2019 Positional Power Rankings: Bullpen (No. 16-30)
This is the second-half of the bullpen rankings, so there will be no Yankee ‘pens packed from top-to-bottom with scarily elite arms. You will not find a dominating Blake Treinen or a deep Astros corp or a team that made some big offseason signing.
What you will find is despair, hopefully tinged with some kind of hope. As the fan experience goes, nothing seems to feel as bad as a bullpen, because when a bullpen does its job poorly, you see late-game wins evaporate into losses. For those at the game, beer sales are likely over, so even an alcohol-fueled respite is hard to find. Fans of teams with terrible bullpens are always convinced they could add 20 wins with a top closer and while that’s ludicrous, a bad relief corps does cast a pall of doom over a game.
When you have a below-average bullpen, your challenges vary. For a contending team, how do you minimize the damage to the rest of your team? For a rebuilding team, can you find arms that are interesting with upside?
So, how’d they do?
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
Thank you Dan, very cool!
I am more than a little surprised to not see the Cubs here, and I’m guessing Brad Hand is single-handedly keeping Cleveland out of the basement because wow do they need help.
upvote for the Hand pun – intentional or not
Cleveland’s bullpen in 2018 was, essentially, unchanged from 2016 and 2017. The reason why it wasn’t dominant is that every reliever decided to implode at the same time thus turning it into the world’s greatest dumpster fire.
There is a pretty big argument to be made for positive regression here. Then again, we do have Carl Willis who doesn’t like the newfangled analytics so your mileage may vary.
God, I want Tito “It’s really hard to quantify moving up 90 feet” and Willis gone.
Lovelady’s emoji would be amazing. I assume there would be at least one eggplant and one peach.
Dude went thru his formative years named Dick Lovelady. I really hope he has a great sense of humor.
FWIW, he has expressly stated he wants to go by Richard. Not that that will stop people from calling him Dick, but he’s at least on record saying he doesn’t want to be called that.
Boxburger, Diekman, Fillmyer, Lovelady, Blewitt. Surely this is on purpose, and a new market inefficiency has been found
Color me surprised that Cleveland made the top 15. I know last season was much worse than expected, but I hardly expected a reversal this year, especially since pretty much nothing has changed.
They have Perez for the whole year, at least.
And Hand, and Cimber.
Bad bullpens are where fringe contenders’ dreams go to die
But we’ll only know who the bad bullpens are at the end of the year.
Take the Cards for example – Jordan Hicks (throws +100, ridiculous stuff), Alex Reyes (throws 100, ridiculous stuff, former top pitching prospect in baseball), and Carlos Martinez (used to throw 100, fmr all-star starting pitcher, etc.) are projected for 0.3 WAR(!) in 130 innings.
Who knows what these guys will do this year – maybe injuries, maybe dominance, maybe good luck, maybe bad, likely a combination of all of these things. But predicting bullpen performance is a fool’s errand and paying big dollars as if it will guarantee bullpen success is an even bigger fool’s errand (see, e.g., Luke Gregerson and Brett Cecil).
Predictions have error bars, of course. But that doesn’t make them all shots in the dark.
Hicks is a weird case. Not a lot of precedent for the jump he made last year and he’s never missed bats, even in the low minors, with his 100+ MPH heater, so it’s not surprising a stats-based projection system isn’t optimistic.
From a scouting standpoint, there’s quite a bit of reason for optimism. There’s absolutely no reason ZiPS or any other projection system should take that into account though.
Phil Collins is/was an original member of Genesis. The joke doesn’t land as well if you do it as “Genesis without Peter Gabriel,” but it makes sense.
Do you like Phil Collins? I’ve been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album, Duke. Before that, I really didn’t understand any of their work. Too artsy, too intellectual. It was on Duke where Phil Collins’ presence became more apparent. I think Invisible Touch was the group’s undisputed masterpiece. It’s an epic meditation on intangibility. At the same time, it deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three albums
Everybody should like what they like, HFB, so good on ya. I’m a too-artsy, too-intellectual adherent of the 70’s flavors of Genesis. I saw the Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and the Wind and Wuthering tour shows and prefer the old stuff.
I have to return some videotapes
Beta?
Is that a raincoat?
What’s the deal with the “Other RP”? Eg the Red Sox get -48 innings from their other relievers, whose 5.25 ERA and 4.89 FIP give them plus 0.1 WAR? Is this just a guesstimate of in-season additions replacing the crappiness of what’s there now?
There’s a gremlin I’m working out!
I really can’t get my head around the Red Sox just punting the bullpen. …especially when their former guy is sitting waiting for a contract. Maybe they think they can get Kimbrel on a one year deal at the last minute.
Hey, his name is Dave.
Luxury tax limit + a bunch of upper minors stuff about ready for a trial = F it, fix it at the deadline
“This offseason, the Rockies did what they generally do when they sign contracts that don’t work out: close their eyes and pretend that nothing is wrong. The final tally for Davis-Dunn-Shaw-McGee-Desmond will likely be something resembling three wins for $176 million, or almost $60 million per.”
Me, crying as I read these true words.
I didn’t even drag Parra into it!
Hey, Phil Collins took over for Gabriel on vocals on Seconds Out and Then There Were Three. Both excellent albums. After that, the whole band went downhill.
Re: David Paulino on the Jays… he’s had a couple of attitude issues this spring, and apparently that has followed him around. We figure that’s why he wasn’t given more of a chance.
Today I learned that the Royals have a pitcher named Dick Lovelady.
I hope Richard Bleier’s ERA is 1.9 something again this year. That will be a Khris Davis like 4 straight years with an ERA of 1.9 something.