Bullpen ‘22
- Thread starter Sandy Leon Trotsky
- Start date
Why is the bolded true? He wasn't moved to the bullpen because he failed as a starter. He was moved because at the time they had too many starters. There's no reason to think they can't move him back to the rotation next year when they're clearly going to have an opening to fill (if not two or three).
Had too many staters and a huge need in the pen which he seemed best equipped to handle. Multiple openings in the rotation (and pen) next year, it would be shocking if they don’t see him as in the mix (and likely a better option) than at least guys like Crawford, Seabold, Winckowski, Groome, Murphy, Etc.
137 career big league innings at a 2.78 FiP; with 0.5 hr/9, 3.1 bb/9, and 10.6 k/9, is dare I say, elite.
2 of those 3 you mentioned are JAGs and 1 can only pitch every 3rd or 4th day. Trading Houck (for prospects?) to then turn around and trade other prospects for guys you hope can be as good as Houck makes no sense.
Better than the current jags that would be pitching in the 8th inning most nights if you traded Houck.
I don’t know, man. Look at the 2022 reliever leaderboards. More than half are guys that almost nobody had heard of before this year (Helsley, Raley, Schreiber, Adam, Effross, Bass, Brebbia, Phillips, Lange, Abreu, Burke, Strahm, Matt Moore, et al.) Good teams build bullpens by individual pitches, not by name.
One reason is because the Sox desperately need power. We’re 20th in MLB in home runs. We currently have a 2023 projected outfield of Duran, Verdugo and Refsnyder who would be lucky to hit 25 dingers combined, and the problem stands to worsen with potential losses of JDM and Bogaerts.
We also have, for the first time in a while, a really solid corps of pitching prospect depth aided by an advanced scouting and player development team.
Maybe MAYBE in the offseason. Maybe. But I dont see any way or reason that they would trade an important piece of this years contending team for prospects.
Not sure what your point is. The same guy who has done a great job of getting Whitlock, and Schreiber for nothing also extended Barnes and added guys like Diekman Straum Sawamura etc.
He traded for Davis last year who was pretty bad and this year has been great. He traded for Robles last year who was great and then fell apart. Relievers are increidbly high variance, expecting that they can dump one of their few reliable guys and then add a bunch of other guys on the cheap and end up with a good bullpen seems pretty optimistic.
JBJ_HOF was looking for prospects, if you're talking help for the rest of this season or next that might be a different conversation.
Now I’m not sure what your point is. Strahm and Sawamura are both very good finds. Of 235 relievers (min. 20 IP), Strahm ranks 36th by FIP and Sawamura ranks 106th, just a hair better than Daniel Bard.
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Regardless, with Houck, Whitlock, Schreiber, Davis, and hopefully Taylor, the Sox really shouldn't have to use many other relievers in meaningful innings down the stretch and have the potential for a very dangerous pen in a short series even without making any trades.
Being the 106th best reliever means you'd be like the 4th or maybe 5th best reliever on a good team, that's kind of the definition of a JAG. Maybe I'm a bit harsh on Strahm, but I don't feel like he's been anything more than a mediocre pen arm this year. Combined the 2 have a 0.5 wpa in 60 innings, which seems ok but nothing special.
Regardless, with Houck, Whitlock, Schreiber, Davis, and hopefully Taylor, the Sox really shouldn't have to use many other relievers in meaningful innings down the stretch and have the potential for a very dangerous pen in a short series even without making any trades.
You're both right! According to the Fangraphs website, park factors and leverage both factor into WAR. Still, it boggles my mind that our relief corps could have ~50% more WAR than Tampa Bay's given our abundant frustrations with them this year. BOS is 11th in reliever WAR---NYY of course are #1, with more than twice the WAR of Boston's unit. The majority of Boston's value has come from Schriber and Strahm (1.1 and 0.8 WAR) with then a cluster of guys with less than 0.5 WAR and 5 negative WAR guys (*headlined* by Robles with -0.6).
In a pinch, there's always Plawecki and JBJ, owners of the 12th and 13th spots in the hierarchy (out of 18) with 0.0 WAR. At this point, the difference between Plawecki and Barnes is....well, significant by metrics like xFIP but its...not huge.
Sawamura has lately been reminding me of a modern-day version of another unflashy journeyman groundball specialist in Sox lore, Mike Timlin. As an extension of our conversation about the usage of Tanner Houck compared to the "JAGs" we have in our bullpen, I started wondering how our current late-inning trio of Schreiber, Strahm and Sawamura compared with Foulke, Embree and Timlin, and the late-inning trios from our other championship teams.
They actually compare very well.
Foulke '04: 3.16 FIP, 23.7 K%, 4.5 BB%, 0.87 HR/9, 72 FIP-
Papelbon '07: 2.45 FIP, 37.5%, 6.7 BB%, 0.77 HR/9, 57 FIP-
Uehara '13: 1.61 FIP, 38.1 K%, 3.4 BB%, 0.61 HR/9, 42 FIP-
Kimbrel '18: 3.13 FIP, 38.9 K%, 12.6 BB%, 1.01 HR/9, 75 FIP-
Schreiber '22: 1.95 FIP, 32.5 K%, 5.0 BB%, 0.28 HR/9, 48 FIP-
Timlin '04: 3.89 FIP, 17.5 K%, 5.9 BB%, 0.94 HR/9, 89 FIP-
Delcarmen '07: 3.85 FIP, 23.3 K%, 9.7 BB%, 0.82 HR/9, 89 FIP-
Tazawa '13: 3.22 FIP, 25.4 K%, 4.2 BB%, 1.19 HR/9, 83 FIP-
Barnes '18: 2.71 FIP, 36.2, 11.7 BB%, 0.73 HR/9, 65 FIP-
Sawamura '22: 3.44 FIP, 19.9 K%, 9.6 BB%, 0.54 HR/9, 87 FIP-
Embree '04: 4.06 FIP, 17.1 K%, 5.1 BB%, 1.20 HR/9, 93 FIP-
Okajima '07: 3.33 FIP, 23.2 K%, 6.3 BB%, 0.78 HR/9, 77 FIP-
Miller '13: 3.05 FIP, 35.6 K%, 12.6 BB%, 0.88 HR/9, 79 FIP-
Kelly '18: 3.57 FIP, 23.9 K%, 11.2 BB%, 0.55 HR/9, 85 FIP-
Strahm '22: 2.60 FIP, 27.1 K%, 5.9 BB%, 0.65 HR/9, 65 FIP-
KF/MT/AE '04: 211.2 IP, 3.64 FIP, 19.8 K%, 5.2 BB%, 0.98 HR/9, 83 FIP-
JP/MD/HI '07: 171 IP, 3.16 FIP, 28.0 K%, 7.3 BB%, 0.79 HR/9, 74 FIP-
KU/JT/AM '13: 173.1 IP, 2.50 FIP, 32.3 K%, 5.6 BB%, 0.88 HR/9, 65 FIP-
CK/MB/JK '18: 189 IP, 3.15 FIP, 32.6 K%, 11.8 BB%, 0.76 HR/9, 75 FIP-
JS/HS/MS '22: 93.2 IP, 2.67 FIP, 26.2 K%, 7.0 BB%, 0.48 HR/9, 67 FIP-
This is mostly just for fun. But I'm trying to make a point about the effectiveness for our late-inning arms that has been buried by the many blown saves in the early going. (To be clear, Barnes, Robles and Diekman have been very bad).
For those unfamiliar with FIP-, the number is relative to league average (and league average of course is 100). This 19 year spread spans some pretty different styles of baseball, but our current trio of Schreiber, Strahm and Sawamura -- though relatively unknown -- compares quite favorably to the canonized relief crews this century.
Of course if you want to plug in Houck or Whitlock's work as late-inning relievers (most of their IP have been in starter or bulk-inning roles) instead of Sawamura, it's slightly better. We could certainly use more bullpen help, but I think the idea that our late-inning arms desperately need a proven closer, or a closer like Tanner Houck, is overblown. Remember that if if you add Whitlock as a relief ace to this trio, it's even better. None of the '04, '07, '13 or '18 teams had anybody like Whitlock.
They actually compare very well.
Foulke '04: 3.16 FIP, 23.7 K%, 4.5 BB%, 0.87 HR/9, 72 FIP-
Papelbon '07: 2.45 FIP, 37.5%, 6.7 BB%, 0.77 HR/9, 57 FIP-
Uehara '13: 1.61 FIP, 38.1 K%, 3.4 BB%, 0.61 HR/9, 42 FIP-
Kimbrel '18: 3.13 FIP, 38.9 K%, 12.6 BB%, 1.01 HR/9, 75 FIP-
Schreiber '22: 1.95 FIP, 32.5 K%, 5.0 BB%, 0.28 HR/9, 48 FIP-
Timlin '04: 3.89 FIP, 17.5 K%, 5.9 BB%, 0.94 HR/9, 89 FIP-
Delcarmen '07: 3.85 FIP, 23.3 K%, 9.7 BB%, 0.82 HR/9, 89 FIP-
Tazawa '13: 3.22 FIP, 25.4 K%, 4.2 BB%, 1.19 HR/9, 83 FIP-
Barnes '18: 2.71 FIP, 36.2, 11.7 BB%, 0.73 HR/9, 65 FIP-
Sawamura '22: 3.44 FIP, 19.9 K%, 9.6 BB%, 0.54 HR/9, 87 FIP-
Embree '04: 4.06 FIP, 17.1 K%, 5.1 BB%, 1.20 HR/9, 93 FIP-
Okajima '07: 3.33 FIP, 23.2 K%, 6.3 BB%, 0.78 HR/9, 77 FIP-
Miller '13: 3.05 FIP, 35.6 K%, 12.6 BB%, 0.88 HR/9, 79 FIP-
Kelly '18: 3.57 FIP, 23.9 K%, 11.2 BB%, 0.55 HR/9, 85 FIP-
Strahm '22: 2.60 FIP, 27.1 K%, 5.9 BB%, 0.65 HR/9, 65 FIP-
KF/MT/AE '04: 211.2 IP, 3.64 FIP, 19.8 K%, 5.2 BB%, 0.98 HR/9, 83 FIP-
JP/MD/HI '07: 171 IP, 3.16 FIP, 28.0 K%, 7.3 BB%, 0.79 HR/9, 74 FIP-
KU/JT/AM '13: 173.1 IP, 2.50 FIP, 32.3 K%, 5.6 BB%, 0.88 HR/9, 65 FIP-
CK/MB/JK '18: 189 IP, 3.15 FIP, 32.6 K%, 11.8 BB%, 0.76 HR/9, 75 FIP-
JS/HS/MS '22: 93.2 IP, 2.67 FIP, 26.2 K%, 7.0 BB%, 0.48 HR/9, 67 FIP-
This is mostly just for fun. But I'm trying to make a point about the effectiveness for our late-inning arms that has been buried by the many blown saves in the early going. (To be clear, Barnes, Robles and Diekman have been very bad).
For those unfamiliar with FIP-, the number is relative to league average (and league average of course is 100). This 19 year spread spans some pretty different styles of baseball, but our current trio of Schreiber, Strahm and Sawamura -- though relatively unknown -- compares quite favorably to the canonized relief crews this century.
Of course if you want to plug in Houck or Whitlock's work as late-inning relievers (most of their IP have been in starter or bulk-inning roles) instead of Sawamura, it's slightly better. We could certainly use more bullpen help, but I think the idea that our late-inning arms desperately need a proven closer, or a closer like Tanner Houck, is overblown. Remember that if if you add Whitlock as a relief ace to this trio, it's even better. None of the '04, '07, '13 or '18 teams had anybody like Whitlock.
Strahm has really good peripherals and a great FIP (2.60) but he’s been much better in medium / low lev situations. Sawamura has been really good, a totally different pitcher, but has pitched almost exclusively in low lev spots. I think that kind of fits with the low WPA; these guys have been good but not terribly impactful because they are primarily not pitching in situations of huge significance.
I wanted to mention, I was heartened that Cora used Whitlock for an inning yesterday despite both being a blowout and that he had pitched 2 innings on Friday. While I get that they want o have a plan for his usage, given the ASB is here and he would get 3 days of rest anyway, pitching him yesterday to get more reps made perfect sense and I hope it's a sign that they won't be too rigid with his use going forward.