bullpen still a reclamation project

[DrWood]

back in the bad old days when the team was a perennial loser, they'd cobble together a bullpen full of reclamation projects and it often performed quite well. Now, everyone other than riske and shouse could probably still be considered to be a reclamation project (and shouse is a former reclamation project done good). Difference is, these guys are making good money. Good thing there aren't long-term commitments to them.

 

[JohnBriggs12]

I wouldn't call any of the guys they picked up "reclamation projects".

 

I'd call them "bounce back" candidates, because all have had success at this level over a period of time and performed below career norms in 07. There's also a lot to be said for experience when games are on the line and these guys have it.

[Thurston Fluff]

I guess it all depends on what you call reclamation projects. To me a reclamation project is a guy who wasn't on a roster last year or coming off an injury. Pretty mcuh the entire pen will be made up of players who spent the entire year pitching in the majors and have a history of success at this level. They may not have had banner seasons last year but they are all serviceable and as reliable as one could hope for in such an unrelible area in baseball as a whole. There certainly is enough established veteran relievers to go along with the ususal group of young guys and reclamation projects like Choate that the pen should be servicable at the very least. Last year as it was constructed I didn't think it was all that complimentary to the teams needs for the pen.

[Ennder]

Last year going into the season I thought the Bullpen would be a disaster. We had Cordero and that was pretty much it for established RP's. Wise is the only other one I guess but he always has worried me since he is so fragile. I'm much happier going into this season though of course Gagne as closer does worry me a little bit. Get Turnbow out of pressure situations and I think he'll be a great RP, Riske and Torres should be fine handling the 7th/8th for us.

 

Shouse has shown that he wasn't just a one year wonder as the LOOGY. I feel better about Mota than I did about the aquino, dessens, spurling types. I also think our minor league depth for mid season replacements is much better than last year.

[DrWood]

hmm. seems to be that mota, gagne, turnbow, torres... could all be considered reclamation projects--all are coming off years that are considerable dropoffs from previous seasons, and none are young enough to be good prospects to actually get better. They might perform better, but they aren't going to be throwing harder or developing new pitches, etc. I don't know why you have more confidence in Mota than Aquino, who actually has pretty good stuff.

[Patrick425]

I'm normally not this optimistic, but I have this feeling that Melvin is going to look like a genius after the season is over in regards to his off-season bullpen moves. A lot of people are skeptical about Gagne. However, even if he does falter, I'm more comfortable with our possible backups than I was last year. Last year our only possible options for closer were Cordero or Turnbow. Towards the end of the year, I was not feeling comfortable with either of them.

 

This year if Gagne fails, they have Turnbow. If Turnbow fails, Torres has experience closing games. Even Riske and Mota have closed a few games and could be possibilities.

 

I realize this is not very meaningful, but if CBS Sportslines fantasy projections for these pitchers are any where near accurate, I'll be pretty happy (well maybe except for Gagne's saves):

 

Gagne 60IP/23S/3.15ERA/1.2WHIP Mota 70/1/3.98/1.36 Riske 70/3/3.21/1.11 Turnbow 70/6/3.98/1.29 Torres 60/2/4.35/1.30 Shouse 53/1/3.40/1.34

[DrWood]

those are some pretty optimistic projections, imo.

[Fear The Chorizo]

i like the fact that we have a ton of options for the bullpen right now - not all of them are going to pitch lights out, but I think the depth of solid arms in the pen is much better than last season. we had cordero, turnbow for most of the time, and then a conglomeration of question marks, especially if Shouse needed to get multiple outs against righties to get through innings.

[Patrick425]

those are some pretty optimistic projections, imo.

agreed...not sure how they come up with them.

[Ennder]

hmm. seems to be that mota, gagne, turnbow, torres... could all be considered reclamation projects--all are coming off years that are considerable dropoffs from previous seasons, and none are young enough to be good prospects to actually get better. They might perform better, but they aren't going to be throwing harder or developing new pitches, etc. I don't know why you have more confidence in Mota than Aquino, who actually has pretty good stuff.

 

I guess if you want to judge bullpen guys by ERA I agree, but none of them had peripheral stats out of line at all with 2005 or 2006.

 

Toolivebrew posted various projections in another thread.

 

http://forum.brewerfan.net/viewtopic.php?t=10154?page=9

 

 

Gagne - 3.00 - 3.86 ERA

Mota - 3.73 - 4.85 ERA

Riske - 3.80 - 3.82 ERA

Shouse - 4.04 - 4.21 ERA

Torres - 3.94 - 4.06 ERA

Turnbow - 3.82 - 4.08 ERA

 

Those are some larger ranges than many teams have I'm sure but if every pitcher in the bullpen ended up in those ranges I'd think it is an improvement over last season's 4.24 ERA out of the bullpen. Now obviously ERA is a stat that is all over the place over a 70 IP sample so some of those guys will probably be higher than that range and some lower and we have to hope that overall it evens out. With the improved defense and depth int he bullpen it just might.

[Bnowell4evr]

Heres the reasons why Im optimistic about this years BP
- Gagne and Mota are Free Agents after the year and players always seem to play better in there contract season.
- Torres has admited he didnt show up in shape last year just outa spite for the Pirates organization. He has gone on record on saying that he has lost the weight and is focused on bouncing back this year. I think a change in scenery is exactly what he needs as he bounces back.
- Riskes contract is nothing to hefty and all I want outa him to is to be solid and judging by his career numbers thats exactly what he should be.
- The main reason I love this years BP is that if everything falls into place Turnbow wont be relied upon in the 7th 8th or 9th inning. We put Turnbow in for middle relief and if he doesnt have it you put in Mota or Torres who has shown in the past he can pitch 2 innings almost any day if you really need him to.

IMO this is the deepest pen we've had in a long long time. It has insane potential but at the same time could be a total flop. I remain on the optimistic side. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

CL Gagne
8th Riske
7th Torres
MR Turnbow
MR Mota
Loogy Shouse
LR Bush

[DrWood]

I wasn't arguing that the bullpen was going to be bad, or anything, just that there was an element of faith involved in guys bouncing back (or coming from nowhere). I doubt anyone predicted Kolb was going to be a great closer when he first joined the team, though he did fine while he was here. Anything can happen. It seems that faith is required to maintain optimism about this group of guys, though.

 

I also can't see Torres getting priority over Turnbow.

[Gopher74]

I think this idea that Turnbow's going to be behind Riske and Torres is inaccurate.

 

Melvin and Yost have already hinted that he's going to be the SU man, though I'd prefer he be the 7th inning man and Riske the SU man, but all the same, he's definitely going to be one of those 2, not a middle reliever.

 

As for the BP, someone else alluded to it, but I absolutely love the fact that we've got several options in the event that someone does falter, namely Turnbow. I think one of his biggest problems the last couple years, and last year specifically was that we didn't have anyone to follow him up with. I mean, last year we had Cordero, but that's your closer, and you don't want to trot him out there for 5-6 outs too often, less you ruin him for late in the season. So as a result, we had to stick with Turnbow, or go with a really bad option in Aquino, Spurling, or whoever when Turnbow came out throwing balls over the batters head and to the backstop.

 

This year, at least I hope, we can have a quicker hook for Turnbow when he's just not on, and we can then yank him and go with Torres, Riske, Mota, or even Vargas/Bush or Shouse. I think that alone is going to make Turnbow far more effective, and I think his end of the season numbers will bare that out.

[Baldkin]

If they use the pen wisely, and don't overwork guys it could be great.

 

The question is, whether management can get beyond "Soandso pitches the 7th, Soandnotso pitches the 8th, and Closerguy pitches the 9th."

 

If Turnbow doesn't pitch back to back (and especially 3 days in a row) games, he'll be great. Finally, I think, we have the depth to do that. Mota was great the last few years when he didn't pitch multiple innings. He could pitch a few days in a row, just not 2 (or 3) innings in a game.

 

Stats bear these things out. The question is, whether or not they will be used.

 

I'm excited for the bullpen this year. I just hope it won't be used like last years.

[logan82]

The more I think about the pen, the less excited I am.(not that I was excited to begin with) Who do we have that can go multiple innings outside of Bush/Villanueva? Unless our starters can get long starts on a regular basis we still need a guy to soak up those innings. Last year we had only Villy and we all know how that turned out. It would be nice to have another quality multiinning guy to help out.

[ILuvDaBush]

To be fair, we also had Elmer Dessens but he proved to be unworthy of a spot on the 25-man. And when I think of Villy out of the 'pen last year, I remember the young gent who was doing very well but ended up breaking down because of overuse, like T-Bow. And Reclamation infers that they are unwanted, while I would think half of our bullpen would be wlecome additions to any bullpen in the majors.

[JohnBriggs12]

Except for Turnbow, all of those guys have at one time or another come back after poor major league seasons and been very effective and even Turnbow made some improvement from 06 to 07. Mota in particular has followed up bad years with exceptionally good seasons. He's done that more than once. Torres went from 7-5, 4.76 in 03 to 7-7, 2.64 in 04. Gagne is further removed from serious arm problems and was very good for Texas for 4 months last season. Furthermore, they don't need all of them to be great, just 2 of Gagne, Torres, Mota, and Turnbow, and as long as Riske performs close his level last year, that will give them 3 solid veteran short relievers. The roles may end up having to be shuffled at some point, and they don't have a very good manager using them, but all in all it should be a better pen. Plus they have a wild card in McClung who could figure in there too.

 

As to logan's concerns about multiple inning pitchers, somebody will have that role. It could be Capuano. It could be Vargas. It could be both those guys if they trade another bullpen arm. Torres in the past has been more than a one inning guy. What logan brings up though speaks to the Turnbow situation. If all the guys they acquired perform to expectations, Turnbow has no role because he can't go beyond one inning. That's why I think he can still be traded.

[Fatter than Joey]

I wouldn't call any of these guys "reclamation projects" -- I think of guys like Balfour, or even Joe Dillon that are out of baseball for a period of time.

 

That said, there is certainly a lot of question marks.

 

I agree with the poster that mentioned that Yost needs to quit slotting every pitcher in a specific inning. The more flexible Yost is, the more I likely I think this BP could be a strength of the team.

[Tbadder]

One of the things that a club has to manage, especially with so many one year contracts, is the value of players relative to other teams. They have to maximize the value of players who are going to leave (for trade value, darft pick compensation) and minimize value for players with longer contracts. Of course this only works if all things else are equal; if one player is clearly outperforming another you gotta go with the producer. Example: I'd make Turnbow my set up man over Riske. The reason? Turnbow's gonna leave the team sooner than Riske. It would behoove the Brewers to allow or attempt to increase Turnbow's value as much as possible. Same thing could be said for Mota. If Mota could be featured somehow and he responds we could dump a salary and maybe get a little in return (as of right now I'd say he's close to worthless given his combination of performance and salary). I think the Gagne signing could be brilliant, in that I'm guessing he turns out to be a slightly above average closer, and when he leaves--bonus, cash in a draft choice for the cost of money only.

[Thurston Fluff]

I remember the young gent who was doing very well but ended up breaking down because of overuse, like T-Bow.

 

I disagree T-Bow was overused. There were around 15 guys who pitched both more inning and more appearances and did far better than Turnbow. He was supposed to be a workhorse type for us. That was part of his role on the team and why he was paid a couple million. As for Villy if he was overused why did he do so well as a starter in september? I think it had more to do with him losing his focus a bit in his new role. That happens with young guys. I don't blame Yost for the fact that he was pretty much forced to use players in roles they were not equipped to handle. It's up to the GM to assemble the correct pieces for the manager to use.

 

I agree with the poster that mentioned that Yost needs to quit slotting every pitcher in a specific inning. The more flexible Yost is, the more I likely I think this BP could be a strength of the team.

 

This is one of those things that both sides have valid arguements for. A some managers and players like having specific roles they are slotted for. It gives them the stability of routine that makes their job more predictable thus easier to get into the flow. Many of these guys are creatures of habit and don't do well with change. In some ways to get the best out of each it can be best to keep them in stabile predictable roles. Of course it helps if you have good enough players for each role.

Others feel it should be a more flexible thing to take advantage of the changing environment. I honestly don't know which I prefer but there isn't an obvious right or wrong way IMO.

[DrWood]

why do we need guys that go multiple innings frequently? Yost doesn't use the pen like that, unless the starter gets blown out early. My criticism in the use of Villanueva was that they didn't let him go 2 to 3 innings more often, and should have used him in fewer games. So, really, the only guy that needs to go multiple innings is the guy that goes in when the team is already down a few runs after a starter has gone 4 or fewer innings.

[Thurston Fluff]

why do we need guys that go multiple innings frequently? Yost doesn't use the pen like that, unless the starter gets blown out early.

 

I think Ned was more or less forced to use the pen the way he did due to the lack of veratility with the majority of those guys. Give him one or two guys that do that and a couple good late inning guys and he'd use them more effectively.

 

 

 

My criticism in the use of Villanueva was that they didn't let him go 2 to 3 innings more often, and should have used him in fewer games.

 

I agree with this but I think the problem was they didn't have enough viable options in the middle relief role that Ned sort of used Villy as an all purpose guy. He really absorbed a couple roles in the pen that should be more spead out with the added depth this year.

[DrWood]

I agree that many of the problems in the pen could be explained by lack of guys in which Yost has confidence. I'm hoping that issue has been rectified.

[Baldkin]

Brewers opening day bullpen last year:

 

Aquino, Francisco Cordero, Elmer Dessens, Brian Shouse, Derrick Turnbow, Carlos Villanueva, Matt Wise.

 

Obviously, Dessens was dropped relatively quickly (he only pitched 15 innings as a Brewer) in favor of Spurling, and Aquino was sent down for Gallardo (or was it Parra?)

 

All I can say, is that right now, our bullpen looks much more stable and reliable than last season.

 

No innings from McClung, Aquino, Dessens, Spurling, Balfour (there's more I'm forgetting I'm sure). They may not have pitched that many innings individually, but they did total nearly 100. (50 for Spurling, 15 for Aquino, 15 for Dessens are all I looked up)