Atlanta Adds a True LOOGY in Sherill
The Braves added to their bullpen at the Winter Meetings on Wednesday, inking lefty George Sherrill to a $1.2 million dollar contract for the 2011 season. Sherrill was last seen working the middle innings for the Dodgers, and he has previously closed for the Seattle Mariners and the Baltimore Orioles.
Sherrill had four moderately productive seasons from 2006-2009, averaging just under 1.0 WAR per season. The wheels fell off for Sherrill in Los Angeles last year, though, as he posted a 6.69 ERA and a similarly horrible 5.20 FIP en route to a -0.4 WAR season. The decline came all across the board: his strikeout rate dipped to 6.1, and his walk rate and homer rate climbed to 5.9 and 1.0 respectively.
His struggles against right handed hitters are even more stark. Sherrill was never a righty stopper – his career ERA against them is 4.78, and his FIP is a full run worse at 5.81. Even by those standards, Sherrill was awful against righties in 2010. A staggering 51 of the 95 right handers he faced reached base, including 14 walks and 13 extra base hits. Overall, righties hit .427/.516/.707 against Sherrill. Even with some amount of poor BABIP luck accounted for, it’s pretty clear that Sherrill cannot handle right handed batters.
Sherrill can be useful against lefties – they hit .192/.286/.288 off him last year and .167/.235/.265 for his career. If Sherrill is truly used as a Left handed One Out GuY, he could be productive for Atlanta. However, he simply cannot be allowed to face a righty in a high or even medium leverage situation. Sherrill would be a fine pickup, if teams weren’t limited to 25 men on the active roster. However, it will likely be very difficult for Fredi Gonzalez to properly balance keeping the rest of his bullpen healthy and properly using Sherrill. Particularly in the National League, where reliever substitutions happen quite often in the late game due to pinch hitting, Sherrill’s skills just don’t seem to provide enough given his limitations and the scarcity of roster spots.
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This must mean O’Flaherty, in addition to Venters, are slotting into being more valued members of the ‘pen, no? Just to fact-check; Wagner hasn’t officially stepped out yet has he?
Billy Wagner is still on the 40 man roster. He hasn’t filed retirement papers yet. Until he does so, the Braves will hold a slot for him and hope that he decides to come back for one more hurrah.
Venters was used as more of a setup man than a situational lefty last year, and that seems unlikely to change. O’Flaherty was slightly behind him on the depth chart, but he was also used to pitch to RHB and LHB. (He actually faced more righty batters than lefties.)
So neither of them was a LOOGY.
How was he ever a closer with those righty splits? Good god. And here I thought Sherrill might rebound, I take it back…hard.
He didn’t always have the extreme platoon split. When he first came up with the M’s, they pigeon-holed him as a LOOGY because he was absolutey death to LHBs and quite neutral against RHBs.
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Sherrill does come back. Anecdotally, I’d guess that left-handed relievers are probably the single most manager-sensitive players in baseball. I have absolutely nothing empirical to back it up, but it seems that some managers can take just about any southpaw and make him great while others are the exact opposite.
Use him in low leverage outings for a full inning and as a loogy in high leverage situations. I’m sure more difficult things have been accomplished.
Looking at the splits is deceptive here. It just isn’t feasible for his stuff to be so good vs. LHB that you can expect a mid .500s OPS and so bad vs. RHB that 1.200+ has any meaning.
His numbers vs. righties are relevant when he’s facing lefties, and vice versa. His overall FIP tells us more about what kind of pitcher he was last year than either of his platoon splits alone, and there is reason for concern no matter how he’s used in 2011.
“His numbers vs. righties are relevant when he’s facing lefties, and vice versa.”
Can you explicate this further?
I take it to mean that the skill sets required to retire righty batters and to retire lefty batters have greater than zero similarity.
By way of (very extreme) comparison, if someone said “His numbers on Tuesday are relevant when he’s pitching on Wednesday, and vice versa,” nobody would assume any different.
No matter which side of the plate the batter stood on, the outcome of any pitch Sherrill threw tells us something about his velocity, command, and control. The situations aren’t *entirely* different.
That really doesn’t make any sense. Why would his numbers against RHB have any relevance if he is only going to be used against LHB?
Except you leave out that raw skill (as in “stuff”) isn’t the only thing pitchers use to get guys out. Sherrill has a very deceptive motion for LHB with his turned back and then quick release high 3/4-to over the top delivery. That delivery is much more easily picked up by RHB, who can then feast on his high 80s fastball. His curve is incredibly inconsistent, looking like Uncle Charlie one minute and Grandpa Homer the next.
If deception was able to turn a guy who should have washed out before AA ball (Ie, a 1.200 OPS against true-talent pitcher) into someone who can hold batters to a mid-.500s OPS against, every pitcher on the planet would be sacrificing their stuff to throw the batter off. It’s just absolutely ridiculous to suggest that these platoon splits are indicative of his true talent level.
I think Atlanta is hoping that from slots 1-3 in the rotation they can average 6+ innings. I think that nicely accounts for the extra rest, and if it can be managed that kind of LHB dominance is very handy in the NL East. In fact, I’m pretty sure this is Wren’s direct response to the Phillies.
I wish you could have stayed true to the comic book character in your post.
Sherrill will earn his money (or not, I hope) during the 18 games next year when the Braves face the Phillies. If Charlie doesn’t awaken to the necessity of separating Utley and Howard in the order, Sherrill will be a LTOGY, doubling his value, if producing a less felicitous acronym.
Yup, it’s called pulling a Javier Lopez.
Sherril was good a couple of years ago, and I think he can probably get Howard out, cause just about all lefties get Howard out. But 2011 Sherril versus Utley and Ibanez is an advantage for the Phils.
I think the Braves are hoping to catch lightning in a bottle with this guy, but I think it is very unlikely that he contributes all that much.
I know it’s nitpicking… but he never was a closer for Seattle.
this has to address the phillies is a post-werth world where the middle of their order should be very lefty heavy with howard, utley and then some combination of ibanez, domonic brown and/or ross gload, all of whom are lefty batters. without another serious right-handed threat who can play right field available, this becomes an incredibly valuable pickup for the braves
Remember the Mattingly game!
He’s a fat piece of shit if you ask me
Former Winnipeg Goldeyes FTW!!!
Speaking of what Keith-in-Law said-
Who are the fattest baseball players you can think of?
Doug Sisk, Brian Bruney (though now he’s very skinny…wonder if he got a lap band or something), Andruw Jones with the Dodgers, Pablo Sandoval, Bengie Molina….any other fat bastards come to mind?
David Wells kind of resembled Orson Welles by the time he retired.
And who can forget the Fielders, a father-and-son team of fat asses.
Did somebody say fat baseball players?
don’t forget me!
also, the Astros just picked up a big fat reliever for Keppinger.