NewsHealthy bullpens breed success
Managers know value of rested relievers down the stretch
By Matthew Leach / MLB.com
07/05/09 1:00 AM ET
Every manager wants a good bullpen. It's been said that a good closer makes a manager a whole lot smarter. But every skipper must walk a line when it comes to utilizing that relief corps.Pitch them too little, and they get stale -- though, truthfully, that's rarely a problem in this era of extreme matchup baseball. Pitch them too often, and they wear down. That's the bigger fear, to be sure.
As we reach the midpoint of the 2009 season, it's late enough to tell which teams' bullpens have been worked heavily and which have gotten a relative breather. But while it's too early for overwork to be showing up with subpar performances, those days are on the horizon -- more so for some contenders than others.
The Brewers, though, have pushed their group a bit more, ranking 10th in the Major Leagues in innings. It's been a better unit this season than in recent years, but it's also worked hard. It would be an unfortunate irony if, after bolstering a group that was long problematic, the Brewers used them so much they became a liability in September or October.
"We can't sustain this for very much longer," Milwaukee manager Ken Macha said last week. "Our starting pitching is going to have to get us deeper in the game, or by July and August our bullpen is going to be dragging."
On the morning of the Fourth of July, 12 weeks into the 26-week season, six teams stood out with more than 250 innings pitched by relievers: the Orioles, Dodgers, A's, Indians, Marlins and Padres. Six others, meanwhile, were at 210 innings or fewer: the Rockies, Pirates, Angels, Cubs, Giants and Royals.
And there's a surprising connection at this point in the year between those workloads and effectiveness. If anything, there's a reverse correlation at the current time. Those six busiest bullpens rank second, seventh, eighth, ninth, 12th and 30th in effectiveness, based on Baseball Prospectus' WXRL, a metric that considers many factors in weighing reliever effectiveness. The six least-busy relief corps rank 14th, 15th, 18th, 25th, 26th, and 27th in WXRL.
There would seem to be some self-selection going on here. A manager who has faith in his bullpen will be happy to turn to it quickly. If your relief corps works like a can of gasoline, then you're going to stick with your starter for a while longer. To take it a step further, most bullpens have one or two quality relievers. Only the truly bad -- the historically bad 'pens -- go without anybody who can get an out.
Explaining ARP and WXRL |
ARP and WXRL are two measures established by Baseball Prospectus and used for measuring the performance of relief pitchers. Here's a brief explanation of what they measure and how they differ. |
| ARP: Adjusted runs prevented from scoring. ARP measures a pitcher's performance against the number of runs that could be expected to score given the situation. |
| WXRL: Expected wins added over a replacement level pitcher, adjusted for the level of opposing hitters. It is much more context-dependent than ARP. Whereas ARP focuses strictly on runs, regardless of the lead or deficit a team has, WXRL focuses on the increase or decrease in the likelihood of winning the game. |
What makes the better corps stand out often is depth. If most teams have at least a pitcher or two who can get outs in the eighth or ninth, many times they don't also have reliable arms to turn to in the sixth or seventh. The good bullpens do. Thus, the good ones get work earlier in games.
Still, at some point, some of those busy relievers will begin to wear down. And it could have a significant effect on how some pennant races or even the playoffs turn out.
If there's one division in which the disparity could reveal itself down the stretch, it's the National League Central. At least four clubs must be considered viable contenders, and all six would count themselves in the mix. The top four teams, however, rank all over the workload chart.
The Cardinals, who have gotten unexpectedly solid work from their 'pen, have thrown the ninth-fewest relief innings. Compounding that is that they've carried an eight-man bullpen for much of the year. So even that small number of innings has been divided among a larger number of pitchers. The key guys in the St. Louis bullpen are scarcely being pushed at all.
"That's why we carry 13 pitchers," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said earlier this year. "I don't want them to pitch any more than they're pitching. ... The key is going to be our starters getting to the last third. But if they do that, I still like 13 pitchers because it would be great to get to midseason and have these guys with a lot of gas left. You can always use an extra [player] -- always. But it doesn't make it a hard call, because pitching is so critical."
The Reds, likewise, have put a relatively light burden on a quality 'pen. That's resulted, in part, from getting some excellent work from their starters, but it's also partly intentional.
"That's how you want it," said Reds manager Dusty Baker. "Everybody can be strong down the stretch. I always want it, but it doesn't always work out like that. If you can have the best workload in the first half, they'll be strong for the second half. ... This was by design. You have to have a good bullpen to win. It's a must. But you also want a good starting staff to keep your good bullpen strong and fresh.
"When you have an overworked bullpen, then you're going on who is most rested, [rather than] who should be facing whom. That's a bad situation and a bad feeling right there."
The Cubs have struggled at times to sort out exactly what they're going to do in the late innings, but their deep starting rotation has allowed them to call on that unsettled bullpen for the third-fewest innings in baseball. If they can get the right guys pitching at the right times, they'll be in good shape.
Then we come to the interesting cases of the Dodgers and the Red Sox. Baseball's dream World Series matchup from a year ago -- that was dashed in the League Championship Series round -- once again has a chance to come to fruition. Boston and Los Angeles have been the dominant teams in their respective leagues, and both look very much playoff-bound.
So the workloads may not tell that much in August and September, especially for the Dodgers, who are dominating the National League West. But come October, bullpen work is magnified more than ever. It's one of the most important predictors of postseason success. And if current trends keep up, the Red Sox will be in great shape, while the Dodgers could be in a pickle.
Each team has benefited greatly from a fine bullpen so far in 2009. The Red Sox lead the Majors in WXRL at 8.086. The Dodgers are second at 7.005. Boston ranks first in bullpen ERA, while Los Angeles fifth. They're also 1-2 in ARP.
But the Dodgers' bullpen has seen the second-heaviest workload in the big leagues this year, behind only the Orioles. The Red Sox have the 11th-fewest bullpen innings, and they're surely aware of that. Boston keeps an extremely close eye on bullpen workloads as a matter of organizational policy. Meanwhile, it's long been a trait of Dodgers manager Joe Torre that he rides his hottest and most trusted relievers hard -- meaning the workload falls disproportionately on the pitchers his team will need in October.
Maybe it will make a difference, and maybe it won't. But when every little edge is magnified, the skippers and teams with relatively rested bullpens will be happy to have that leg up.
Matthew Leach is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
