think our signals are getting crossed: You're focusing on our most overworked guy - Turnbow - and saying that if other teams are using their most-overworked reliever more than him that Ned gets a pass. However, what I'm saying is that you have to look at the entire body of work - in this case, the bullpen - to gather a better understanding. Furthermore, let's pick some of those teams that are listed above for comparison.

 

2007 Appearances for the Brewers:

Turnbow: 77

Shouse: 73

Cordero: 66

Wise: 56

Villanueva: 53 (plus 6 starts)

Spurling: 49

For a total of 374 collective appearances, or 62.3 per.

 

Let's compare this to, say, Atlanta's bullpen:

Moylan: 80

Yates: 75

Soriano: 71

Villarreal: 51

Wickman: 49

Paronto 41

For a total of 61.2 appearances per reliever.

 

LA Dodgers:

Biemel: 83

Broxton: 83

Proctor: 83 (including 52 from the Yankees)

Seanez: 73

Saito: 63

Billingsley: 23 (plus 20 starts)

For a total of 68 (!) per. If you don't include Proctor's 52 from the Yankees, that drops to 59.3.

 

Colorado:

Corpas: 78

Affeldt: 75

Fuentes: 64

Hawkins: 62

Julio: 58

Herges: 35

Bucholz: 33 (plus 8 starts)

For a total of 57.85 appearances per reliever.

 

Yankees:

Vizcaino: 77

Rivera: 67

Farnsworth: 64

Bruney: 58

Myers: 55 (plus 17 from the White Sox)

Proctor: 52 (as mentioned above)

Villone: 37

For a total of 58.6 per.

 

While at first "only" a few games' difference may not seem like a lot, but that's a few games per reliever difference. That's a few times that a pitcher could have gotten an additional "rest" day over the course of the season. That could be the difference between a player feeling "fatigued" down the stretch (even though they'd never admit it to the public) versus being more rested.

 

As I said in my previous post in this, I do agree with BackupCatchers in the sense that The Moustache needs to be held as accountable as Ned for putting together a bullpen like he did. The obvious solution is to put together a bullpen that is deeper than what they had this year - I'm not sold on Spurling and I'm definitely not convinced that Wise will ever be the same mentally. I'm not going to give Nedly a "pass" on this, however - it was up to him to figure out when to use the members of the bullpen.

 

I think this is a pretty reasonable initial "whack" at the numbers that support Ned's bullpen-abusing tendencies. Yes - Bobby Cox did also abuse his 'pen to nearly the same degree. And Ned comes from the Bobby Cox camp. Maybe that's the big lesson to be taken out of this. Of course, Schuerholz gave Cox a much deeper pen to work with than The Moustache did for Yost.

[logan82]

If you drop the 7th guy and stick with only the top 6 their averages all come back up to around 62 appearances. Looking at only the top 3 relievers for each team, they look pretty comparable.

[don1481]

If you drop the 7th guy and stick with only the top 6 their averages all come back up to around 62 appearances. Looking at only the top 3 relievers for each team, they look pretty comparable.

 

Actually I only included a 7th if that 7th was comparable to the 6th. And that's my point if you look at the top 3: They look comparable, but you have to look at the entire pen. And what was lacking in the Brewers' case was depth. As I said in my last post, Schuerholz put together a pen that was used very similarly by Bobby Cox; however, their depth was far better than that of the Brewers'.

[logan82]

I guess I don't understand why you can be as upset with Ned when you admit his pen was poor. You have to look at each reliever on an individual basis to make a decision wether they were overworked. By limiting the pen to 6 or 7 you are excluding Dessens, Aquino and the rest of the turnstile relievers we had. Past the top 3 there was nobody close enough to be considered overworked.

[Thurston Fluff]

No matter how you slice it those inning needed to be used if the starters weren't going to absorb them. If you think Ned should have kept the starters out there longer I can see your reasoning. That wasn't as easy as it sounds though. We had one guy who is a career 6 inning pitcher in Soup. Cappy fell apart, Sheets got injured, YoGa was on an innings limit, and Vargas' pitch count was usually pretty high after 5 innings. The one time he did go 8 he sucked the next two starts. That pretty much leaves Bush. I'll even give you Soup as someone who could have taken a few more innings even though his history shows he's best at the inning he pitched this season.
Even if those other pitchers got used more than the third and fourth guys on another staff what does that mean? It means the relievers this team has aren't capable of doing the work required of them. Perhaps Ned could have let relievers in to get knocked around and save the rest of the pen like AZ did. I don't know how much that helps when the pen just doesn't have many good arms in it. AZ had I believe 6 guys with an ERA under 4. Milwaukee had three. One of which came in July and another is a loogy. When you have five or six guys capable of pitching in tough situations and only need to use one or two in blowouts it makes managing a lot easier.

As Logan stated you could have dropped the 7th man or added the 7th man to the Brewers equation and it would have made it look differant as well.

But I will give credit were credit is due. You at least took time to see if your theory had some validity to it and it does. I think there is a bit of a flaw in that it should be expected for a reliever to handle a workload of 65+ innings and 70+ appearances. If they don't get that many it should be due to lack of need as opposed to lack of ability. I'd be more than happy to see a revision or another way of looking at it or perhaps find another flaw in my reasoning. Losing an arguement would mean I learned something.http://static.yuku.com//domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/smile.gif

[don1481]

I guess I don't understand why you can be as upset with Ned when you admit his pen was poor. You have to look at each reliever on an individual basis to make a decision wether they were overworked. By limiting the pen to 6 or 7 you are excluding Dessens, Aquino and the rest of the turnstile relievers we had. Past the top 3 there was nobody close enough to be considered overworked.

But by limiting to 6 or 7 I'm also eliminating any "turnstile" relievers that other teams had too. Let's be honest - Wise would have probably been on pace to be "overworked" had he not become ineffective following that beaning. He only had 13 appearances in August/September combined; he had 11 in June alone. Villanueva would have also been on pace to be "overworked" had he not been 1. sent down for a couple of weeks and 2. became a starter during September. So really... you have 5 arms that took a lot of pounding.

We had one guy who is a career 6 inning pitcher in Soup.

Yes, but he wasn't the problem in April/May. You can firmly point to Capuano, Vargas, and to a lesser extent, Dave Bush for the starters that didn't go deep enough consistently enough.

 

As Logan stated you could have dropped the 7th man or added the 7th man to the Brewers equation and it would have made it look differant as well.

Yes - I could have added Linebrink and his 71 total appearances (27 with the Brewers) to the mix. But see... as you probably noticed when I was dealing with relievers that got traded that had a lot of appearances total, I wasn't sure how to weight their appearances into the mix.

 

AZ had I believe 6 guys with an ERA under 4. Milwaukee had three. One of which came in July and another is a loogy.

Actually... 4, if you count Linebrink as the one that came in July. And prior to Wise's last two outings of 2007, he was in that category as well. So that's 5.

I think there is a bit of a flaw in that it should be expected for a reliever to handle a workload of 65+ innings and 70+ appearances

You'd hope that to be the case. Of those pitchers in MLB with over 70 appearances (46 in all), 38 have an ERA of under 4. If you drop that to 65 appearances (73 in all), 56 fit that bill. Which averages out to being almost 2 pitchers per team. Of course, better teams with better bullpens will have more of these.

 

Perhaps Ned could have let relievers in to get knocked around and save the rest of the pen like AZ did.

And that's precisely one of the reasons why I think Ned mismanaged the rotation AND the pen. Outside of Vargas' 8IP in that blowout loss, I don't really see a case where Ned just left a guy in to eat innings when the game was far beyond reach. Going back to Capuano, let's look at his first two months of the season:

 

Capuano in April/May:

5IP - 96 pitches

5.1IP - 93 pitches

5.2IP - 94 pitches

6IP - 109 pitches

6IP - 81 pitches

(skip 5/2 because he got hurt - yes, this did make the pen work more that day)

8IP - 98 pitches

4IP - 65 pitches in a 9-1 loss. Brewers were getting mowed down and were down 4-0 when Capuano was pulled. Maybe Ned should have let Capuano bat and just kept him in 1-2 more IP.

5.1IP - 89 pitches in a 8-1 loss. Pulled when the Brewers were down 5-1 and getting mowed down. See previous observation.

4IP - 84 pitches in a 5-1 loss. Brewers were down 4-0 and getting mowed down yet again. See - once again - previous observation.

7IP - 96 pitches. No complaints about this start, but by then, the fast start was over...

 

That's three straight starts where Ned had to burn through the 'pen far sooner than he had to. Unacceptable, IMO.

 

And now let's look at this year's Wayne Franklin, Claudio Vargas, over the same time span:

 

5IP - 91 pitches in a 3-2 win

6IP - 106 pitches

4IP - 69 pitches in a come from behind win. Yes, in this case Ned got it right.

5IP - 99 pitches

6IP - 98 pitches in a 10-0 win. Brewers were up 7-0 when he was pulled. 98 pitches or not, why not try to get another inning out of Vargas?

6IP - 94 pitches

6IP - 90 pitches

4IP - 90 pitches in a come from behind that the Brewers were down 5-2 when he was pulled. While they did win, Ned did use 4 pitchers out of the pen. Should Ned have played for the long haul and just kept Vargas in for another inning? Maybe. Maybe not.

5.1IP - 101 pitches in a loss. Brewers were down 4-2 when he was pulled.

6IP - 106 pitches.

 

So that's 4 instances between Cappy (3) and Vargas (1) in April/May where Ned should have let the starter stay in at least 1 inning longer to keep the pen fresh. Plus another that, even though they did come from behind to win, the Brewers might have actually been better off letting the starter eat another inning because of the deficit they were facing. That plus the obvious trend of Capuano and Vargas just not going deep into games (6.1, 6.2, 7+ IP, for example) all that often (just 2 by Capuano of 7 or more and zero by Vargas).

 

What conclusions do we draw from the issues that I've been outlining...?

[logan82]

Capuano in April/May:

4IP - 65 pitches in a 9-1 loss. Brewers were getting mowed down and were down 4-0 when Capuano was pulled. Maybe Ned should have let Capuano bat and just kept him in 1-2 more IP.

5.1IP - 89 pitches in a 8-1 loss. Pulled when the Brewers were down 5-1 and getting mowed down. See previous observation.

4IP - 84 pitches in a 5-1 loss. Brewers were down 4-0 and getting mowed down yet again. See - once again - previous observation.

That's three straight starts where Ned had to burn through the 'pen far sooner than he had to. Unacceptable, IMO.

 

And now let's look at this year's Wayne Franklin, Claudio Vargas, over the same time span:

 

5IP - 91 pitches in a 3-2 win

6IP - 106 pitches

4IP - 69 pitches in a come from behind win. Yes, in this case Ned got it right.

5IP - 99 pitches

6IP - 98 pitches in a 10-0 win. Brewers were up 7-0 when he was pulled. 98 pitches or not, why not try to get another inning out of Vargas?

6IP - 94 pitches

6IP - 90 pitches

4IP - 90 pitches in a come from behind that the Brewers were down 5-2 when he was pulled. While they did win, Ned did use 4 pitchers out of the pen. Should Ned have played for the long haul and just kept Vargas in for another inning? Maybe. Maybe not.

5.1IP - 101 pitches in a loss. Brewers were down 4-2 when he was pulled.

6IP - 106 pitches.

 

So that's 4 instances between Cappy (3) and Vargas (1) in April/May where Ned should have let the starter stay in at least 1 inning longer to keep the pen fresh. Plus another that, even though they did come from behind to win, the Brewers might have actually been better off letting the starter eat another inning because of the deficit they were facing. That plus the obvious trend of Capuano and Vargas just not going deep into games (6.1, 6.2, 7+ IP, for example) all that often (just 2 by Capuano of 7 or more and zero by Vargas).

 

What conclusions do we draw from the issues that I've been outlining...?

That Capuano was pulled for a pinch hitter to generate some offense on nights when he wasn't effective as a pitcher. These were mostly 4-5 runs deficits early in games. Big deficit, but I would rather our manager try to win the game instead of sitting on his hands and giving up.

 

Any pitcher with 98 pitches after 6 innings is going to have a hard time finishing the next inning. This isn't the AL where you can just throw out your pitcher untill he is no longer effective or he reaches a pitch count. You have to weigh the cost of giving up an out verses the chance the pitcher will finish the next inning without giving up more runs.

[don1481]

logan3825 wrote:

---

That Capuano was pulled for a pinch hitter to generate some offense on nights when he wasn't effective as a pitcher. These were mostly 4-5 runs deficits early in games. Big deficit, but I would rather our manager try to win the game instead of sitting on his hands and giving up.

 

Any pitcher with 98 pitches after 6 innings is going to have a hard time finishing the next inning. This isn't the AL where you can just throw out your pitcher untill he is no longer effective or he reaches a pitch count. You have to weigh the cost of giving up an out verses the chance the pitcher will finish the next inning without giving up more runs.

 

And honestly, that's why the Brewers ran into a lot of the problems that they did: Being down 4-5 runs in the 5th/6th inning, as Russ or the people who use Win Probability will tell you, means that you have a very small chance of winning. And realistically, you're better off not throwing all your resources possible into winning a game like that and saving your pitchers for the following games. Ned ran the early part of the season as though it was a sprint, rather than a marathon.

 

While we'd all love to see the Brewers go 162-0, realistically sometimes you just have to know when to start preparing for the next game.

Yes - 98 pitches after 6 is a lot, I will agree with that. However, when you've got a huge lead like the Brewers did at that point (plus playing AT Minnesota, where they didn't have to PH Vargas) meant that the Brewers could have tried to get another inning out of Claudio.

[logan82]

Yes - 98 pitches after 6 is a lot, I will agree with that. However, when you've got a huge lead like the Brewers did at that point (plus playing AT Minnesota, where they didn't have to PH Vargas) meant that the Brewers could have tried to get another inning out of Claudio.

That game with 98 pitches was at home against PIT. At 98 pitches I wouldn't find fault with pulling a pitcher. We did lose a few games when our win probability was 95% or higher. Just because your win probability is pretty poor is no reason to just giveup. Especially with half a game to play.

[don1481]

We did lose a few games when our win probability was 95% or higher. Just because your win probability is pretty poor is no reason to just giveup. Especially with half a game to play.

 

If you're managing late in the season and/or the playoffs, yes, I agree completely. However, sometimes it was painfully obvious that the odds were way against the Brewers and it would take far more effort - not just in terms of pinch hitting, but also in number of pitchers eaten up - to win the game than it would really be worth. Especially since the following game the pen could very well be exhausted and the starter would be under even more pressure to go deep into that game.

 

As we've beaten to death here a number of times, a lot of those "blown 95% win probability" games were because of poor decisions made by Ned. Such as letting Aquino ever see a pitching mound. Or keeping in Turnbow in spite of him walking several batters and giving up a base hit or two without getting an out. We've beaten those decisions to death in this thread and in the IGTs as well - Ned has made far too many questionable in-game decisions to stay around.

[logan82]

If you're managing late in the season and/or the playoffs, yes, I agree completely. However, sometimes it was painfully obvious that the odds were way against the Brewers and it would take far more effort - not just in terms of pinch hitting, but also in number of pitchers eaten up - to win the game than it would really be worth. Especially since the following game the pen could very well be exhausted and the starter would be under even more pressure to go deep into that game.

 

As we've beaten to death here a number of times, a lot of those "blown 95% win probability" games were because of poor decisions made by Ned. Such as letting Aquino ever see a pitching mound. Or keeping in Turnbow in spite of him walking several batters and giving up a base hit or two without getting an out. We've beaten those decisions to death in this thread and in the IGTs as well - Ned has made far too many questionable in-game decisions to stay around.

Even when the win probability is down to 10% you are going to win 1 out of every 10 games at that point. If you give up 10 times in a year just because your win probabilty got that low you have just given up one win, theoretically. I would guess most of those "95% win probability loses" were blown saves.

 

4 runs is not a big deficit. A couple hits and a HR and it is cut to 1. Our offense can put up, and has put up, some crooked numbers in a hurry.

[don1481]

Even when the win probability is down to 10% you are going to win 1 out of every 10 games at that point. If you give up 10 times in a year just because your win probabilty got that low you have just given up one win, theoretically. I would guess most of those "95% win probability loses" were blown saves.

 

4 runs is not a big deficit. A couple hits and a HR and it is cut to 1. Our offense can put up, and has put up, some crooked numbers in a hurry.

 

 

This reminds me of someone's signature on this site: "A couple of slammers and we're right back in this thing!"http://static.yuku.com//domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/smile.gif

 

4 runs, depending on 1. who the opposing pitcher is, 2. the stadium the game's being played in (factoring in weather conditions), and 3. what inning the game is in, can all make 4 runs to be a pretty big deficit.

 

4 runs in the 9th against Mariano Rivera is far different than 4 runs versus Gary Glover or whatever Designated Rotation Stooge is out there in, say, the first inning. In the case where the offense is getting mowed down (like the cases that I cited), that 4 run deficit is far harder to overcome.

[logan82]

Harder to overcome, but not impossible. If you are going to slam Yost for not putting his team in the best postion to win, you should also be upset if he gives up 4 innings into a game. Leaving a struggling pither in is not putting your team in the best position to win. To be honest I don't care who the opposing pitcher is. We have come from behind to beat the likes of Clemens and Santana.

[don1481]

Harder to overcome, but not impossible. If you are going to slam Yost for not putting his team in the best postion to win, you should also be upset if he gives up 4 innings into a game. Leaving a struggling pither in is not putting your team in the best position to win. To be honest I don't care who the opposing pitcher is. We have come from behind to beat the likes of Clemens and Santana.

 

And we've also coughed up 5, 6-plus run leads as well. Those are the statistical outliers, the games that eat up far too much effort to win. I'm not saying the players that are playing should not play hard; I am saying, however, that if one's trying to minimize the overall stress on a bullpen and not contribute to them being run down over the course of the season, then maybe "going for broke" in an April/May game and throwing close to a half dozen pitchers at the game to try and "hold it together" might not be the best use of resources. Especially if the following day the starter "only" goes 6 and the Brewers need to protect a 3-2 lead and lo and behold... the arms in the pen are still too run down from the previous game.

 

Speaking of come-from-behind wins... I remember a few times this year that the Brewers came from behind - even significantly behind - and people were wondering "would this be a turning point?" Nope... each time it seemed like they lost the following game.

EDIT: While we're on this topic of "questionable decisionmaking regarding the bullpen," The Prince of Darkness posted a new blog today, entitled "When in Doubt, Blame the Manager."

 

Some highlights:

 

 

Arizona manager Bob Melvin, a baseball man I really respect, was the person who told me to read the story. I was talking to Melvin about how his bullpen formula of Tony Pena-Brandon Lyon-Jose Valverde in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings worked so well for him, and how it always makes a manager look smart when his relief pitchers do the job.

I told Melvin how Yost had a similar formula over the first half of the season, when he used Carlos Villanueva, Matt Wise and Brian Shouse to cover the sixth and seventh innings, then Derrick Turnbow in the eighth and Francisco Cordero in the ninth. That formula worked for the most part as the Brewers got to the all-star break 10 games over .500 and safely in first place in the NL Central.

But, due in large part to the failure of the starting pitchers to go deep into games, the relievers got overworked. Villanueva wore down after the break, and Shouse and Turbow became more erratic later because of heavy workloads. Wise was never the same after hitting a Cincinnati batter in the face.

Thus, when the bullpen formula broke down, Yost was forced to try other relievers or use guys he knew were tired. The team started blowing leads and, of course, Yost was the one many fans blamed.

...

 

Bob Melvin told me every manager looks smart when his relievers do the job and they always look dumb when the relievers don't get it done. That's when he told me to read Jim Caple's column.

I don't expect the Yost bashers to back down because they're convinced they are right. But it's interesting to see the outside perspective of others who see what's actually going on.

And, before critics send comments in pointing out that Caple was writing about managing in the post-season and Yost didn't even get the Brewers to the post-season, the same principle applies. Whether it's the regular season or the post-season, it's always easier to blame the manager for pitching moves that didn't work instead of the pitchers that fail.

 

 

 

As I've said before during games, if Ned makes a boneheaded move and it works out, he still made a boneheaded move in my mind. If he puts in, say, Cordero to close a 3-2 game and CoCo blows the save, then Ned did the right move and it's Cordero that didn't get it done. I fundamentally disagree, as usual, with The Prince of Darkness.

[logan82]

I guess we just disagree that a 4 run game should be considered out of reach 4 innings in.

[Jay Zahn]

Now Yost is being criticized for trying too hard to win. I have truly heard it all.

[1992casey]

Hey everyone, please try to cut back on the length of quoted text a bit. Excerpting the part of a message you really want to talk about should be enough.

 

Thanks.

[Jay Zahn]

Turnbow was NOT overused this year, okay?

 

Item 1 - 12 National League pitchers (there are only 16 National League teams) pitched more games than Turnbow. All but two of them also pitched more innings. (There were a number of relief pitchers who pitched more innings than Turnbow in fewer games.) In fact four teams had two pitchers who pitched more games than Turnbow.

 

Item 2 - Turnbow's usage was comparable to prior years, including 2005 when he pitched very well in the second half of the season.

 

None of the pitchers used in more games than Turnbow had nearly the disparity he did between the first and second half. The closest would be Feliciano, whose second half ERA of 3.70 is actually quite comparable to Turnbow's FIRST HALF ERA of 3.49.

 

Turnbow never had good control at any point in the season. In the first half it was kind of managable and the second half it was terrible.

 

Turnbow good? Turnbow useful? Who cares if we wore him out, which we didn't. Frankly, he wasn't that much help.

 

Seems like it might help to be one of the 10-12 teams who has a reliever who can pitch 70+ games and 70+ innings without his ERA jumping 2 and a half runs in the second half. Not that his ERA was all that low in the first half.

 

Somehow Turnbow, in all of those 10-1 blowouts he was pitching in and being overused, managed to rack up 33 holds, tied for 3rd in the league. How sad that we have a pitcher with a 4.63 ERA and 33 holds. Sadder still that the manager had no options to replace him.

 

Maybe we can be like Cincinnati, who leaves in their starters longer because their bullpen is probably worse than ours. Which is difficult to do, I'll admit. Cincinnati's in the playoffs, aren't they?

[Thurston Fluff]

AZ had I believe 6 guys with an ERA under 4. Milwaukee had three. One of which came in July and another is a loogy.

 

Actually... 4, if you count Linebrink as the one that came in July. And prior to Wise's last two outings of 2007, he was in that category as well. So that's 5.

 

I only looked at pitchers who had logged 20 inning of more. I think it's fair when using stats to count only ones that logged enough time to get a reasonable idea of their contribution to the team over a period of time. Otherwise I could go back and count every guy on every team who had 5 innings in September and get some odd numbers including at least two more for AZ. That left out McClung. I don't think anyone is going to consider a career +6 ERA pitcher a sub 4 ERA pitcher after less than 20 innings one year. You can't say Wise could have been if he would have pitched better in his last two outings because he didn't. Everyone would be better if you took out a couple bad outings over the year but that isn't how it works. The only three guys the Brewers had with a sub 4 ERA and more than 20 innings pitched was CoCo- @ 2.98, Shouse (the loogey) @ 3.02 and Linebrink (partial year) @ 3.71. I don't see five there I see three.

 

If you like the idea of using a single reliever in a blow out I think that's a fair debate to have. It's also fair to say I believe Yost should have done so. I don't think you can say because Yost does not agree with that philosophy that he sucks at handling the pen. To say that would be to say 95% of the managers suck at it. If you wish to say that then it's fair to ask who could we hire that would be better at it?

 

I should also point out there are differances in the circumstances of both teams. AZ was built on pitching and defense. A 4 run deficit in AZ is a larger hurdle to clear than it was for Milwaukee. Az was 26th in runs scored while Milwaukee was 11th. I wonder how ofter Melvin would have conceded games if he had Milwaukee's offense. Melvin did nice job but he didn't win because of his philosophy in blow outs. He won a lot of 1 runs games. He did so by having a very good, very deep bullpen. If Yost had 5 or 6 relievers (depending on how you count them. They had two guys who came from other teams during the year) who could be counted on I doubt you would have seen Spurling in a game in extra innings.

I'm not so sure Melvin indeed did use a single pitcher in blowouts all that often either. That seems to be overstated. If someone has actual numbers of how often he did this it would be nice to see. But if the team was seventh in all of baseball in team ERA I don't think there where many blowouts to begin with. The reason people seem to think so is they had such a poor run differential for their record and people seemed to just account for it that way. If you take a closer look it has as much to do with how good their record was in one run games than it had to do with using fewer pitchers in blowouts. The record in one run games had more to do with how good the bullpen was than some sort of managerial strategy IMO.

[Bucky Rules]

To me most of any over-use of the bullpen was a direct result of the starters not being able to get deep enough into games. If you would like to spread some of that blame to the defense, I guess I'd have to consider that to have some validity. To hear now that some in the Yost-nay camp are saying that he pulled his starters too early flies directly in the face of the numerous times during the season that Yost was accused of leaving the SPs in too long in games (Dave Bush after the 6th being the prime example of that complaint).

I think the guy played the hand that he was dealt. And he did it reasonably well - not perfectly, but reasonably well. Now, in hindsight, we can all go back and identify those games where we know the results and can say he should have done this or that differently -- (in some cases I know it wasn't hindsight). But, I honestly don't remember a clamoring at any point in this season that Capuano should've been left in longer than he was. To cite three Capuano starts in May as examples of how Yost abused the pen, reeks of hindsight-ism to me. In addition... I'm definitely not in favor of giving up on a four run deficit in the 4th inning with this team - even if Cy Young is on the mound against us.

[Baldkin]

THT actually had an article about the Diamondbacks and how they managed their pen this year back in August.

 

Take a look

[Thurston Fluff]

Thanks Baldkin. The read is good but all it does is explain why sabermetrics don't work with that team. It does not explain how conceding games somehow make his good relievers better. It doesn't account for how some of his good relievers had logged more innings and more games than the most overworked in our pen yet still performed at a higher level. Melvin never had to worry if he was overusing one or two guys because he had five very good ones and the ones he did rely on heavily didn't fall apart like ours did. Give Yost a big five instead of a big three and the Brewers record looks better. Give Yost as many relievers capable of going 70+ games and 65+ innings and see if his record would look better. Conversely give Melvin a weaker bullpen and tell me with a straight face he would be were he is today.

Another point needs to be made. Since the number of blowouts are relativley small compared to close games how does Yost's dregs being better than Melvin's dregs really to help a team win the majority of games? While I can see the advantage of doing such in blowouts that isn't the differance between the two clubs. It's that Melvin had 5 great relievers all year, 6 by August and 7 by September. Yost by September had three. Four if you wish to count McClung. There is not one situation where Melvin was stuck with the choice of running his group of good relievers into the ground or relying on those so called dregs in tight games. There are plenty of such occasions Yost had to make those choices. I wonder how genious Melvin would have looked conceding games and losing close ones because of poor relief help and shaky starters. Odds are they would be looking for a new manager and their boards would have been blowing up about his unbelieveable mismanagement and admitting defeat without trying. Had Yost done what Melvin did with the relievers and offense that he had available to him they would have been looking at one more year without a winning record and even I would have been calling for his replacement

 

 

G IP H R ER HR W K ERA RA ERA+

Big 5 249 250.7 204 93 77 21 94 225 2.76 3.34 167

Dregs 86 106.7 127 91 84 21 51 76 7.09 7.68 65

[don1481]

I only looked at pitchers who had logged 20 inning of more.

...

 

The only three guys the Brewers had with a sub 4 ERA and more than 20 innings pitched was CoCo- @ 2.98, Shouse (the loogey) @ 3.02 and Linebrink (partial year) @ 3.71. I don't see five there I see three.

Shouse

Cordero

Villy (you left him out - I know, he was in the rotation in Sept but for much of the year, in over 20IP, he was effective)

Linebrink

Wise (until the last 2 outings he was under 4)

 

That's 5.http://static.yuku.com//domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/wink.gif