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Terry and the Bullpen

batmagadanleadoff Sep 14 2016 06:21 PM

538.com piece sez that managers are getting smarter about using their bullpen. Excerpt: Even in Major League Baseball’s enlightened sabermetric age, you’re liable to see at least one instance of obvious bullpen mismanagement on any given night. Such blunders usually come in the form of a manager hewing too closely to traditional inning-based roles — “saving” bullpen aces for a meaningless ninth frame when the game is on the line earlier, or bringing in a closer to hold a three-run lead in the ninth when a rookie would do just fine. These tactical errors can be frustrating to watch, as tenuous leads become deficits while the team’s best relievers are sitting in the bullpen waiting for “their” inning. Logic and hard-won experience have shown that a team’s best relievers should pitch during the most important junctures of a game, regardless of when those moments occur. It’s a philosophy that saber-savvy analysts inside and outside the game have been pushing for some time now. And despite their occasional lapses in judgment, it appears that managers across the league, in addition to deploying some of the best bullpens ever in an absolute sense, are getting much better at optimally deploying their relievers according to skill, regardless of their age or experience. To measure this, .... The article then demonstrates how it measured to arrive at it conclusion. All data is league-aggregate: the data is not subdivided for each team or manager. Personally, I'd suspect that Collins's bullpen use drags the data down a bit. I never liked Terry's bullpen use and think that it's prolly his worst area managing -- tactics-wise. Terry fits that manager described in the first paragraph from the 538 piece, posted above in the quote box -- to a "tee". OTOH, it's kinda fun to see Familia's saves totals climb past Mets record territory and close in on the '50s. Read it all at http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bas ... -bullpens/

dinosaur jesus Sep 14 2016 07:03 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

I've been saying this for a while now. To myself, in the shower. It's about time someone finally listened. I'd be in favor of ditching saves as an official statistic. Thinking about them just screws up managers' heads.

Ceetar Sep 14 2016 07:17 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

dinosaur jesus wrote: I've been saying this for a while now. To myself, in the shower. It's about time someone finally listened. I'd be in favor of ditching saves as an official statistic. Thinking about them just screws up managers' heads. pitcher wins too.

Benjamin Grimm Sep 14 2016 07:26 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

Wins doesn't impact a manager's decision making nearly as much as saves do, but it does sometimes come into play. Like when a pitcher has an 8-run lead and two outs in the fourth, but he's getting pounded and the manager leaves him in too long. I don't like seeing that either, but fortunately it's rare. The save statistic is the one that really bugs me. Not the stat itself, but the way managers revere it. Why did Erik Goeddel pitch the 10th inning in Atlanta last week? Because Familia had to be held back until he had a chance to get a save. Makes no sense at all. Gary Cohen brought that up, said that "some people" think that the right move would be to use Familia sooner and not wait. Keith pooped all over that notion. Said he was with Terry on this. If Goeddel is on the team, then he needs to be able to get people out. And that (sorry Keith) is a stupid argument. Sure, he has to be able to get people out, but managers have to be able to choose the right situation to use each player. And Terry often fails to do that, at least regarding the bullpen. If I ever had the power to fire Terry Collins, his use of the bullpen would be the reason I'd do it.

dinosaur jesus Sep 14 2016 07:44 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

Keith played when the modern idea of the closer was just emerging. He saw Bruce Sutter, Rollie Fingers, Lee Smith, Dan Quisenberry, the first relievers to be used more or less the way all closers are now. And he probably still thinks of those guys as the ideal.

Edgy MD Sep 14 2016 07:46 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

My problem with that line of thinking is that while I agree with you and disagree with Terry, the problem is institutional, and his replacement would likely gravitate toward the same line of thinking. And if I found the independent thinking maverick I want (although not so mavericky that he didn't agree with me on the closer issue!), he'd get so much heat it'd be ... a distraction! But man, defenders of the orthodoxy (Keef and Gary included) utterly miss the point.

Benjamin Grimm Sep 14 2016 07:55 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

And that's the main argument against firing Terry; the next guy would probably be no better. I'd like to take my chances with the distracting maverick, however.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Sep 14 2016 08:08 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

I know people say the save stat drives this, and it does to an extent, but I think the tendency among managers, and perhaps, the preference of players, to be assigned well-defined *roles* whether they support 1 guy getting a save or not, is as big an influence, and the 1-closer-with-50-saves bullpen is a side effect. I think what I'm saying is, roles could still evolve but it would take more than just a manager to accomplish this.

Ceetar Sep 14 2016 08:22 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

There's also a lack of true understanding of leverage. It's not just using your "relief ace" in a tie game on the road, but maybe using him in the 8th if the heart of the lineup is up and let your second or third best guy face the bottom of the order in the 9th. And of course, it's easier to not lose a game when you have a 1+ run lead than it is in the tie game, so let your best reliever pitch the 9th anyway and have the lesser guys get the save later on with a little more cushion. also, your best reliever should probably be pitching when you're one run down in the 9th at home too. John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I think what I'm saying is, roles could still evolve but it would take more than just a manager to accomplish this. There's certainly some validity to this, at least in the sense of getting prepared. Closers sorta build themselves up and time their warmups towards the 9th inning. They're perhaps the only reliever (at least, before 8th inning and 7th inning guys) that have the time of their entry more or less set. If you unleashed them early, they'd have to be prepared early. Or be able to get ready faster. Or have to stay ready to go or almost ready to go throughout a long extra innings bout. There's also the idea of saving your bullets. You don't want to be burning out your best guys in tie games or down a run and ultimately lose, and not have him for the close wins because he's tired, or he's less effective. It's a constant balance of risk/reward and the reward for pitching down 1 in the ninth or in the 10th inning of a tie game often can feel like it's not worth it, so managers adhere to a set of rules because they've been taught that it's the way to do things, and keeps your relievers mostly available when you want them most.

dinosaur jesus Sep 14 2016 08:33 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

In 1972, when Tug McGraw set the team record with 27 saves, he entered the game at the beginning of the ninth or a later inning in a save situation three times. Three. That means he had 24 saves when he either pitched more than one inning or entered with runners on base. Or both. He entered the game with the winning run on base nine times; he blew two of those saves, but the Mets won all nine games. That's a well-defined role for you--if the game was on the line, Tug was coming in. I've no particular point to make, except that Tug was great and the game has changed.

themetfairy Sep 14 2016 08:46 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

In general I'm not a fan of strict bullpen roles. However, Familia seems very attached to the closer role, and he's not nearly as effective in non-save situations. He may be a head case but he's our head case, and if he's going to be so much more effective in save situations than non-save situations then I'm willing to go with the role here.

Edgy MD Sep 14 2016 08:46 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

Yogi was smarter than the average bear.

Benjamin Grimm Sep 14 2016 08:50 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

The only two Mets managers who struck me as being especially smart (not that the others were dumb) were Davey Johnson and Bobby Valentine. Of course, I can't really tell how smart these guys who I never met actually are, but that's the impression I got.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Sep 14 2016 08:58 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

By today's standards Johnson was medieval with pitchers in inning counts, staff size etc. hard to compare then and now. Valentine was very good with the bullpen but he was extremely role-friendly: Turk and Cook only pitched in games they were winning and in the 7th/8th; Franco almost always the 8th, Benitez exclusively the 9th with a lead, on down the line.

dinosaur jesus Sep 14 2016 09:17 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

Davey had that double-closer setup, with a lefty and a righty, which I always liked. That could certainly work now. You can exploit the platoon advantage, or bring in the one who's better rested, or treat them as a combination of the closer and the eighth-inning man, with the choice of which to bring in.

Edgy MD Sep 14 2016 09:46 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

I'm all about that. The Mets had two guys qualified to finish games for 10 years or more. You can stretch it from 1969 to 1989 if you want to force the issue.

batmagadanleadoff Sep 14 2016 10:08 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

The thing about this bullpen strategy that we've been discussing on and off for years now, is that it ain't rocket science. You don't need to be Albert Einstein to grasp it. And if you don't know it, you should be able to get it easily once it's explained to you. This is easy stuff. Which makes it even more maddening to see the way MLB generally uses its bullpens.

Edgy MD Sep 14 2016 10:12 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

And Wilson Ramos hits a homer off the Mets fourth- or fifth-best reliever, whereas back in 1972, Tug McGraw would've been first out of the pen in a scoreless tie.

dinosaur jesus Sep 14 2016 11:00 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

Edgy MD wrote: And Wilson Ramos hits a homer off the Mets fourth- or fifth-best reliever, whereas back in 1972, Tug McGraw would've been first out of the pen in a scoreless tie. Tug's dead, and so are Frisella and Sadecki. I think we might have to go with Chuck Taylor.

batmagadanleadoff Sep 23 2016 05:30 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

538.com's follow-up piece names the best and crappiest bullpen use managers of the last 15 years. One Mets manager appears in the crappy list. Try and guess who before you click on this link below to see the article and list. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bas ... -managers/

John Cougar Lunchbucket Sep 23 2016 07:39 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

Jerry manuel. What do I win? edit: D'oh

Rockin' Doc Sep 24 2016 12:32 AM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

Torre and Girardi can thank Mariano Rivera for much of their supposed brilliance.

MFS62 Sep 24 2016 12:50 AM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

Rockin' Doc wrote: Torre and Girardi can thank Mariano Rivera for much of their supposed brilliance. Rivera added at least 30 points to Clueless Joe Torre's baseball IQ. Later

Edgy MD May 12 2017 09:49 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

[tweet:1ykuyb2p]https://twitter.com/TerryMoves/status/862855802188693505[/tweet:1ykuyb2p]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr Jun 02 2017 06:52 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

Think an extra, oldish arm would help? Ernesto Frieri as This Year's Salas, anyone?

Frayed Knot Jun 03 2017 08:42 PM Re: Terry and the Bullpen

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Think an extra, oldish arm would help? Ernesto Frieri as This Year's Salas, anyone? And speaking of relievers acting on a contractual clause to opt out of a minor league, old buddy Bobby Parnell did so with Kansas City when he wasn't promoted by June 1 (a 4.51 ERA and 1.57 WHIP while pitching for Omaha will do that to ya). Sandy, though, is quoted as saying that the Mets "aren't likely" to pursue either Frieri or Parnell. Of course if they were he'd probably say they weren't anyway so who knows.