Blue Jays Discussion: post-deadline, back-at-home edition
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Emerica
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- May 29, 2010
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The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
How long as Stroman been wearing #0 with the Mets?
Is this more of his silly "nobody believes in me" branding?
Is this more of his silly "nobody believes in me" branding?
Anthrax442
Registered User
I was offered free tix to the game today. Im glad I didnt take
This is going to happen with all large gathering events. Vaccine passports are happening even though Ford doesn't want them.
Question for you big Jays fans that are critical of the coach/management and want to see change and the team perform better - Do you get blamed when the team loses?
Do you mean who do we blame specifically when the team loses? I can't say I blame myself lol, but I guess I can try better.
At some point we just have to accept that its this topic's fault that the Jays are bad.
Kurtz
Registered User
- Jul 17, 2005
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Here's a fun stat on the importance of a good bullpen:
There are 15 teams that have a better BP ERA than the Jays, and 14 teams with the worse BP ERA.
Of the 14 teams with a worse ERA, only 1 (!) is currently in a playoff position (Braves).
MLB Team Bullpen Stats 2021 - ERA, WHIP, Saves & More
Please focus on building a pen this off-season, Shapkins!
There are 15 teams that have a better BP ERA than the Jays, and 14 teams with the worse BP ERA.
Of the 14 teams with a worse ERA, only 1 (!) is currently in a playoff position (Braves).
MLB Team Bullpen Stats 2021 - ERA, WHIP, Saves & More
Please focus on building a pen this off-season, Shapkins!
I didn't hate the bullpen strategy heading into this year because they seemed to put all of their budget into position players (Springer and Semien) and a bit into starters (Ray, mostly, and some to Matz) and then used the rest to try to plug the holes in the bullpen. I'll take that kind of allocation every day.
And even how they allocated the bullpen money made sense at the time, as they put together a high-risk/high-reward group (guys with short track records of success like Romano and Dolis, guys with extensive injury histories but huge upside like Yates, Merryweather, and Mayza, a couple veteran flyers like Chatwood and Phelps). I liked it at the time, but ultimately the high-risk side won out in the end and most of those guys have been hurt or terrible. Then even the "safe" additions like Phelps backfired. And it turns out the lineup and rotation have been so good that they didn't need the high-reward those guys could have offered... they just needed a few guys who could be non-terrible, and they didn't have it.
OK we know you don’t care for Stro, but some of us still think he’s the man.
Kurtz
Registered User
- Jul 17, 2005
- 10,544
- 7,817
I would disagree semantically on this if we're looking from the asset allocation perspective - I think we went with a low-risk/mediocre reward strategy on our pen. Only 4.5% of our team payroll has gone into the pen, which I would qualify as low risk. It's also the 5th-lowerst in the majors.
For comparison, Yankees and Red Sox have both spent 16% of their payroll on the pen.
MLB Relief Pitcher Spending - Cap
Low financial risk, absolutely. I mean high risk/reward when it comes to performance. Though I suppose trying to find good players for cheap is always the flipside to taking financial risks.
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Frankly, the team doesn't deserve to make the playoffs this year.
It's significantly undervalued...well, not among baseball GMs obviously, but I mean among general fans.
I know a lot of people here likely poo poo on video game simulations, but in my quest for winning all 162 games in a season (yeah, I know), I've discovered the ONLY time I've come close is when my teams' bullpens had ERAs of 2 or so. If it was 3 or higher, the difference was as high as 25 games or so. Five starters with eras in the 1.50 range? An entire team of players hitting 300 and 50 home runs a season? Having a gold glover at every position? Sounds like a dream team, eh? But, no, that would only be good for about 120 wins. Needed that bullpen to to reach the magical 150 win mark.
This was across THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of simulations, so while you can argue a game can be easily manipulated, it still demonstrated how important a bullpen was even under these wild circumstances. Frankly, I didn't think a good bullpen was all that important until I saw this.
Don't think that really matters. The nature of the bullpen's collapse this year would have defied ANY budgetary allocations: major, long term injuries to every good reliever we had and/or freakishly inconsistent performances from both the good AND bad pitchers. In other words, this amount of bad luck would have destroyed ANY team's bullpen, expensive or not.
Plus it didn't really make a difference the last few years. Jays had a more consistent bullpen, and even looked good at times last summer, and they had quite a good thing going where they were signing and trading good relievers at a moderate price.
It's significantly undervalued...well, not among baseball GMs obviously, but I mean among general fans.
I know a lot of people here likely poo poo on video game simulations, but in my quest for winning all 162 games in a season (yeah, I know), I've discovered the ONLY time I've come close is when my teams' bullpens had ERAs of 2 or so. If it was 3 or higher, the difference was as high as 25 games or so. Five starters with eras in the 1.50 range? An entire team of players hitting 300 and 50 home runs a season? Having a gold glover at every position? Sounds like a dream team, eh? But, no, that would only be good for about 120 wins. Needed that bullpen to to reach the magical 150 win mark.
This was across THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of simulations, so while you can argue a game can be easily manipulated, it still demonstrated how important a bullpen was even under these wild circumstances. Frankly, I didn't think a good bullpen was all that important until I saw this.
Don't think that really matters. The nature of the bullpen's collapse this year would have defied ANY budgetary allocations: major, long term injuries to every good reliever we had and/or freakishly inconsistent performances from both the good AND bad pitchers. In other words, this amount of bad luck would have destroyed ANY team's bullpen, expensive or not.
Plus it didn't really make a difference the last few years. Jays had a more consistent bullpen, and even looked good at times last summer, and they had quite a good thing going where they were signing and trading good relievers at a moderate price.
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The bullpen stuff has been a perfect storm :
1) they probably did under-allocate resources there hoping for some cheaper home runs.
2) injuries did not help. Yates, Merryweather, Phelps didn't make it out of April as three planned high-leverage guys, and Borucki has looked awful since returning from his early injury. AJ Cole is probably also an under-mentioned injury.
3) the weak starting staff put extra pressure on the bullpen early, likely exacerbating issues with tired arms and more injuries.
4) Montoyo.
1) they probably did under-allocate resources there hoping for some cheaper home runs.
2) injuries did not help. Yates, Merryweather, Phelps didn't make it out of April as three planned high-leverage guys, and Borucki has looked awful since returning from his early injury. AJ Cole is probably also an under-mentioned injury.
3) the weak starting staff put extra pressure on the bullpen early, likely exacerbating issues with tired arms and more injuries.
4) Montoyo.
The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
Bullpen spending is not a good measure of team attention paid to or methodology in crafting a strong, deep bullpen. Mostly because pen spending is by far most significantly tied to shelling out for a pricey closer.
I'm assuming that the previously cited pen $$$ numbers are coming from this Spotrac link:
MLB Relief Pitcher Spending - Cap
There are 10 teams spending more than the league average of $13.1m in their bullpen:
1) The Mets are at a whopping $39m. But $30m of that is from shelling out big closer bucks to Jeurys Familia, Edwin Diaz, and Trevor May in free agency in a desperate attempt to stabilize the back of their pen as each man has faltered at various points with this team.
2) The Dodgers are at $35m, but $20m of that is on Kenley Jansen. Another $13 or so is from two other former closer pickups in Blake Treinen and Corey Knebel. And the rest of their pen is making less than a $1m apiece
3) The Yankees are at $32, but almost $28 of that is doubled down closer money on Chapman and Britton. Then there's Chad Green and a bunch of value deals
4) The Red Sox $29m tag is steep because their current pen listing includes the starter money that was handed to failed rotation pieces Garrett Richards and Martin Perez. Adam Ottavino and Matt Barnes are their only notable money relievers at a combined $12m and Barnes isn't even making that much.
5) The Braves check in at $27m but $13m of that is on Will Smith. Another $7m on Chris Martin, and everyone else is $2m or less
6) The White Sox are spending $23m, but almost $17m of that is from the recent acquisitions of Kimbrel and Hendriks, both closers.
7) The Angels ($21m) are giving $9m closer money to Raisel Iglasias and have $7m tied up in the shambling corpse of Jose Quintana and that's more than 2/3rds of their pen budget right there.
8) Houston may have cut some costs out of their pen, but Ryan Pressley is making $8.75 as the closer, Pedro Baez makes $4.75m, and no other reliever makes more than $2m out of their $19m pen.
9) The Phillies ($15.7m) are kind of awkward because their closer is bargain bin Ian Kennedy. They gave Hector Neris $6m likely for his closer history and $7m to Archie Bradley I guess because he's decent and has high 1st round pick pedigree. Matt Moore is in this list but he's been a starter more than a reliever for the Phils.
10) St. Louis is paying out $14.7m but $12m of that is on Andrew Miller's 3-year closer money pact that he's never come close to justifying (and probably shouldn't have received in teh first place)
Of those 10 teams the only ones who aren't inflating their price tag based on big pricey closer money are the Red Sox (whose pen spending is based on sticking with junk starters in relief roles) and sort of the Phillies but not really. Every other team has a high pen budget because they've spent it on "proven closers" to varying degrees of success. Of this top 10 spenders, the Yankees, Dodgers, White Sox, Red Sox, and Mets are the only teams also in the top 10 in bullpen fWAR. The Astros, Angels, and Phillies are all in the bottom half of the league in spite of their spending.
Consider also the fact that the Jays' current $6.8m is mostly on account of Brad Hand and his $3.75m price tag, but that's the pen as it stands now. Add back Joakim Soria's $3.5m and they're right around the league average in bullpen spending. But also, what if they had the pen they started the year with?
The opening day roster's pen was Romano, Dolis, Borucki, Chatwood, Phelps, Merryweather, Mayza, Thornton, Payamps. Let's take out Payamps and add back Kirby Yates.
The cost of that pen would've been:
Romano: $584k
Dolis: $1.5m
Borucki: 595k
Chatwood: $3m
Pehlps: $1.75m
Merryweather: $578k
Mayza: $600k
Thornton: $485k
Yates: $5.5m
That would've been about $14.6m, which would've slotted them in right on the heels of the Cardinals who are listed above at 10th in the league. But that group collectively has only provided 2 good relievers for the season in Romano and Mayza, 3 hurt ones in Phelps, Merryweather, and Yates, 1 inconsistent one in Borucki, and 3 tire fires in Dolis, Chatwood, and Thornton.
Spending big bucks on your pen is not a path to success. Largely because spending big bucks is usually because you're giving out sacks of cash to a name brand closer (which the Jays don't need. Romano has been solid). And because bullpens are so weird and random that you're more likely to get burned giving out money to guys who are always potentially replaceable than you are to see value on it. Had they made the trades they made in season for Richards and Cimber and Soria (and Hand I guess) earlier in the year it probalby would've been better. But they also needed some breaks. If even 2 of the walking wounded pen arms had stayed healthy things could've been much different. Consider an 8-man pen of:
Yates
Romano
Merryweather
Cimber
Richards
Mayza
Snead/Saucedo
Some random long-man, it doesn't matter.
That top 6 would be really good and cover you in a lot of situations.
I'm assuming that the previously cited pen $$$ numbers are coming from this Spotrac link:
MLB Relief Pitcher Spending - Cap
There are 10 teams spending more than the league average of $13.1m in their bullpen:
1) The Mets are at a whopping $39m. But $30m of that is from shelling out big closer bucks to Jeurys Familia, Edwin Diaz, and Trevor May in free agency in a desperate attempt to stabilize the back of their pen as each man has faltered at various points with this team.
2) The Dodgers are at $35m, but $20m of that is on Kenley Jansen. Another $13 or so is from two other former closer pickups in Blake Treinen and Corey Knebel. And the rest of their pen is making less than a $1m apiece
3) The Yankees are at $32, but almost $28 of that is doubled down closer money on Chapman and Britton. Then there's Chad Green and a bunch of value deals
4) The Red Sox $29m tag is steep because their current pen listing includes the starter money that was handed to failed rotation pieces Garrett Richards and Martin Perez. Adam Ottavino and Matt Barnes are their only notable money relievers at a combined $12m and Barnes isn't even making that much.
5) The Braves check in at $27m but $13m of that is on Will Smith. Another $7m on Chris Martin, and everyone else is $2m or less
6) The White Sox are spending $23m, but almost $17m of that is from the recent acquisitions of Kimbrel and Hendriks, both closers.
7) The Angels ($21m) are giving $9m closer money to Raisel Iglasias and have $7m tied up in the shambling corpse of Jose Quintana and that's more than 2/3rds of their pen budget right there.
8) Houston may have cut some costs out of their pen, but Ryan Pressley is making $8.75 as the closer, Pedro Baez makes $4.75m, and no other reliever makes more than $2m out of their $19m pen.
9) The Phillies ($15.7m) are kind of awkward because their closer is bargain bin Ian Kennedy. They gave Hector Neris $6m likely for his closer history and $7m to Archie Bradley I guess because he's decent and has high 1st round pick pedigree. Matt Moore is in this list but he's been a starter more than a reliever for the Phils.
10) St. Louis is paying out $14.7m but $12m of that is on Andrew Miller's 3-year closer money pact that he's never come close to justifying (and probably shouldn't have received in teh first place)
Of those 10 teams the only ones who aren't inflating their price tag based on big pricey closer money are the Red Sox (whose pen spending is based on sticking with junk starters in relief roles) and sort of the Phillies but not really. Every other team has a high pen budget because they've spent it on "proven closers" to varying degrees of success. Of this top 10 spenders, the Yankees, Dodgers, White Sox, Red Sox, and Mets are the only teams also in the top 10 in bullpen fWAR. The Astros, Angels, and Phillies are all in the bottom half of the league in spite of their spending.
Consider also the fact that the Jays' current $6.8m is mostly on account of Brad Hand and his $3.75m price tag, but that's the pen as it stands now. Add back Joakim Soria's $3.5m and they're right around the league average in bullpen spending. But also, what if they had the pen they started the year with?
The opening day roster's pen was Romano, Dolis, Borucki, Chatwood, Phelps, Merryweather, Mayza, Thornton, Payamps. Let's take out Payamps and add back Kirby Yates.
The cost of that pen would've been:
Romano: $584k
Dolis: $1.5m
Borucki: 595k
Chatwood: $3m
Pehlps: $1.75m
Merryweather: $578k
Mayza: $600k
Thornton: $485k
Yates: $5.5m
That would've been about $14.6m, which would've slotted them in right on the heels of the Cardinals who are listed above at 10th in the league. But that group collectively has only provided 2 good relievers for the season in Romano and Mayza, 3 hurt ones in Phelps, Merryweather, and Yates, 1 inconsistent one in Borucki, and 3 tire fires in Dolis, Chatwood, and Thornton.
Spending big bucks on your pen is not a path to success. Largely because spending big bucks is usually because you're giving out sacks of cash to a name brand closer (which the Jays don't need. Romano has been solid). And because bullpens are so weird and random that you're more likely to get burned giving out money to guys who are always potentially replaceable than you are to see value on it. Had they made the trades they made in season for Richards and Cimber and Soria (and Hand I guess) earlier in the year it probalby would've been better. But they also needed some breaks. If even 2 of the walking wounded pen arms had stayed healthy things could've been much different. Consider an 8-man pen of:
Yates
Romano
Merryweather
Cimber
Richards
Mayza
Snead/Saucedo
Some random long-man, it doesn't matter.
That top 6 would be really good and cover you in a lot of situations.
He was one of the few starters pitching well and still just 21 in AA. I don't get it.
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