Blue Jays Pitching

What is wrong with the Blue Jays bullpen? It is not that this is a recurring question this year but ... it seems like a perennial question.  To be 100% fair, the year began on a bad note for the Jays' bullpen. Yates went down before the season. Merryweather almost right away, and Borucki and Mayza have been on and off the IL.  And,  Pearson, who was supposed to provide some depth somewhere, went down early too and seems to be stuck in some kind of funk. Let's be fair again. The Jays upper management rebuilt the bullpen.  Trades were made for Cimber, Richards and Hand, and Saucedo, and Snead were called up. Finally, the bullpen has had to pitch in ... well ... not major league parks and move home field three times. I know the rest of the team has as well (and, the effects might be showing) but this has to be a particular problem for pitchers because it allows hitters to take advantage of smaller fields. In short, while the bullpen has taken a lot of heat for the Jays recent struggles and have taken heat over the entire season, the current context has created a situation where problems seem almost to have been bound to occur and where a serious effort was made to (1) create a good bullpen and (2) to rebuild it after it problems started to occur.

Earlier this year, Jays Manager Charlie Montoyo expressed some frustration (which is rare) with the bullpen when asked about the situation by reporters.  I forget his exact reply but, in effect, he said "these are the pitchers I have. I don't have much else that I can do other than use them." This is true. He can only use the players on his team.  I don't think there is an easy solution  but I also think part of the problem is the way the Jays manage their bullpen and the frequency with which bullpen questions occur suggests that this is an institutional problem.  If we go back to the days Gibby managed the team or even before it, what the Jays have tried to do institutionally is foolproof the bullpen. Using the current strategy -- common to most teams from what I can tell across the majors -- the goal is for the starting pitcher to get through the sixth inning, fifth if they look like they are starting to struggle ... or, even if they are not. The mantra is don't let the other team see your starter for the third time because by that point they have figured him out and batting averages will rise.  Going along with this, relief pitchers are to be geared to "maximum effort." Ideally, they will pitch no more than one inning, throw as hard as they can so that fastball speeds ranging into the high 90s (Romano is +99) are now common. One inning, 14-15 pitches, and make way for the next guy.  This is a strategy that the Royals used in their good years. The overall management of the staff might be complicated by using an "opener" (in the manner of the Rays) and then having a "bulk" pitcher (instead of a starter) come in for five innings or so, until giving way to the bullpen. 

It is more-or-less this strategy that the Jays have tried to implement and it is this strategy that has almost consistently (with the exception of the back half of one season) failed under both Gibby and Montoyo. Like many strategies, I think it developed for a number of reasons but I also think we might ask questions about its universal applicability. More exactly, if it is not working for the Jays, might it be time to consider a different strategy? 

This strategy has a number of implications: 

• It forces teams to carry a larger number of pitchers than they used to
• This means that most teams have short benches and I'd not be surprised if the Jays did not have one of the shortest benches going. 
• Because one is carrying fewer position players (so one can carry more pitchers) it means that there is an on-going search for the "super sub," a player who can play multiple positions. Under Gibby, for instance, the Jays tried to play infielders in the outfield (with predictable effects) and Montoyo has done this occasionally (with predictable effects) as well. IOW, it creates defensive weaknesses.
• These defensive weaknesses are further augmented by the fact that the larger number of pitchers means that teams (like the Jays) can't really carry defensive subs. I could be wrong about this but I have a sense that in my youth, more teams used defensive subs to shore up their defence late in games. 
• Platooning has become less common for the same reason.  Bobby Cox, back in the day, used to carry five outfielders;  the Os carried six for a while. One year the Jays platooned in LF, RF, 1B, DH, 3B and at catcher. Now that kind of extensive platoon system is not possible. There just is not enough room on the active roster.
• The regular (perhaps even "over") use of the bullpen also means that pitchers get tired. There is an on-going need, it seems, for "fresh arms" and so teams make just a bazillion roster moves over the span of a season.  Pitchers, in particular, but also bench players, seem to always be going up and down to AAA to make room for a yet another pitcher. I haven't checked this but I'd guess that the Jays average considerably more than one roster move per week. This creates a lot of instability on a team. If your regulars know that they are there come what may (and, not going to come out because there is less platooning and fewer defensive subs), the reserves and the bullpen seem remarkably unstable over the span of season. I can't say for sure, but I wonder what this does to players' sense of belonging? 
• It also takes the thinking out of the game for managers. In effect, in-game decision making shifts upward to upper level management and analysts. Managers implement a strategy that has been determined for them.  I am sure there have always been tensions between managers and general managers and presidents, but I am a bit surprised by how few there seem to be. GMs seem to look for managers who can implement a plan, rather than, say, Filipe Alou or Earl Weaver who can develop one. The best managers today (Dusty Baker, Dave Roberts, Dave Cash) still seem to be in charge. It is not at all clear to me that Montoyo is in charge with the Jays. The game seems to become like a flowchart. If starter reachers 90 pitcher or 2+ times through and we are ahead, pitcher X is brought in in the 6th, X1 in the seventh, X2 in the eights, etc.  If we are behind, pitcher Y, etc.
• It also makes the game predictable. If this system works as it should and you are the opposing manager, you basically know your opponent's game plan with regard to a number of things before the game begins. 

I know that there always were game plans and that is a good thing. What it means for a staff, however, is that you need, almost every game at least four pitchers (a starter and 3 relievers). Often more. I think the Jays used 6 pitchers the other night in their loss to the Nats. 

This is the point at which this strategy becomes counter productive. Because one is using so many pitchers, the chances that one of them will be have a bad night seem to magnify. Bill James made this point years ago back in the Baseball Abstract days (I think, don't quote me).  It seems to me that this is common sense. Roy Halladay, a starter but I person who I think we could conclude knew what he was talking about, once said that he felt he had his best stuff only about 10% of the time. The other times, he needed to feel his way, be crafty, work through problems. His goal -- an intelligent one -- was to minimize the number of opposing batters on base to minimize the number of runs if he made a big mistake (a home run).  Now if this is true for a guy as good as Halladay, how much is it true for other pitchers? To restate the problem: the more pitchers one uses in a game the greater the chance we will find one who just doesn't have it that night. 

One of the interesting things about this strategy is that it worked for some teams, but there is an important distinction. The managers who developed this -- and, other, strategies, like the "opener" -- were responding the talent they had. Yost used the one pitcher per inning for the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings because he had the talent to do that and he was making the optimal use of his talent.  Joe Maddon, in Chicago, used a different strategy, bringing in his best relief pitcher early in games (particularly in the playoffs) to ensure that his team kept the lead (rather than saving the best relief pitcher until the end of the game to get the save). Tito Francona did the same thing in Cleveland. IOW, the pitcher pilling up the saves -- the usual marker of a relief pitcher's value, or one of them -- was not the best pitcher on the staff. Cash used an opener because that was the talent he had available to him. He has moved away from it -- to no discernible negative effect -- because he has different talent and he responds to that.  Said differently, in attempting to foolproof the bullpen, the Jays (and other teams) have misused a strategy. They have taken a strategy designed to respond to a particular coalescence of talent and tried to use it compensate for a lack of talent. It is like trying to use a rock as a hammer. It might work to pound in a nail but without the claw on the back end, it won't easily pull out a poorly driven in nail. Said differently, I am not surprised that the Jays efforts to make use of the strategy have not worked. I am a bit surprised that they have stuck to it as along as they have.

What should they do? Well, first they should acknowledge the bad luck they have had and accept that a significant part of the problem lies in bad luck injuries. I also think they should congratulate themselves on trying to rebuild their bullpen. The third thing is that they need to re-evaluate their management of the pitching staff.  That might not be possible this year. We might be too far down the path of this season to make any change possible but we are also approaching the point of now return. I don't see how the Jays can mathematically catch Tampa for division title so they need to look at a wildcard playoff spot. That means they need to make up 4.5 games between now and the end of the season. That is possible. It is one good streak combined with the As having a bad string of games. It is a problem that they have to climb over Boston and Seattle, too, but there are enough games left for the Jays to make up the difference and they've got at least six games in the next short while against the Tigers. But there is little room for error and so if they pile up another loss on two (or, the As go on a winning streak), there might be no reason *not* to try to innovate, if we are not making up ground with the existing strategy. 

Here are some potential innovations or at least things to think about: 

• Is there any way for starters to go longer in games? By having starters go a bit longer, the number of innings that the bullpen needs to carry lessens.  The pitch count is useful but it also can't be a tyranny and there is no reason that a major league pitchers should be removed (unless they are in bombing) if their pitch count is lower than 90. 
• Can we consider a long reliever? Tampa has messed around with this this year using a veteran former starter. Back in the day, all teams had a long relief pitcher (usually either a veteran who was no longer up to starting or a kid looking to get into the majors). In the days of four pitcher rotations, the long-relief pitcher doubled as a spot starter (particularly for double headers).  Having a pitcher who can come in an eat up three or four innings saves a lot of wear on the bullpen. 
• Can relievers -- particularly closers -- pitch more than one inning. Romano has done that ... what ...  once this year? I forget the results.  Imagine, however, this scenario. It is the eighth inning; two on, we're up by one. The game in on the line. Who do we want in pitching? Do we want our best pitcher or do we want to save that player until the ninth so they can start with a clean slate? Even if the closer does not actually close the game, I think we need to get our best chance of winning in the game. 
• Could we regenerate the middle relief pitcher. If 2 times through the lineup is some sort of limit (and, I will confess, I am not sure it should be. I'd like to see some comparative data on it), why should we pull a reliever after one inning? In this case, the interpretation of the data seems contradictory. If you start a game or are the "bulk" pitcher that comes in, in the 2nd, you can see the other team twice. If you come in, say, in the 6th, you can see 3-6 batters. Why should the inning in which one enters the game, have such an effect? 

I think the combined extension of starters (and the Jays starters have not been bad) and the use of long and middle relief would allow them to lower the number of relievers they need to carry. This could, then, also serve as a way to expand the bench. I don't think we will get to this point and strategy has changed enough that it might be impossible, but in the strike shortened year, Alou used what was, in effect, a 5 pitcher bullpen. That creates a lot of extra space on the bench. The kind of strategy also bring in your best pitchers in key situations, rather than having. then sit on the bench, or defines specific roles for pitchers and allows them to develop into them. 

The pennant race might prevent such a strategy this year and I am not saying everyone word that comes out of my keyboard is gold. But, if we get to a point where we have to press the panic button, why not try something different? What we are doing is not working. 

The Bullpen Quandry

I was watching the Jays yesterday and thinking about the bullpen and how the use of relief pitchers has changed over the years. I was thinking about this because it is no secret that the Jays pen has been pitching poorly. There are, I think, a number of reasons for this. This includes indecision on the part of the management about who is actually supposed to do what. It includes players simply not being able to do the job they were assigned to do. But, I think it involves, most of all, a commitment to a philosophy of the bullpen, if we can call it that, that the Jays are just not equipped to implement. In other words, the Jays need to rethink how they are using their bullpen. What do I mean?

To get my point, we need a bit of backstory. Years ago, when I was a kid, managers used their bullpen differently than they do now. The role of closer was just really coming into its own and we were, perhaps, in the first great golden age of the bullpen closer: Bruce Sutter, Dan Quisenberry, Kent Tekulve, Goose Gossage, Lee Smith, Sparky Lyle. What defined these closers was their ability to get guys out. Their managers went to them when they needed to get someone out. These pitchers pitched a lot of innings. They finished a lot of games, but they pitched more innings than today's closers because their managers brought them in to get an out. They were the guys who pitched when the game was on the line. This was late in games but not necessarily the 9th inning. If you need outs in the 8th or even the 7th; if the situation was "mission critical" ... you went to your closer. The situation might be something like this: there is one out in the 8th, we have a one run lead; runners on first and second. Important need for good pitching ... now is the time to go to the closer.

Fast forward to today: this almost never happens. It is odd for a manager to bring in his closer without a lead and odd -- very odd -- for the manager to bring in their closer before the 9th. Most closers pitch one inning at a time. The normal use of the closer today is not a mission critical situation but a situation where they start with a clean slate. The bases are empty, get three outs, we have a two or three run lead. Finish off the game so we can go home.  In other words, the way in which relief pitchers are used has changed dramatically. That moment of calling for Goose Gossage with the game on the line has given way to calling for ... well ... someone else, with the game not really on the line. This has been disguised by the fact that the result is the same for each of the scenarios I laid out above. In each case, the closer gets a save. One save, however, really is a save: the closer came in and dug his team out of trouble. The other is important. Don't get me wrong on that, but its not the same level of importance.

What has happened? A big part of what has transpired is a chance in the way managers think about games. Instead of having a closer who can dig you out of trouble, the objective of bullpen management is, to use the lingo, to "short games." Thus, we don't just have a closer, we have a set up guy, as well, who also does not usually pitch more than one inning at a pop either. The goal is to win the game in less than the regulation 9 innings and then use the bullpen in such a way that the other team cannot catch up. Tony La Russa was one of the pioneers of this approach to bullpen use; Dennis Eckersley was the prototype one inning closer. And, it worked. La Russa was amazingly successful in both Oakland and St. Louis with this approach to using the bullpen. Like other successful innovations, other managers copied it. Cito Gaston used it in the Jays heyday ... not to the same degree as it is used today, but with Ward and Henke, he could go hold, save and shorten games. It worked and because it worked other did it.

Now, I don't want to sound like a curmudgeon. That is why I said twice that this strategy "worked." We should also note that it had a series of implications that affect the game and, potentially negatively if one does not have the staff to make this strategy work:

1. It requires that team's carry larger bullpens. As this strategy proved successful, managers began to extend it. They began to shorten the number of innings starters pitched. I heard Pat talking the other night about the problems some pitcher might encounter once he saw the batting order a third time. The manger -- it was the opposing team -- obviously agreed because he pulled the starter (who was pitching well) out after 65 pitches.  What one looks for from pitchers today is 6 innings. Yes, I know, everyone would like to get more than 6 innings but that is really what one looks for. Starter goes 6, Reliever #1 pitches one inning, Reliever #2 pitches one inning, Closer pitches one inning. The idea here is this: if you have not beat me inside six innings, you ain't gonna beat me. Hence, "shortening" the game. But you need more pitchers and more pitchers means bigger bullpens. Seven is the norm; some teams are now carrying eight guys in the pen.

2. Bigger bullpens means fewer bench players. Hence, the old extensive platoon systems that Earl Weaver and Bobby Cox (when he was with the Jays) used to use to advance the offence and cover over holes in the lineup have disappeared. I notice more and more teams with players hitting below the Mendoza line. I don't know for sure, but my guess is that this is the result of shorter benches. I can't platoon and work to a player's strengths. I need to keep him in their against pitchers he can't hit (say, lefties) because my bench is short.  When I was a kid a lot of teams carried five outfielders. Almost no one does that today (at least in the AL).  The effect of this is to limit the manager's ability to make in-game changes.

3. It has also increased instability. Because the bullpen is pitching only one inning at a time and then is rested, we have players going up and down to AAA all the time. The result is instability on the team. Exactly who is the Jays bullpen is not always clear.

4. It makes it very difficult to determine what closer stats (particularly saves) really mean. Bill James, I think, used to the term BS Save (which is a nifty pun) to indicate that not all saves area created equal. Thus, as the number of saves increase, we have less idea precisely what those numbers mean. They mean the pitcher is a good pitcher but how good? If the vast majority of saves occur as a result of a entering a game with good lead and the bases empty ... that is just not the same as getting one's saves from entering the game in a tight situation and pulling it out. Both skills, I'll say again, are valuable, but they are not the same skill.

5. Finally, I'll speculate a bit since I'm not 100% sure of this but I think that managers tend to like their pitchers to finish off the inning before bringing in the next guy. There is the platoon advantage change (the "situational lefty") but my sense is that there are more pitching changes but those those changes occur after the end of an inning; not during it. There is no doubt that many of the changes are legitimate. Our starter has thrown 100 pitches and gotten us through 6, let's get him out. But, it also simplifies managerial decision making processes. The starter is pulled only after the inning has been, as it were, won or lost. The risk of bringing in a new pitcher part-way through is not there.  I could be wrong on this one, I concede, but my sense, then is that managers intervene in innings less than they used to even though they are making more pitching changes.

Back when I was a kid, the standard bullpen configuration looked something like this:

• long reliever/spot starter
• middle relief 
• middle relief
• lefty
• set up
• closer 

Or, some combination of those. The long reliever could serve as a mop up man, as well. Middle relievers pitched two or three innings at a pop, as well. This, combined with a four man starting rotations, left two (or, three) more bench players. 

Today, we have bullpens that look more like this: 

• long
• middle
• middle 
• middle
• lefty
• set up
• closer

But, middle is redefined as is long. Long relievers almost never spot start. If a spot start is needed a move is made and a player brought up from AAA and often sent right back down again after, thus burning options on two players (since someone else had to be sent down to make room). Middle guys pitch an inning a shot. Yesterday, against Seattle, in an effort to shorten the game, the Jays used four relief pitchers (over a ten inning game) after the starter had gone 5.2. Thus for 4.1 innings, they used four pitchers. 

My big problem is not with this strategy. If you have the tools to make it work, good for you. I will confess that I am skeptical about it, but I'll assume that those people making up their mind on pitching staffs have the data (in this day and age) to support their decisions. My problem is specific to the Jays. The Jays don't seem to have the arms to make this strategy work. It is, as  I said at the beginning of this blog, no secret that their bullpen has not been pitching well. They are losing a lot of close games (I counted five one-run loses in July so far alone). Yet, despite the manifest failure of their bullpen strategy, the Jays keep trying it and it keeps producing bad results. I'd suggest that the number one priority for the team is a manifestly good bullpen guy.

The thinking here is that all players have value but getting the most out of the value is the job of management. That is: management figures out how to use a player to good effect. It is, of course, easy to criticize after something has not worked but ... did anyone think that Brett Cecil was a closer? He had had a couple of good years as a middle/situational lefty split in the bullpen. In fact, he pitched well in that role. Moving him out of that role created two problems: (1) it left a vacancy that Loup could not fill and (2) put Cecil into a job he could not do. Thus, moving Cecil to closer created two problems, both of which persist as I write this blog. This is a  bit less of an excusable problem than one might think since it was evident near the end of the season last year and certainly over the winter when the decision was made to cut ties with Jansen. IOW, you could see this problem coming. The Jays adopted a shorten the game strategy without the tools to actually shorten the game. Thus, they were almost bound to end up losing a bunch of close games. 

How does one address this problem? Well, in the longer run, one would like the Jays to rethink their bullpen strategy. Maybe the shorten the game strategy is good, but it has a serious weakness that is magnified when you have a weak staff. The problem is that on any given game, a pitcher doesn't "have it." That is: he just does not pitch well.  A friend told me Roy Halladay said that he felt he had his A stuff only about 10% of the time. That is likely an exaggeration as a result of modesty but we all know that pitchers sometimes pitch great; sometimes they suck; sometimes they are average, etc. The more pitchers one uses, the greater the chance that one will get to a pitcher who is having a bad game or who is not quite as good as the others. In Moneyball, the Beane character says that the goal is to get deep into another team's bullpen early in the game so that they have to use their weaker pitchers as the series winds along. Exactly. This is what one should be guarding against from the other side of the coin. Using a lot of pitchers thus creates two problems: (1) it increases the chance of bad luck (a pitcher having a bad day because you are using more pitchers) and (2) it forces you to use your weaker pitchers as the series goes along. If we add these problems to the ones the Jays have already, you can see how problems magnify. A team with a weak staff -- or pitchers not working in their optimal roles -- is certainly susceptible to problems if you use a pitching strategy that puts those weak pitchers out there with increased regularity. 

In the short run, the  Jays have to address this problem by (a) getting a bullpen closer (perhaps Chapman), (b) redefining roles in their bullpen, and (c) be willing to pitch the stronger pitchers for long than one inning. A redefined bullpen might look like this:

• good closer
• Osuna (set up)
• Sanchez (middle or set up, pitching longer than one inning at a time)
• Cecil (middle, situational lefty)
• Delabar (middle)
• Hendricks (long)
• Schultz or Loup  (long or lefty) 

This is not perfect but it gives the best chance that any one single change  could give to the Jays to win games.