Reds Send Chapman Back to the Bullpen
It’s been 27 months since the Reds signed Aroldis Chapman to that six-year, $30.25 million contract, but he still has yet to make a start for them. That’s not entirely his fault however, as the club decided to use him out of the bullpen last season. Despite a strong showing in Spring Training — 2.12 ERA with an 18/2 K/BB ratio in 17 IP — Chapman is once again headed back to the bullpen to start this season.
Chapman is in the bullpen. Baker: “He’s a starter, a very good starter. But Billy Bray isn’t ready to be late-inning lefty right now.” #reds
— John Fay (@johnfayman) April 2, 2012
You really have to be impressed by the way Dusty Baker showed a) how much he overvalues left-handed relievers, and b) how little faith he has in Bill Bray with just two sentences. Bray, by the way, has held left-handed batters to a .154/.245/.294 batting line with a 25.2% strikeout rate over the last two seasons, but I digress.
Chapman, still just 24, was reportedly competing with the out of options Homer Bailey for the final rotation spot this month, but Ryan Madson’s injury created a need in the bullpen and apparently the move was just too easy to pass up. It’s been a season and a half since Chapman last started a meaningful game (in the minors, no less), and the plan to build him up as a starter in winter ball was thwarted by a minor shoulder issue. He was very clearly over that this spring.
Now there are very legitimate questions about Chapman’s ability to hold up over a full season as a starter, especially since throwing as hard as he does is such an unnatural act. Pitching in general is unnatural, but Chapman’s freakish velocity makes it even more extreme. That said, there are also concerns about his ability to perform in back-to-back days, which is a significant part of being a late-inning reliever. Batters got to Chapman for a .179/.360/.308 batting line on zero day’s rest last year compared to .137/.312/.177 in all other situations.
The Reds made a significant investment in Chapman two years ago, and so far they’re doing everything they can to minimize their return. The bullpen could be his long-term role with the club as far as we know, but they haven’t even given him a chance to show what he could do in the rotation. Cincinnati took a big step towards long-term contention by locking up Joey Votto yesterday, and giving Chapman a shot as a starter could yield significant results as well. We’ll just have to wait until at least next year, it seems.
Mike writes about the Yankees at River Ave. Blues and baseball in general at CBS Sports.
The comments regarding Bray were more in regards to his injury this spring and subsequent ineffectiveness. In general, he’s a great LOOGY, but the words “right now” should not be ignored.
That said, yes, Aroldis Chapman should be the opening day starter for the Louisville Bats
Exactly. Baker is saying that Bray’s missed time this spring has him behind a bit.
Check out that slash.
.179/.360/.308
That is a large number of walks.
If you look at just the first two numbers, it looks like a Carlos Pena slash line.
Could easily be Manny’s slash line this season as well
Actually, I think there’s a decent chance we’ll see Chapman start this year. Fay went on to say that what Baker seemed to mean in his comment about Bray was more related to health; he had been battling a pulled groin this spring. That said, any success in the pen is going to make it that much harder for Dusty Baker to make a move. It’s too easy for him to keep Chapman in the bullpen.
Baker’s never seemed to lack confidence, but I wonder if how he’s been viewed as an arm shredder has him skittish about how to manage Chapman in the rotation. Its evident that his strengths are most clearly leveraged by throwing more innings as opposed to being a LOOGY and I just wonder if maybe his confidence has been shaken in how to manager a top pitching prospect..
With Madson’s injury, it gives him the perfect excuse to do this without a ton of extreme criticism even as silly as it seems.
The way that’s phrased from Dusty makes sound incredibly stupid. Like, over the top. If he thinks a guy is going to be a “very good” starting pitcher, then leaving him out of the rotation because he’s worried about having lefties in the bullpen is idiotic-especially when this bullpen contains Sean Marshall. Some of those left handed problems could be solved by properly leveraging Sean Marshall, or platooning him such that a guy like Sam LeCure pitches against right handed batters in the 9th inning.
I trust there’s more to it than that, of course. Surely they’ve got to worry about dramatically increasing Chapman’s innings, along with how he can hold up with his arm velocity. I just wonder why, it seems, managers prefer to avoid talking about that, and instead make stupid statements about how important it is to improve the bullpen with a move like this.
This was my exact reaction. I don’t really care about the Reds but I still hope that Baker’s actual decision process is not anywhere near what it sounds like based on that quote.
Dusty Baker manages to make himself sound incredibly stupid just about every day. His decision process is medieval.
I’d be pretty annoyed if I were a Reds fan at the moment. They really should be easing him into the starting the role because he has the stuff to be Randy Johnson-like. Wasting him as a LOOGY or any type of relief pitcher is mind-boggling.
“I trust there’s more to it than that, of course. Surely they’ve got to worry about dramatically increasing Chapman’s innings”.
I think you are giving Dusty far too much credit.
If Dusty Baker managed an Apple Store, he would put all the iPads in the back and fill the showroom with PowerBooks.
Man, so much Dusty hate. Curiously, it sounds like almost all of it is from non-Reds fans.
Look, we who follow the team actually thinks he does an ok job (mostly, anyways, and obviously I can speak for every single fan).
Seriously, though, he sticks to pitch counts, he doesn’t bench young stars for veterans, and the decision to move Chapman (most likely temporarily) to the pen has way more to do with how decimated the bullpen currently is (injuries Madson, Masset, Bray) than his perceived value as a starter.
But if you need a left-handed bullpen arm for the short-term, why not just pick up someone from the spring-training castoffs? Sure, Chapman is likely to be a better pitcher than whoever you get, but is the .1 WAR you’re giving up by finding a replacement-level pitcher for 10-15 innings really worth the cost to his development?
“sticks to pitch counts?” Really?
Do you think Mark Prior and Kerry Wood would agree with that statement? Then their pitch counts must have been around 200!
Baker does a lot of good things vis-a-vis position players but it’s difficult to defend the horrendous way in which he handles pitchers.
Yes, A DECADE AGO he may have mishandled Wood and Prior. I’m not denying that.
But try naming a pitcher other than Wood or Prior (who both had worrisome mechanics issues as well) that “broke down” as a result of Dusty’s “abuse.”
Trust me, as someone who watches the Reds religiously, since he has been with the Reds he has stuck to the 120 pitch limit. The guy isn’t an idiot- he is well aware of the criticism (since it is absolutely relentless, even now, as we can see from this comment thread) and he has adjusted his pitcher management accordingly.
Now, whether that is to avoid further criticism or b/c he actually has had a change of heart is up for debate.
You want numbers? I got numbers – he’s gotten A LOT better:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=13948
Dusty is hardly cured of pitcher abuse since coming to Cincy. First of all, he ruined Aaron Harang. The guy was never the same after Dusty ran him out on 2 days rest for four innings (67 pitches) of extra inning work in May of 2008 in a meaningless game versus San Diego. Harang had a 3.50 ERA before that game and 5.88 ERA after. That was Dusty’s ace (4th in Cy Young voting in 2007) and Harang was toast ever since.
Remarkably, he used Volquez in that same game for 1.2 innings. He’d only had one full day of rest since his last start. He gave up a home run to lose the game, probably on purpose in an attempt to save himself. Volquez had an ERA of 1.34 before that fiasco and a 4.10 the rest of the way. He had Tommy John surgery the next season and upon his return in 2010 Dusty had him promptly throw 96 pitches in his first game back and repeatedly rode him hard for the rest of the year. Shocking that Volquez never got back to his 2008 form. Nice work, Dusty, way to handle the guy your team gave up Josh Hamilton to get.
In his 4 seasons in Cincy, Dusty’s only destroyed two of his best pitchers.
He also caused Madson to need TJ surgery, and has injured Masset and Bray before the season even began!!!!
Plus, he gave Arroyo diseases last year so that he would suck, and he has been pitchcounting crazy to make Bailey not live up to his potential!!
And check this out: Travis Wood 2010: 3.51 ERA, Travis Wood 2011 AFTER ONE YEAR OF BEING MANAGED BY DUSTY: 4.84 ERA!!!!!!!
Why isn’t he has been arresteded???!??!
BaHAHA! Dusty Baker. What a joke. Sending him to the ‘pen is one thing, but the explanation is so ridiculous I can barely contain myself. Gotta love those big money lefty specialists. So glad to be a Cards’ fan right now.
Chapman was a bad starter in Cuba. Chapman was a bad starter in the minor leagues in 2010. Chapman was a really, really bad starter in the minor leagues in 2011, and then came down with a shoulder injury that kept him from pitching when sent to winter ball.
17 innings of spring ball, most of them on backfields against minor leaguers, does not change things that much. The Reds are maximizing their return on the investment, because disaster starts are not valuable.
And nobody knows what kind of starter he’d be in this league because he hasn’t gotten a chance. So what you’re saying is that they shouldn’t even try?
I guess if the level of competition in the majors is worse than in the high minors or Cuba.
Chapman is 24 years old. At this point 17 innings of spring training ball actually constitutes a significant percentage of his starting experience.
How many late inning lefties does a team need in addition to Sean Marshall?
I am entirely prepared to see this line at some point this season
Chapman
Not sure what happened there.
Chapman: 4 IP, 6 K, 7 BB, 3 H, HR, 4 ER, 140 TP.
Randy Johnson routinely put up lines like that until he was 27. Some pitchers are late bloomers. Only a handful of lefthanders have ever had an arm like Chapman.
I just wish Dusty Baker were more like Casey Stengel or Ron Gardenhire. The Reds would be able to limit Chapman’s innings and pitch counts but get more value by having him start and relieve in the same manner of Johan Santana in 2002-2003. But Baker, like most managers, is rigid and obtuse.
Man, if he serves up 7 BB, 3 H, and 1 HR in 4 IP while only giving up 4 ER, I’d be pretty impressed.
What also makes this “Bray is not ready” bs harder to handle is:
1) Bray was hurt this spring
2) When he came back from injury, Dusty over used him. 3 out of 4 days just days removed from a strained groin. As expected, bray gets shelled for 5 runs on April 1. Now Dusty has a nice excuse.
Some members of redlegnation were joking/guessing that Dusty was intentionally running Bray into the ground so he could “show” he needed Chapman in the pen. I had a hard time believing that until I saw the quote above.
What an expensive LOOGY that apparently will never get his shot.
At least he still has his modeling career.
I dont know how Chapman would fare as a starter, he would probably be something like Oliver Perez at the start, just dominating some and walking in 10 runs in another. Dusty should have given him a shot, and let him work his way through whatever issues he might have. Should have sent him down if you dont want him starting in the bigs.
Hopefully acquiring Alfredo Simon on waivers changes this entire post…. and he ends up back in the rotation
Chapman will be starting by May ala Liriano 2006
Why not send Arroyo to the pen and start Chapman? Arroyo had to be the worst pitcher in baseball playing regularly. His horrible contract is a sunk cost already, just make him the mop-up guy.
Since no discussion has been made about Chapman closing, whats up with that?
Chapman as closer was discussed, but Walt Jocketty is pretty adamant that Chapman is going to be a starter. That’s why he got a lefty reliever (Marshall) AND a “proven closer” (Madson).
Dusty is less worried about the guy’s development, and more worried about winning games now, so that he can get his contract extended.
In the short term, Bray’s injury (with Madson’s) gives Dusty an excuse to put Chapman into the bullpen. Strong spring aside, Chapman was still in competition with Homer Bailey for a spot in the rotation (Arroyo’s $12M contract guarantees him a job.) That means either (1) Chapman goes to Louisville; (2) Homer (out of options) gets dealt or released; or (3) one of them goes to the ‘pen. Homer supposedly can’t warm up quickly enough to relieve, so the Bray injury makes it easy to kick the decision down the road two weeks.