John Farrell’s Right Move/Wrong Result Bullpen Decision

John Farrell received the wrong result from the right move today. The Red Sox manager used his closer in a high-leverage, non-save situation, in the eighth inning. With the bases filled with Blue Jays and one out in a tie game, Farrell lifted Koji Uehara and brought in Craig Kimbrel.

Kimbrel fanned Edwin Encarnacion for the second out, but proceeded to walk Troy Tulowitzki to force in a run. Russell Martin followed with a two-run single.

After the game, I asked Farrell — prefacing my question by saying I agreed with the move — if it was something we can anticipate seeing more of this season.

“We’ve got roles established,” responded Farrell. “The seventh, eighth and ninth have been efficient. They’ve been successful. I think this was a little bit of a blip with Koji today. That bullpen group knows that they’re there to pick one another up in certain situations. The highest-leverage inning was clearly the eighth, and hopefully we don’t find ourselves in that spot too often.”

I hoped for a more definitive answer. What Farrell said about established roles, not to mention his “hopefully not,” suggested that this might be the rare case. At the same time, he did seem to leave a window open.

It’s a breath of fresh air when a manager cites high-leverage and does more than play lip service to the term. Farrell brought in his best reliever with the game on the line — results be damned — and if he’s smart, we’ll see more of it in the future.





David Laurila grew up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and now writes about baseball from his home in Cambridge, Mass. He authored the Prospectus Q&A series at Baseball Prospectus from December 2006-May 2011 before being claimed off waivers by FanGraphs. He can be followed on Twitter @DavidLaurilaQA.

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Damaso
7 years ago

his mistake might be leaning too heavily on a 41yr old in the first place, though. Koji leads the majors in appearances this year already…that doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.