Yes, I know what people mean when they say voodoo. It's a dumb thing to say - and no less stupid when Nem says it.
A bullpen filled with good arms will almost always be reliable. A bullpen filled with trash will almost always be unreliable.
Excusing a bp composed of trash by dismissing bullpens as "voodoo" is ridiculous. It cost us a playoff spot last year and could do so this year.
That's a misrepresentation of what the idea of "bullpens are voodoo" is about. It's not about pretending that you can ignore poor performance. It's about the fact that from year-to-year, most pen arms are
extremely variable in terms of performance and that it's very difficult to project how a pen is going to perform even if you think you've got a good idea based on past precedent.
Obviously the goal is always to have as much talent as you can manage to get in there, but much like its prospect-related maxim of "TINSTAAPP" (There's no such thing as a pitching prospect) it's a reminder not to get too comfortable, nor to get too hung up on apparently worse pedigrees because there's no telling when your fortunes are going to change.
Bullpens are voodoo because you can look at the Yankee pen, which is 2nd in MLB in ERA or fWAR and examine its major components (top 8 in IP to this point in the season):
1) Michael King: a 12th round pick of the Marlins who the Yankees acquired in 2017 for a couple of mid-level prospects. He was abjectly terrible in 2020 and passable last year before he suddenly massively improved on his career #s this season in pretty much every conceivable way.
2) Clay Holmes: a failed 1st round pick of the Pirates from 2011, he was acquired by the Yankees last year after several awful seasons in Pittsburgh. I remember reading Pirates fans reactions to the trade where they were ecstatic to get anything of value for him at all (they got a couple of decent depth guys). He's been very good since arriving in New York, cutting his walk totals significantly and giving up far fewer hits.
3) Wandy Peralta: Acquired with a PTBNL from San Francisto for Mike Tauchman, he had 6 up-and-down seasons before this year in which he never approached anything close to what he's doing now.
4) Lucas Luetge: a 21st round draft pick in 2008 turned rule-5 pick 4 years later he then bounced through 5 other organizations before landing in New York prior to the 2021 season. He had been OK in his first two seasons in Seattle in 2012-13 before spending most of the next 6 years in the minors/hurt before ending up on the Yankees and suddenly seeing his walks plummet to the point that he became a useful reliever.
5) Miguel Castro: The former Blue Jay shuffled through 3 other orgs before the Yankees picked him up last season for crappy, 'shouldn't-be-in-the-bigs' reliever Joely Rodriguez. Might be the only guy on this list who had an iffy track record before now and is not suddenly doing significantly better than he has in the past. Has somehow Adam Cimber'd his way to 5 wins out of the pen even though he wouldn't appear to be a high leverage guy.
6) Clarke Schmidt: New York's 2017 1st rounder. Came up last year to get knocked around in 6 innings of work but has been serviceable this season. His peripherals aren't great, but he's doing well enough all things considered.
7) Ron Marinaccio: New York's 2017 19th round pick. Has been a reliever every step of his pro career. Has some walk problems but balances it out by not allowing many hits, though that comes off of an insanely low .163 BABIP that suggests it's probably only a matter of time before things even out and he starts getting knocked around a bit more.
8) Aroldis Chapman: The only guy in this pen who you could conceivably call a prominent, big-name, reliable high-talent reliever. But even that comes with the proviso that he's been slipping in recent years and has missed significant time due to injury.
so out of those top 8 arms in the Yankee pen, the biggest name-brand highly talented one is the guy who's pitched the least. And the rest of the group are misfit toys, castoffs and forgotten acquisitions that never would've been let go if there were any inklings that they were as talented as they've been this season. It's a bunch of randos who emerged collectively out of nowhere and are no guarantee to keep succeeding. For all we know 2023 rolls around and a couple of them suddenly go back to sucking. Or most of them. Or maybe all of them. Or a couple of them get hurt. Or who knows. Point is that the Yankees didn't go out and build that pen out of notable highly talented 'obvious' choices to succeed. Well, they tried to but then Chapman got hurt and Britton has missed most of the last year and a half due to injury.
Compare that to the Jays, for whom their top 8 in usage has been Cimber, Phelps, Romano, Garcia, Richards, Mayza, Thornton, and Merryweather. Of that group only the last 3 guys are ones who have spotty or awful track records before now. The first 5 had all been good to great since becoming full-time MLB relievers with maybe one hiccup here or there. And even Mayza had an excellent 2021 to make people high on him. Compared to where the Yankees pen came from, the Jays should've been able to easily match or exceed their divisional rivals besides Chapman when you consider pedigree and past performance. But it hasn't worked out that way because bullpen performance is significantly unpredictable.
Bullpens are voodoo because you're always betting on failed starters. Guys who have obvious holes and warts and for whom the margin for error is infinitesimally smaller than a starting pitcher because they likely lack command/control, or stamina, or a 3rd (or even 2nd) pitch, or a repeatable delivery, or consistency, or a track record free of major injury, or any number of other things. So for as long as that's the case in pretty much all of baseball you're going to have instances where guys emerge from nowhere to succeed, and the could possibly fail at any moment without warning.
that's the voodoo. Alek Manoah isn't likely to suddenly implode and become a shell of his former self outside of an injury robbing him of some of his talent. But there's no telling how long the Jays can ride Jordan Romano before something about him changes and he can no longer dominate batters. Maybe it's 5 years, 3, 1 more, or maybe it's only a few more weeks. We suspect it'll be the longer term and not the shorter because he's been so good, but if he was good enough to allay all those fears he likely wouldn't be a reliever in the first place.
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