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.
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.
Players and managers all agree that pitchers like to know their roles. And Kimbrel’s role is to come in at the beginning of the 9th, NOT with runners on base in the 8th.
Yeah, it is critical to have the same guy come in to protect that 3-run lead with nobody on rather than preserve a 1-run lead with the bases loaded in the 8th. You can’t find just ANYBODY to do the former.
Koji had been worked quite a bit (8 of the teams first 12 games-on pace for over 100 IP) and is 41. Tazawa only threw 2 pitches to end the 7th and had not pitched since Friday. Koji was seen looking at and shaking his hand, and nobody came out. Farrell rests Ortiz in a big game a day after resting Pedroia and Holt (who also did not play against a LHP’er so why the rest on Sunday against a RHP’er whom Young can’t hit)). Look for him to be gone by June.
In fairness to Koji and Farrell, the defense did not help him out much, but the walks/HBP suggest they have to watch Kojis workload a bit closer.
Yeah, I’m very concerned that Farrell is just managing scared, and that he’s going to totally burn out his top bullpen guys in an effort to not get canned early in the season if the team starts slow. It’s definitely the right move for any given game, but count me worried about Koji’s overuse, as well.
It seems really strange to praise Farrell for saying something that makes a bit of sense, after his explanation from la-la-land the other day about how he couldn’t pinch-hit for Chris Young in a high leverage situation yesterday to get him ready for all the lower leverage at-bats today…
Farrell is a bad in-game manager. He consistently makes poor decisions regarding the bullpen and PH. He’s already been out-foxed a few times this year but Tito and Showalter.