Meet the Surprisingly Dominant Back End of the Cubs Bullpen

Seems we’ve been talking about the Cubs more than usual this offseason. Which makes sense — the Cubs are really interesting right now. They’re really interesting right now, and it’s been a while since they’ve been interesting at all. It’s finally their turn. Of course we’re going to talk about them more than, say, the Mets or the Rangers. Sorry, Mets and Rangers.

Bullpens are all the rage in today’s MLB. Starting pitchers are being asked less and less to work deep into games, and so the importance of having multiple bullpen weapons to work the final few innings is at an all-time high. Used to be you’d hear about a team that “played eight inning games.” A team like the Yankees could let out a sigh of relief when they entered the ninth with a lead, because they had Mariano Rivera. Last year, we saw the emergence of the team that played six innings games, as the Royals let out their collective sigh of relief with a lead in the seventh inning as they watched Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland toy with hitters for three innings to close out games.

Everyone would like to have their own version of the Royals’ three-headed monster in the back of their bullpen, which brings us to the back end of the Cubs bullpen.

I’ve made an assumption by putting the word “surprising” in the title. You all know what they say about assumptions, but I make an ass out of myself all the time, so I’m used to it. If you’re a Cubs fan, you already know about the Cubs bullpen, therefore ruining the surprise. But I’m still calling it a surprise, given the players involved.

The guys who figure to pitch the most important relief innings for the Cubs in 2015 are Hector Rondon, Pedro Strop and Neil Ramirez. Before last season, Ramirez was best known as the “player to be named later” from the Rangers in the Matt Garza trade, had never thrown a major league inning and was already moving to the bullpen after trying to make it as a starter in Texas. Strop was entering his final season before his 30’s and owned a career FIP and ERA that were closer to 4.00 than they were 3.00. And Rondon wasn’t even the most exciting reliever named “Rondon” in baseball and just had a year that could only be called a “success” because he overcame three consecutive lost seasons of elbow surgeries and rehab to pitch 55 mostly bad innings.

In 2014, that same group quietly went about their business — instead this time, they dominated.

To what extent? Well, I made some tables. Made ’em for this very post! Before I made the tables, I had to have some data, and before I had the data, I had to have a data pool. Constructing that pool required some picking and choosing, admittedly with a bit of guesswork inherent. I tried to figure the most prominent three relievers in each bullpen, right now, for this upcoming season. We know the closers. We know, for the most part, the set-up men. You’ll probably want to quibble with some of my selections for the third spot, but honestly I doubt it’s worth the effort to quibble. It usually isn’t, in life.

First, some context. How good was this trio last year, compared to other trios teams will run out this year? To get a good idea of just pure performance, let’s look at ERA- and FIP-.

Team	RP1	RP2	RP3	ERA-	FIP-	E-/F-
Royals	Greg Holland	Wade Davis	Kelvin Herrera	33	50	42
Yankees	Dellin Betances	Andrew Miller	Adam Warren	54	52	53
Phillies	Jonathan Papelbon	Ken Giles	Justin De Fratus	52	64	58
Nationals	Drew Storen	Matt Thornton	Aaron Barrett	47	71	59
Cubs	Hector Rondon	Pedro Strop	Neil Ramirez	56	66	61
Reds	Aroldis Chapman	Burke Badenhop	Jumbo Diaz	64	62	63
Rays	Jake McGee*	Brad Boxberger	Kevin Jepsen	63	68	66
Pirates	Mark Melancon	Tony Watson	Jared Hughes	51	80	66
White Sox	David Robertson	Zach Duke	Zach Putnam	65	68	67
Giants	Santiago Casilla	Yusmeiro Petit	Jeremy Affeldt	57	76	67
Orioles	Zach Britton	Darren O’Day	Tommy Hunter	53	83	68
Athletics	Tyler Clippard	Sean Doolittle	Dan Otero	64	72	68
Padres	Joaquin Benoit	Brandon Maurer	Shawn Kelley	73	66	70
Angels	Huston Street	Joe Smith	Fernando Salas	59	80	70
Astros	Luke Gregerson	Pat Neshek	Chad Qualls	63	79	71
Marlins	Steve Cishek	Mike Dunn	A.J. Ramos	76	75	76
Dodgers	Kenley Jansen	J.P. Howell	Brandon League	73	79	76
Mariners	Fernando Rodney	Tom Wilhelmsen	Danny Farquhar	68	85	77
Indians	Cody Allen	Bryan Shaw	Scott Atchison	67	86	77
Blue Jays	Brett Cecil	Aaron Loup	Marco Estrada	76	79	78
Braves	Craig Kimbrel	James Russell	Jason Grilli	79	79	79
Red Sox	Koji Uehara	Junichi Tazawa	Edward Mujica	77	82	80
Mets	Jenrry Mejia	Jeurys Familia	Vic Black	71	92	82
Cardinals	Trevor Rosenthal	Jordan Walden	Seth Maness	83	85	84
Rangers	Neftali Feliz	Shawn Tolleson	Roman Mendez	60	110	85
Tigers	Joe Nathan	Joakim Soria	Al Alburquerque	90	87	89
Brewers	Jonathan Broxton	Neal Cotts	Will Smith	90	88	89
Twins	Glen Perkins	Casey Fien	Caleb Thielbar	96	88	92
Rockies	LaTroy Hawkins	Adam Ottavino	Rex Brothers	97	88	93
Dbacks	Addison Reed	Brad Ziegler	Evan Marshall	93	93	93

Up at the top, with a laughable lead, is the team you’d expect to see. Then you’ve got the Yankees, who acquired Andrew Miller this offseason for the sole purpose of trying to build their own bullpen super-weapon. Then you’ve got the Phillies, who you can mentally erase because Jonathan Papelbon likely won’t pitch for them in 2015. Then there’s the team that doesn’t even have Tyler Clippard anymore, and then our Cubs.

Neil Ramirez had a 1.44 ERA, struck out nearly a third of the batters he faced, and gave up two homers. Strop had the same FIP as Kelvin Herrera, struck out nearly a third of the batters he faced, and gave up two homers. And for Rondon, the higher of the two numbers between his ERA and FIP was 2.42, he struck out a quarter of the batters he faced, and he gave up two homers.

And, while recent performance — especially with relievers — is nice, what we really care about is future performance. How good will this group be in 2015? Of course, nobody really knows, but our best guess probably lies within an advanced projection system. Steamer projects the group for the 9th-highest WAR of any trio of relievers, so there’s that. Ninth-best, based on the projections. Fourth-best, based on everyone’s most recent year of pitching, not counting the likely-soon-to-be-Papelbon-less Phillies. If you want, you could argue the Cubs have a top-5 trio. Call it top-10 if you’re more modest.

The projections call for some regression and, of course, we should expect some. They call for it particularly in the home run department, and they call for it particularly in Neil Ramirez. The group, as a whole, gave up a combined six home runs, and it’s likely that number will be higher in 2015. Then again, the same Royals group gave up a combined three — all by Holland — so if you’re calling for regression in one, you’ve got to call for regression in the others.

After all, it’s not like this Cubs unit doesn’t have the stuff. The only relievers last year who threw their fastball harder, on average, than Rondon were Chapman (duh), Herrera, Kimbrel, Rosenthal, Betances and McGee — and that’s good company. That same fastball also has an elite 50% groundball rate, making Herrera a natural and appropriate comparison. Strop’s main pitch is a sinker that goes 96 and his slider got more whiffs any other slider in baseball. And then here’s a fun comp for the fastball thrown by Neil Ramirez:

Four-seam fastball comparison, Neil Ramirez vs. Sean Doolittle
	Usage	Velocity	“Rise”	Whiff%	GB%
Ramirez	72%	95.4 mph	+11.5 in.	50%	21%
Doolittle	88%	95.3 mph	+11.8 in.	57%	23%

So Ramirez has the right-handed version of Sean Doolittle’s fastball, and we know all about Sean Doolittle’s fastball. Rondon has Kelvin Herrera’s fastball, and nobody has a slider quite like Strop’s.

They had become a forgotten team, reduced to nothing but an army of elite prospects who, at long last, broke into the majors to come into their own. The organization went out and got a frontline starter to complement the young core, with hopes of a potential playoff bid. In the playoffs, they’d need just six innings from their starters because their trio of flamethrowing righties would come in and dominate the final three innings. And they did just that, all the way to the World Seri — wait, is this supposed to be about the Cubs or the Royals?