Developing our bullpen since 2005

[Jay Zahn]

I looked back at the 2005 stats recently, looking at the bullpen in particular. One thing comes across as a real failing on this team is the failure to develop ANY young relievers in the past three years. ANY.

 

Now relievers can come from multiple sources, and you're probably not going to build a whole staff inhouse. You're going to have your vets who have been pretty consistently good for their whole career, like Trevor Hoffman or Mike Timlin. You're going to have the vets that have been more up and down, like Joe Borowski. You're going to have the reclamation projects - guys who made it for a time and fell out of the majors due to injury or poor performance. You're going to have guys that washed out as starters. You're going to have guys that were effective starters for a time but got old or got hurt.

 

You're also going to have young pitchers. Guys who came up through your system. Sometimes even closers. Sometimes even effective right away. If not effective right away, maybe effective after a year or two of seasoning.

 

Our "young guys" are Stetter, who's barely pitched, and McClung, who's a refugee from Tampa Bay. Now they might make it, but Stetter's barely pitched, so who knows how long it could take him to be good. The rest on the roster right now are Cordero, Shouse, Linebrink, Turnbow, and Wise, who can all be considered fairly veteran. Turnbow's 29, Wise is 31, and both came from outside the organization. All of these guys came from outside the organization.

 

Looking back to 2005 (since that was the last year we had an effective bullpen - 2006 and 2007 were bad.) The only guys from that bullpen who pitched much in 2007 were Turnbow and Wise. So no one young that year came up, and in the past two years we've basically added nothing. Three years of nothing out of the minors for relief help doesn't seem very good.

 

In looking for hope for improvement, I looked at some other teams. We probably have no hope of competing with someone like Minnesota, who has generated a ton of relief talent the past few years. But I look at other teams like Arizona, who have improved their bullpen, or even Kansas City. And mostly it's improvement from within. Sometimes guys come up and are effective within the first year, and others maybe struggle with a 5.00 ERA or so the first year before improving. But I look at the Brewers, and it's been 3 years from a team with no young prospects and we've gone basically nowhere. What gives?

[logan82]

I think this organization has been pretty poor with pitchers in general, not just relievers. Sheets and Gallardo are about the only 2 who are internal. Even Villanueva was aquired in trade.

[JJHardy7]

I think injuries have really hurt the development - Jones, Rogers, etc. I also think we struggle with placing pitchers in relief. CV was in the bullpen to start this year, but I believe he was a starter through most of the minors -- same with Parra.

 

Is part of this due to the fact that their value as a starting pitcher is that much greater in a possible trade since we have more than enough starters? Trading Sarfate, Garrison, Thatcher, and Inman probably doesn't help either -- in return two vets -- King and Linebrink.

[clancyphile]

Do you want to spend time "developing" relief pitchers - or is it better to have a surplus of starters and position players who can be flipped for bullpen help?

 

I'd rather have a lot of the starters and position players. You never know what gems you might find.

[JJHardy7]

I think it is better to have a surplus of starters, but what happens when they have made their way up to the bigs? I guess in my opinion it raises the question of is it even worth developing young relief pitchers? Or is it better using free agency and trades for veterans? If you want to develop them, I think it needs to start in the minors instead of being moved to the bullpen once you reach the big league level.