Loading ...I was reading Joe Sheehan’s column today about the Yankees, which included the opinion that Joe Torre has “become too aggressive with his relievers—Yankee relievers have thrown 97 innings in 96 appearances, barely one per appearance.” Sheehan suggested that all these frequent appearances might’ve “burned out” some of the Yankee relievers over the past few years.
I wondered if a similar usage pattern might be some of the Reds’ bullpen problems — we know that Coffey and Saarloos are both among the league leaguers in appearances, despite relative ineffectiveness from both guys, and fairly long outings from the starters.
Through the first month, Reds relievers have made 79 appearances in 24 games (Belisle had the only complete game, so far). Relievers have only thrown 63 innings in those 79 appearances. That means the average bullpen appearance is a little over 2/3 of an inning. Stated another way, Jerry Narron is using 4.16 pitchers per game, with the 3.16 relievers pitching only 2.5 innings.
The thing to remember is that every time a pitcher comes into the game, even if only for 2-3 batters, he has already warmed up in the bullpen (at least once), and thrown a half dozen warmup pitches from the mound. Those pitches add up, over a season.
The usage pattern is also a little odd, considering that most of the Reds relievers are pretty interchangable, from a style standpoint, and that there’s no real LOOGY skewing the numbers.
I’ve got nothing to back this up, but all this usage worries me, especially as the season wears on. Guys like Santos and Saarloos are more than capable of throwing 2 innings at a stretch, which would allow other guys to have a day off now and again.
On Belisle’s CG
Not only is his the only CG for the Reds so far this season but the Reds have only had 12 CG from 2005-2007
7 by Harang
3 by Arroyo
1 by Ortiz
and the 1 by Belisle
Only 3 of those were shutouts
2 from Harang last year and 1 from Arroyo
True, Chris, true. I noticed today that even will all the appearances some guys (like Coffey) have, the Reds have the second-fewest relief innings in the NL.
3rd best rotation in the NL currently behind the Giants and Mets and only slightly behind those two.
SF is the team with fewer relief innings.
Interesting that both SF and the Reds have had serious issues with their bullpens
It would be interesting to run a comparison to the Big Red Machine years of Sparky “Captain Hook” Anderson and the 1990 “Nasty Boys” Reds.
I was thinking that too Jim, but, at least with the BRM, would change in eras make comparisons meaningless?
It might not be meaningless as you’re comparing appearances. Anderson’s often credited as being one of the pioneers of the situational reliever. It might just be interesting.
Is there any evidence that shows that it’s better to use a reliever less often but for the same number of innings? In other words, If Coffey ends up throwing 95 innings in 85 games this season, would it be healthier for him to throw 95 innings in 65 games?
Conditioning of pitchers is key. If a pitcher is is great condition then it should not matter how many innings he throws in an outing. If you use a pitcher for a stated amount of pitches and he is in poor condition that ration him. If my pitcher is in great condition then let him throw and throw without worries. He would be a starter and on 4 or 5 day regiment.
Perhaps a reason for lacking CG is the issue of our starters lacking excellent command and or an issue of not trusting our defense is unable to collect the out. It is nice to see Harang get a good outing even though it was 5 ER but he had only 1 bad inning. He needed to get the bull pen a rest and did his job. He is s K pitcher and has a bit better endurance.
Perfect example to back up your analysis. In last nights game, he brought in Coffey for a third of an inning because Couty was getting knocked around a bit with a HUGE lead. Show some patience for Chrissakes. Shoulda used two pitchers the whole night, instead we use four. 33 games in 34 days. Gotta be smarter than that.
That’s the sort of thing I had in mind, though I’m not sure I’d have stuck with Coutlangus any longer than Narron did. Actually, I checked, and he only threw 19 pitches. Coutlangus certainly should’ve finished out the 8th.
To address GC’s question, I don’t know if it’s necessarily better to throw the same number of innings over more, or fewer games. I suspect that fewer, longer outings cause less wear and tear (within reason, of course – pitch counts, not IP, are the real thing to study).
The only think I am confident in saying is that numerous short outings result in more pitches, only because of the warm-up factor. I don’t know how significant that is, but I’ve heard that it does matter.