2018 Positional Power Rankings: Bullpen (#16-30)
Unless you’ve stumbled upon this post by accident or have a particular passion for bullpens — particularly for teams with not particularly great bullpens — you are familiar with the positional power rankings here at FanGraphs. The position players were all covered last week, so don’t forget to read up on any you might have missed. Jeff Sullivan wrote a useful introduction that is also available among the links above.
I haven’t actually looked into this, but I would have to guess that these relief rankings are subject to the most volatility when it comes to how relievers actually play out by the end of the season. Jeff Sullivan recently noted the lack of consistency of bullpens from one year to the next. One could also look to last year’s rankings to make that point. The Arizona Diamondbacks were projected to finish last in these rankings a year ago, however, they finished 11th in 2017 reliever WAR. In addition to the Diamondbacks, the Angels, Blue Jays, Brewers, Phillies, Rays, and Royals were all featured in the bottom half of last year’s rankings and ended the season in the top half by WAR.
Part of the uncertainty is due to how closely these projections are bunched together. The third- and 27th-ranked bullpens are separated by a little over two wins. One or two good (or bad) performances can have a pretty big effect. Midseason trades can also play a major role, as bad teams with good relievers end up having bad bullpens in the second half after trading their good relievers in July. Try not to get too hung up on any particular ranking or projection. Relievers are already frustrating enough.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Expected As to be ranked higher here. Thought they got a good deal for Pagan.
[mentally adds +1 WAR to ARZ bullpen for sweet postseason triples]
Something interesting about Luke Scribner is that his name is Troy Scribner.
Thanks. fixed.
Dan Jennings isn’t even on the Rays (was released, isn’t on the depth chart) and you included an entire paragraph about him, what gives?
That was a surprising cut so already had a bunch of info on him in there. Edited slightly now.
I’m going to be interested to see how the Tigers get -24 innings out of “other relief pitchers.” Well, I guess if I’m watching the Tigers bullpen, it probably won’t actually be that interesting. The Giants also have negative innings for “other relief pitchers.” I am a bit curious what this is??
I’ve noticed that the Depth Chart projections often are lower than both Steamer and ZIPS. For Andrew Chafin in this post for example. I thought the DC projections were a combination of those two projection systems with adjusted playing time?
Stats like ERA/FIP match up as an even split. Chafin is 7th in line for innings in the bullpen. I suspect the difference may be that the adjusted playing time may also factor in adjusted leverage.
“Yacksel Rios is the worst misspelling of the Guns N’ Roses frontman’s name I’ve ever seen.”
That’s very funny.
And thank god the Phils signed Hunter and Neshek – that’s a weak group…but at least Gabe in bringing north 9 relievers!
Herrera’s pitch mix got very weird last year. He stopped throwing the changeup to lefties in the second half (down to 20% or so from like 35 in the first half), going almost entirely to the four-seamer. A one-pitch pitcher is gonna get shelled, and that’s what happened. That weird ever-evolving breaking pitch he throws to right-handers went from acting like a curve to acting like a cutter. It was harder and stayed higher, and it did not do nearly as well. If all you’re going to throw is some version of a fastball, you better be Chapman or you better be Rivera.
His horizontal release point moved, too. Hard to tell from a quick check on YouTube, but I think he was standing in a different spot on the rubber? If so, that would be easy to correct. If it’s not that, though, there’s a lot here that’s worrying and I wouldn’t be too sure he’s going to get it back. The Royals’ pen may be even worse than this projection.
This is a good time to revisit the “controversial Corey Dickerson trade” (as it is called here) which involved the Rays (1) deciding to tender a guy they later decided to dump, (2) keep Adeiny Hechevarria and Brad Miller over him, and (3) trade him for a guy who not only won’t make the team but costs guaranteed money.
So in the end, the Rays somehow wound up paying $4 million or whatever it was for a guy who could have been non-tendered at the start of the season or cut later for a cost of $1 million. To replace him, they brought in a guy who projected worse than him and who nominally cost less, except for losing the $4 million down the line later (costing them more money than if they had just kept Dickerson)…and they did all of this to get rid of a guy who is likely going to be better than their converted shortstop at first base.
This easily the most baffling sequence I’ve seen this offseason. No matter what their objective was, they could have done it better.
They could have done it better AND they could have done it in a way that would have caused much less “the Rays are tanking and/or super cheap” sentiment.
I follow the Rays, so I’ll try to fill in a few blanks. They were going to move on from him, feeling his mediocre 2nd half was more predictive of his future play. If they had known the free agent and trade markets were going to stagnate, they might have non-tendered him in early December. But, they couldn’t predict that, and were left trying to trade a guy that nobody really wanted. As an example, his former teammate Carlos Gonzalez was available at the time of trade. They also said they wanted to get Corey to his new team before the start of camp, and thus didn’t hang onto him throughout pre-season hoping to get more of a return or dump him for 1/4 salary post-camp. They had always liked Hudson, and thought they’d give him a look-see in camp (he obviously didn’t do well). They actually said getting the prospect Gray was the key to the deal, though he’s obviously no sure thing. Obviously, the Rays were painted into a corner that was somewhat of their own doing. They took a PR hit, but I have a pal that says PR “hits” don’t win or lose games, or even attract or deter possible future free agents.
I like Hunter Strickland as a bright post.