Milwaukee Brewers Blog - Between the Green Pillars : Bullpen

Season Preview: Bullpen

Ryan Topp — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:24:22 GMT

Yesterday, in our breakdown of the Brewers starting rotation, we took a look at what the starting staff was going to do after losing CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets' extremely valuable production. The bullpen didn't lose players of that caliber, but there is still a gap to be filled. Together, Salomon Torres, Eric Gagne, Guillermo Mota and Brian Shouse accounted for 234 2/3 innings, 41 of the teams 45 saves and accumulated a combined 3.87 ERA. Interestingly, that was almost exactly half of the total innings pitched by Crew relievers in 2008 (472 1/3) and almost exactly the overall bullpen ERA of 3.89. So while the team does have to replace four of it's more important horses from the '08 pen, it's not like the team was relying on that group heavily for it's best run prevention. At a total price-tag of over 18.5 million, they were well compensated for their efforts and, all things considered, it's probably very fair to say they were, in fact, over compensated.

Due to some internal rising costs, the team didn't have the resources to spend as it had on the bullpen. Thus, the challenge for Doug Melvin and the rest of the front office heading into the off-season was to construct a cheaper bullpen that didn't make large sacrifices in productivity from the group that finished 8th in pen ERA in MLB last season. Fortunately for Melvin, the market cooperated with this need and he was able to acquire several replacements at bargain basement prices compared to what they might have gotten just a year or two ago on the open market.

Headlining the Brewers' offseason acquisitions was all-time saves leader Trevor Hoffman, who the Brewers brought in to be their saves specialist after a messy divorce with the Padres early in the offseason. At 40 in 2008, Hoffman wasn't the pitcher he once was by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, he'll still fan batters with that changeup that will one day land him in Cooperstown, evidenced by his 46 K's in 45 1/3 IP and he still doesn't walk many batters (9). The big difference now is that when Hoffman does get hit, he tends to get hit hard (8 HR allowed) which ultimately played a big part in his ERA working its way up close to the park adjusted league average at 3.77. He also had some trouble pitching multiple days in a row, which comes with the territory as a closer. Further muddying the picture is the oblique injury that just landed him on the disabled list to open the season. When Hoffman does come back, it's hard to say just what the Brewers can expect to get out of him. They may end up turning to another option for the 9th inning at various points throughout the season for availability and effectiveness reasons. At the very least, his name carries some cache with it and his presence does help sort out roles. If he can squeeze one more solid season out of that aging body, the pen should be set at the back end.

There are many candidates to set up for Hoffman, but the most likely based on past performance is another change-up specialist, Carlos Villanueva. Overall, Villanueva's 2008 ERA of 4.07 is pretty pedestrian looking. Digging a bit beneath the surface, however, reveals a much different picture. As a starter, his ERA was well over 6. Once he was moved to relief and hitters no longer got a second and third look at him in a single outing, his ERA dropped to a sparkling 2.12 in 59 1/3 innings. CV has the stuff to fool 'em once, but not twice, as his strikeout rate more than doubled (to 9.44/9 IP) and his walk rate improved substantially as well. While it's asking too much for Villanueva to keep his ERA down in the low 2's, if he can simply keep it around three while giving the Brewers close to 100 innings, he has a good shot to be the best reliever in the pen in 2009. CV is also a leading contender to replace Hoffman when he is unavailable for whatever reason in the 9th.

Another candidate to pick up some late inning duty is fireballing righty Seth McClung, who will serve as a swing man and potential rotation replacement in 2009 as well. Like Villanueva, McClung split his 2008 between the rotation and the bullpen. Though McClung did post a better ERA (3.67 versus 4.24) in the pen, his other numbers were fairly comparable starting and relieving. "Big Red" achieved something close to cult-hero status in the final weeks of the season with several very effective outings against the Chicago Cubs, culminating with 4 inning save on the final Friday of the season. McClung still struggles with his command at times, getting himself into trouble with walks and relying on K's to get out of jams. Chances are good that McClung will both start and finish some games in 2009. Exactly how he is used will largely depend on the team's needs and how he's doing at any given moment.

The lone expensive holdover from Melvin's 2007-08 pen shopping spree, David Riske suffered through an injury riddled season in 2008 and even when he was on the mound his performance was well below his own standards. For the first time in his career since 2002, Riske's ERA was over league average, spiking all the way up to 5.31. The problem seemed to be an inability to locate his fastball where he wanted it that ultimately stemmed from the elbow issues that eventually shut him down for good in early September. Riske's 2008 struggles are a good example of the dangers of giving multi-year contracts to middle relievers. The Brewers are counting on him to give them more in 2009 to help justify the contract they gave him, though his performance in spring training thus far has been far from encouraging on that front.

One of the few bright spots in September for the Crew in 2009 was the performance of Todd Coffey, working 7 1/3 scoreless innings after being picked up off of waivers from Cincinnati. In 2006, Coffey was briefly the closer in Cinci, but then he became strangely hittable and lost the position. He spent most of his time in 2008 in the minors. If Coffey really did turn the corner after being let go, something which is a distinct possibility for a reliever of his age and ability, the Brewers acquired a valuable piece for nothing. Also in the "cross your fingers and hope that he's turned the corner" category is journeyman reliever Jorge Julio. There are a couple of safe assumptions that can be made about Julio at this point: he is going to strike guys out (career K/9IP of 8.7) and he's going to walk them (4.4 BB/9IP). How effective he will be will ultimately depend on how often balls fall in or fly out. Of course, some relievers don't figure it out until around the age of 30, and the Brewers will only need to keep him around long enough to see if he's been able to figure it all out.

The story of Mark DiFelice is one of persistence in the face of constant doubt. He didn't reach the majors until the tender age of 31 when the Brewers needed someone to come up and fill in for a myriad of injuries last May. DiFelice relies on his low 80's cutter to set up hitters, and his peripheral numbers are fantastic. In the majors last year he posted a K:BB ratio of 20:4 in only 19 innings, and held batters to a 1.11 WHIP. The problem is that when batters do get a hold of one of his pitches, they tend to go a ways (4 HR) and his OPS against versus lefties is over 1.000. He'll open 2009 in the bullpen, probably in the "mop up" role, though Manager Ken Macha has shown some willingness to use him to get out the occasional tough righty this spring, which makes sense considering he held them to a .433 OPS in 2008.

Rounding out the opening day bullpen is lefty Mitch Stetter, who has seen limited action in each of the last two seasons in Milwaukee. Stetter's 2008 major league numbers are a bit misleading in some ways as compared to his whole minor league career. His biggest problem after being promoted was his 19 walks in 25 1/3 innings, which is very out of character for a guy with a career BB/9IP of 2.53. He was able to maintain a K rate of better than one per inning and that ultimately allowed him to get out of enough jams to post a 3.20 ERA. The biggest difference between Stetter and his predecessor in the "lefty" role, Brain Shouse, is the fact that Stetter can actually get right handed batters out at a respectable clip (.648 OPS against) which should give Macha the ability to let Stetter face righties sandwiched between a pair of lefties.

Beyond the seven who will open the season in Milwaukee and Hoffman, the Brewers do have some interesting depth to turn to in the inevitable case of injury and/or ineffectiveness. Tim Dillard was sent down to AAA to open the season starting ballgames, but he was modestly effective out of the pen in the big leagues in 2008, posting a 4.40 ERA in 14 1/3 innings. Long term, the smart money is on his being a reliever in the Salomon Torres sinkerball mold, and he could be effective as soon as this year in that role should the opportunity arise. Acquired from Philadelphia in the offseason, lefty specialist RJ Swindle and his slower-than-slow curve will be sitting in AAA waiting for the need for a second lefty or an injury to Stetter to arise. Down at AA Huntsville, Omar Aguilar has the potential to be a closer at some point with the combination of a high 90's fastball and power slider, and he could see big league action this year if he can learn to command his pitches more consistently. Beyond that, Nick Green or Chase Wright could conceivably come up at some point in either the rotation or more likely to cover for one of the long men who might slip into the rotation, though that isn't likely a long term solution.

As with the rotation, many of the national baseball press have written off the Brewers pen as doomed to failure before the season even starts due to the high profile losses sustained in the offseason. Contrary to that surface level impression, the smart money seems to be on Melvin having assembled enough depth to keep things respectable, even if they lack the true "stopper" that grabs headlines. Getting something significant out of Hoffman and at least one of Julio, Coffey and Riske should give Macha enough options to navigate the late innings in 2009.

Bullpen Picture Clears Up a Bit

Ryan Topp — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 02:29:00 GMT

While none of the moves made by the Brewers on Sunday are surprising, they do answer some questions fans had about how the Brewers were going to break camp in the bullpen:

Tim Dillard and Nick Green were optioned to Triple-A Nashville. Omar Aguilar and Alex Periard are bound for Double-A Huntsville. Mark Rogers was optioned to Class A Brevard County, and Cody Scarpetta will go to Class A Wisconsin.

Obviously Scarpetta, Rogers and Periard were never going to break camp with the Brewers. Green was always more of an insurance policy than anything else. With Aguilar's quick ascent last year from A ball to dominating in the AFL at year's end, there were questions in the off-season about whether or not he might be able to break camp with the team. The lack of control that he showed in AA last year probably necessitated his opening the year in the minors. It was a bit surprising that the Brewers elected to send him all the way down to AA, though a solid start should find him in Nashville before the kids are out of school.

The most surprising move in the group was the decision not just to send Dillard down, as he was pitching well enough to be in the conversation for a bullpen slot, but also to change his role:

For Dillard, the move was to work him into a starter because the organization likes his power arm and feels if he can continue to develop a slider and changeup, he could be a valuable asset in the near future. Manager Ken Macha said it is possible Dillard to could be called up sometime this season as a starter or for the bullpen.

The decision to return Dillard to the rotation almost certainly has more to do with the immediate need for starting depth at the upper levels of the minors as it does with his long term outlook as a player. I still think he's going to wind up in the pen over the long haul, but after the rotation and Seth McClung, the Brewers have no good options to start games to begin the year should issues arise. If Chris Capuano establishes that he is back from the injury and nothing else goes wrong in the rotation, Dillard could easily wind up back in the majors out of the pen. It's much easier to convert a starter to relief in season than the other way around, so he is still only a phone call away from being in the pen any given day for the Brewers.

So now that we know that Dillard and Aguilar will not open up 2009 in the bullpen, the race for what looks like 7 bullpen slots is starting to come into focus. Trevor Hoffman, Carlos Villanueva and David Riske are all easy locks. Seth McClung will be on the major league club to open the year, and now that Braden Looper appears to be on track to start the season in the rotation, Seth will likely be headed to the pen. Mitch Stetter is the presumed leader for the pen lefty role, though RJ Swindle is putting up a respectable showing. The team probably doesn't need a second lefty out of the pen, as Villanueva's change makes him a strong option against a good left-hander, but it would be unwise to completely count out the possibility.

That leaves two spots in the pen for some combination of Eduardo Morlan, Jorge Julio, Todd Coffey, RJ Swindle, and Mark DiFelice. Morlan has been fairly unimpressive thus far in spring. A rule 5 pick this off-season, Morlan must spend the entire year on the Brewers roster or be offered back to Tampa Bay, who would presumably like to have him back. Julio, as well, has not looked too exciting, but Coffey has looked very good. Both Coffey and Julio would have to clear waivers to be sent down to open the season, which probably makes the decision to send Swindle down to open the year easier. DiFelice is a wild card, because of his unconventional stuff and age. He has shown the ability to get major leaguers out, though he will give up his share of hard hit balls. Macha has said that he's willing to consider DiFelice.

It's early, but I think the smart money is on Coffey and Morlan at this point. With Villanueva, McClung and Riske all being viable multi-inning options, the team probably has some room to hide Morlan at the back end until they can get a better look at him. DiFelice probably will deserve a spot, but if the team wants to maintain any depth they should probably try to keep two guys who would be able to walk away so that they can keep something in reserve. The best case scenario for the team would be for Morlan and either Coffey or Julio to pitch completely lights out from here on out and allow them to hold on to good pitchers for the major leagues and solid depth at AAA.

However it shakes out, the Brewers should have a fairly deep and versitale bullpen this season. The question will be how much does Hoffman have in the tank and will a couple guys step up as lights out setup men?

Slotting the Bullpen

Ryan Topp — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 05:48:36 GMT

One of the more frequent complaints of those in the Sabermetric community about how bullpens are managed is a lack of flexibility that would allow a manager to use his best arms at the time in the game when they would be most useful for preserving a lead. Much of that criticism is generally focused on the notion that a teams best reliever should come in to get three outs to start the 9th inning in any game where the lead is between one and three runs. Beyond that, though, is the greater tendency of managers to lock guys into specialized roles and then leave them there despite the other circumstances that might arise.

Brewer fans that worry about such things will probably take heart in this line of thought from Manager Ken Macha:

"I will probably sit down with the bullpen guys and say, 'We've got one guy with a role here, and that's the closer,'" Macha said. "That's what I've done in my previous job, and the reason is that you might be going into the seventh inning and facing the heart of [the other team's] order. You might as well put your top guy out there in that inning because the game's on the line then."

So besides bowing to the bare minimum requirement of the LaRussian Bullpen, the closer, it sounds like Macha wants to keep his options open for where he's going to deploy his guys this year. If we believe that, there will be no "he's my 8th inning guy" excuses coming from the managers office like last year.

What is interesting is that the players don't seem to necessarily buy it:

So it came as no surprise to Riske that Macha was talking about being flexible with roles.

"That always gets said in Spring Training, and then they always end up working themselves out," Riske said. "The way people pitch is what slots them into roles, so I just worry about getting outs."

and

"I think the roles will always define themselves," Villanueva said. "As the season goes on, I think [Macha] will use certain guys in certain situations, but a guy can't pitch every day. If the guy who throws the eighth inning goes four days in a row, someone else is going to have to do the fifth day. Whether he assigns us roles or not, I see it working either way."

Riske is right about that. Managers do frequently say that they're not going to be a slave to some predetermined order which dictates they put X reliever into a given situation, and then cave. Macha's predecessor often said things along those lines, and then would relent and find safety in taking the decision out of his own hands by setting up roles for his guys. Ultimately, there is some safety for managers in creating roles and then sticking to them. It cuts down the second guessing that fans like to engage in when a manager brings in a guy who ends up blowing a lead, at least in the short term.

There is also the matter of the relievers themselves. Some relievers will swear that they pitch better when they know their role and can anticipate when they'll be coming into a game. Managers often use this as an excuse for creating and sticking to strict roles for the guys in their pen, and it's hard to say for sure that they're wrong to do so. As Villanueva points out, however, a manager can't stick to roles 100% because guys can only pitch so many days in a row and so many innings total. That mandates at least some flexibility.

The main problem with trying to stick to set roles in the bullpen is that it is very rare to have multiple relievers go through a season pitching well the whole time. Baseball is a game of ups and downs and no other role is quite as volatile as relief pitching. Often, by the time a guy has established himself as a solid and reliable option he has moved right through an upswing and will soon find himself out of that important role due to lack of effectiveness. The result is often a tail chasing exercise, where a guy pitches important innings not because he is currently pitching well, but because he was pitching well two weeks before.

If Macha is able to stick to his plan of using relievers flexibly from day to day, he probably can squeeze a little more out of the bullpen, though it may well be at the expense of some fan and player goodwill. So far, Macha has shown little interest in those things, so maybe he can pull it off. It will be one of the many interesting things to watch for this season with a new skipper at the helm.

Brewers Shouldn't Overreact To Losing CC

Ryan Topp — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:31:00 GMT

Well, it happened. It had to, really.

The Brewers put up a good fight, apparently even better than was reported. In the end, though, the Yankee's just weren't going to be denied. There doesn't seem to be a lot of shock amongst Brewer fans, even though many reports that came out yesterday made it sound like the Brewers had moved toward the front of the line in the pursuit of CC. Part of that is because it was largely accepted at the time of the trade that Sabathia was nothing more than a rent-a-player, though even the most sober of analysts toyed with scenarios where it might be possible to keep him past 2008. Deep down, I think just about everyone knew it was too good to last.

The question moving forward is, what to do next? Thus far, the Brewers have limited their off-season moves to picking up minor leaguers and signing cheap role players like Jorge Julio, Todd Coffey and Mike Lamb. While the Brewers were waiting to hear from CC they had to minimize the kind of commitments they were getting into, which actually goes a long way towards demonstrating the kind of constricting effect his salary would have had on their ability to make moves to improve the team. Now that is out of the way and the team is apparently going full steam ahead in their search for a closer.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned a Jayson Stark column where he talked about the glut of closers on both the free agent and trade market this off-season. Since then, Fransisco Rodriguez signed a 3 year deal for 37 million, though there was speculation he was looking for 5 plus years at 15 million per year coming off his record setting season. Now Kerry Wood seems on the brink of signing a deal with the Indians that is much lower than what he was looking for with the Cubs before they let him go. So the price for the closer market seems to be falling into line with the notion that there is more supply than demand. It is important that Melvin take this into account in his dealings with the agents for these guys, and that he doesn't overpay. If that means walking away from a few guys before finding the right deal, so be it. Closer is one place the Brewers shouldn't overpay, pretty much ever but especially this year.

At this point the number one priority for Melvin probably should be building the depth of the starting rotation anyway, not trying to find a closer. Seth McClung is currently the only player on the roster who could reasonably fill the last spot in the rotation, and he is probably better served by being used in the bullpen, possibly as a closer should his performance warrant it. In this day and age, teams really need at least 6 and really 7 credible starting options. There are rumors that the Brewers are talking to Chris Capuano's agent about possibly coming back on a reduced deal, which would provide some depth later in the year at a reasonable price. That shouldn't be the first option, though.

The most important general rule right now for the Brewers is that they don't go out and try to make up for the disappointment of losing CC by overpaying (either in dollars or players) to improve the roster by adding a splashy name. Every GM and agent out there is going to be looking at the Brewers right now knowing that they might be under some added pressure to do something, and as a result they're probably not going to step forth with their best offer very easily. Caution is important when dealing with major roster decisions anyway, and it's especially important right now.

Closers, Closers Everywhere

Ryan Topp — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 03:41:00 GMT

Something that seemed vaguely true over the past few weeks was put into words by ESPN.com columnist Jayson Stark: There are more closers than there are teams looking for them this off-season.

Available as free agents: Francisco Rodriguez, Brian Fuentes, Trevor Hoffman, Kerry Wood and, depending on how you look at them in your bullpen neighborhood, Jason Isringhausen, Brandon Lyon, Eric Gagne and Juan Cruz. There's also Chad Cordero, who is coming off shoulder surgery and is iffy for Opening Day.

Also, potentially available on the trade market: J.J. Putz, Bobby Jenks, George Sherrill, Huston Street, Jose Valverde and Matt Capps.

Of course, the Brewers almost certainly aren't in for going after the top of that market:

The Brewers will be aggressive -- "but they need two starting pitchers (to replace CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets)," one GM said. "So I don't know how much they can allocate for a closer."

It's hard to say just how much this unnamed GM knows about the Brewers' intentions in terms of finding a closer. They do have some in-house options to fill both the rotation and the closer spot. Yovanni Gallardo will take a rotation spot and Ben Sheets could still conceivably end up back in the Brewer rotation next year. Seth McClung could start or close, and Carlos Villanueva could possibly do both also, though he's not really much of an option to start long term and he doesn't have classic closer stuff.

Ultimately, though, the pitching staff is thin. They probably do need another 200 inning, below league average ERA type pitcher, and those are not cheap. If one isn't available at a reasonable price (either in dollars or players), the glut of relief pitching on the market may allow them to compensate for the inability to improve in that way by building up the relief corps at a cheaper price. A lot of time is rightly focused on trying to build a pitching around having the starters eat a lot of innings so the weaker pitchers in the bullpen don't have to pitch many key "high leverage" innings. If you can't get the starters to chew up the innings, you can have some success making the back of the bullpen better. It's not the best option, but it is possible. If the team can get a late inning arm or two and then slide everyone else back to earlier roles, that helps build the whole staff.

The most important thing to take away from the glut of relievers on the market this winter is that it gives the team a lot of alternative ways to strengthen the pitching staff and it also gives them time to make the final decisions.