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May 15, 2009
Manuel’s Bullpen Management
One of my biggest complaints with Willie Randolph was in regards to his bullpen management. Willie did not trust rookies or any “inexperienced” reliever with high leverage situations and he tended to overuse effective members of the bullpen while forgetting others. The latter makes sense considering that Willie was Torre’s padawan and assimilated many aspects of Torre’s style. Once Willie was fired, I was curious how Manuel would utilize the pen, but I felt that conclusions could not really be reached last year, considering Luis Ayala was our acting closer and there were little debate that this was the wrong decision. This year is different; Manuel has a real bullpen can now be judged with his usage. The table below shows Manuel’s bullpen usage via days rest given to each pitcher between each game they made an appearance. Days 0 1 2 3 4 5 Frankie 3 5 4 0 1 1 Putz 3 10 4 0 0 0 Feliciano 7 6 3 1 0 0 Green 1 8 1 2 0 1 Stokes 3 5 1 0 1 0 Parnell 5 4 4 2 0 0 (Not shown on the chart: Stokes had one appearance after 10 days of rest. The data is through May 12th.) Some observations from the above data: While Frankie went four games in a row at one point, he is the one reliever that has received two rests of four or more days. Conversely, Putz has not had three or more days of rest yet this season and has been mentioning that he feels a bit overworked. Felicano has been throwing a lot with no rest and has allowed six of his nine runs on no rest. There seems to be a clear plan with Green as he pitches every other day 57% of the time. Much had been made of Stokes’s 10 days of rest with various fans/bloggers hypnotizing that Manuel either forgot about or doesn’t like Stokes. However, Stokes’s usage besides that 10-day spell has been par for the bullpen, and I’ll give Manuel the benefit of the doubt that Stokes was hurt enough to err on the side of caution. Parnell has been distributed pretty evenly but it’s a bit odd that a rookie has the most zero rest appearances for a non-LOOGY pitcher. Overall, Frankie pitched 53% of his games with one day or less rest, the lowest percentage in the bullpen. Concurrently, Putz and Felicano have pitched 72% of their games with one day or less of rest. This information gives off the feeling that Manuel is very conscious of making sure his closer is fresh while ignoring the rest of the pen. To confirm the latter assertion, the following chart projects the total number of games pitched and total innings based on the current trends. Games Innings Frankie 78.39 81.87 Putz 94.06 99.29 Feliciano 94.06 67.94 Green 73.16 73.16 Stokes 62.71 69.68 Parnell 83.61 74.90 Manuel is not really baby-ing Frankie, as 82 innings for the closer would be a lot. However, Putz and Felicano are getting overused even more than Frankie; both are projected to appear in 94 games, and Putz is on pace to pitch 99 innings. The general rule of thumb is that relievers should not cross the 80-game or 80-inning threshold. Obviously, Jerry needs to slow this pace down. Think about it this way: if the starters average six innings per start over the course of the season, the bullpen would have to pitch roughly 486 innings. Assuming a seven man bullpen, this equates to roughly 69 innings per reliever. While four of the members of the bullpen are right around the 69 inning mark, J.J. and Frankie are not. This is due to Manuel not utilizing O’Day when he was on roster, holding back Stokes for those ten days and holding Takahashi when he thought a start was in order. Overall, Manuel has been a mixed bag with his bullpen management. As I pointed out, there are improvements that need to be made but it’s still early and Manuel does have excuses for the overwork of Putz, et al. It’s good to see that Manuel trusts all his arms, for better or worse, giving Parnell a pretty big role for a rookie and trying to get Green out of his slump rather than waste an arm on the pen. With that said, Felicano against Diaz was inexcusable, and too many runs are being surrendered by pitchers who are pitching with no rest. 9 Responses to “Manuel’s Bullpen Management”Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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The thing that needs to be taken into account is the mets have already played 20 close games….thats the most in the NL. Because of these close games, the leverage will be very high…this is the reason frankie and putz are on pace to throw alot of innings.
So while I agree we are overusing certain relievers, we are doing it by necessity. But there will be times in the future where the low leverage situations will pop up and the sean greens of the world will get there innings. I’m not all that concerned. They might be “on pace” but it doesnt mean they will finish that. People that hit 1 Hr in the first game is on pace to hit 162 home runs lol.
Those are excellent points John and I agree with you. As I mentioned Jerry does have his reasons for “over”-using the pen thus far, but I want to see the decrease soon as we’re already seeing the effects of overuse in both JJ and Felicano.
Joe:
Who would you have closing besides Ayala down the stretch last year. Overall, Ayala did a decent job except for the Norton HR.
Hopefully, with Pelf and Maine pitching better the bullpen will not be abused as much. Jerry needs to give Stokes the ball more to see what he’s got in late inning situations. We know he can get RH hitters out in key spots. I’d rather not see Putz back to back for a while, assuming he recovers and is back sooner than later.
Hey Hubie,
Sorry for the phrasing, when I said their was little debate regarding Ayala being the closer, I meant because there were no better options. I was ok with Ayala as acting closer considering the limited options. And I concur with your second point.
Does green have any options left? Can he be sent down to get some work and try to get it together. He’s useless here as a mop up guy. Let’s be honest. The mets don’t have too many blow outs. But is there anyone who could take his spot? How’s Muniz doing? So many questions…so few answers. lol!
Thanks for this article — I hadn’t really thought about it this way before, but Manual is a big improvement over Willie in that he chooses the right pitcher for the right situations (basically). He’s not afraid of giving Parnell high-leverage situations, he’s willing to use Frankie in a non-save situation, etc. Without taking the time to reflect, I hadn’t really noticed the improvement from Willie, but it’s there.
My only beef with Jerry is that I think he makes moves too often — I’d rather see relievers start and finish an inning whenever possible, than keep using so many per game. In a really key spot you throw in a LOOGY against a lefty or something — and some nights whoever you bring in just doesn’t have it. But a lot of the time someone will be throwing very well, but give up an infield hit and a broken bat single, and then get taken out. Leave them in to fix the mess they made! Bad luck happens. But this complaint is really endemic to modern baseball, so you can’t get too upset at Jerry about it.
If it were me, Shea, I’d call up Figgy to be the long man, and use Stokes more regularly as a 6th inning guy. Muniz has been sucking it in AAA. Sadly, the first guy up is probably Elmer Dessens. Jon Switzer’s put up good numbers, but I know nothing about him.
I don’t like the whole one inning or part thereof arragement. Muscles need a day to heal after heavy use. Pitching one inning a day has got to hurt more than pitching two innings every-other day.
Under the circumstances, I am particularly bothered by taking out a middle reliever (or starter) who is throwing well to put in a pinch hitter in a low leverage situation. Two outs, none on, with the lead? Put in Sheffield!
I’d rather have the guy go two innings then go to someone else who may not have it that day. Unless the at-bat is important, save that pitcher for the next day.
Same with K-Rod and Putz. I’d generally pitch each every other day, for more than one inning if required, using both only in a close, critical game. You get the same innings, but with fewer times warmed up and more time to heal.
Thats my main complaint with Jerry’s use as well, I don’t mind the number of innings or the usage of most of the pitchers, but I think we have to be willing to stretch out some of those guys in the pen even if it means a loss every now and then. We have had 20 close games, but maybe we can’t play every game where we are tied or 1 run down the same way. Sometimes we got to just give stokes a couple innings and let the offense pick us up if he lets us down. We cant just bring out putz everytime just because it is close.