Fredi Already On The Hot Seat?

[nny]

Except the argument isn't about October, it's about getting to october, and bullpen arms blowing games in May is just as important to getting to October as bullpen arms blowing games in September.

[Bobbob1313]

We would have made the playoffs with the Yankees starting pitchers. We would have made the playoffs with their offense. I can say those things with almost absolute certainty.

I'm not sure you can say the same about their bullpen.

Also, I'm not comparing the bullpen they took into October to the one they had all year. That's not the point of the ranking. The point is that they were able to make the playoffs despite a "worse" bullpen. The point is that Festa was making our bullpen sound atrocious when it had a better ERA than all but 11 teams in baseball. The point is that we don't make the playoffs by adding one relief pitcher, no matter who he is.

[Swifty]

Nny, my argument is different from Festa's. My argument is that any team that thinks of itself as a playoff team, that expects to go there yet skimps on assembling a bullpen is doomed to fail, much the same way anyone that buys a sports car and expects it to be a peak performance machine without premium tires is asking for trouble.

No the bullpen is not the most important thing (starting pitching) nor is it the most used (an everyday player) but it is the critical area that will end an otherwise promising season prematurely.
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We would have made the playoffs with the Yankees starting pitchers. We would have made the playoffs with their offense. I can say those things with almost absolute certainty.

I'm not sure you can say the same about their bullpen.

Also, I'm not comparing the bullpen they took into October to the one they had all year. That's not the point of the ranking. The point is that they were able to make the playoffs despite a "worse" bullpen. The point is that Festa was making our bullpen sound atrocious when it had a better ERA than all but 11 teams in baseball. The point is that we don't make the playoffs by adding one relief pitcher, no matter who he is.

It's funny you say that because the Yankees rotation is and was their weak point. I don't think we make the playoffs if all you do is switch out JJ - Ricky and the 3 stooges for CC - AJ - Pettitte and whoever is able to go 5 innings.

Here are some names of players that started more than 3 games for the Yankees last season: Joba Chamberlain, Alfredo Aceves, Sergio Mitre, Chien Ming Wang and Chad Gaudin. If you think those aforementioned names are convincingly better than West - Miller - Sanchez - Volstad as a legitimate starter, I respectfully disagree. Also, since we're using ERA as our "better than worse than" stat, in terms of ERA + we had the best pitcher on either staff in JJ. So, no, we wouldn't "certainly" make the playoffs switching up rotations.

[Bobbob1313]

Eh.

04 Red Sox only had one shutdown guy in the pen. Was Keith Foulke better than Kiko Calero that year?

The 06 Cards had a slew of good guys but nobody who was a shut down guy. Kiko Calero, Brian Sanchez, Dan Meyer and Brendan Donnelly (late) were as good as their best guys that year.

You could have absolutely won with the pen we had last year. Absolutely.

These are the reasons we didn't win last year (in order):
1) .249/.296/.332 line combined from our 3B (worst in baseball)
2) Chris Volstad and Ricky Nolasco were 1.5-2 full runs of ERA worse than expected, and didn't give the innings they were expected
3) We had a .683 team OPS during May and a 4.90 ERA during May, our worst marks for any month.
4) We gave some 450 PAs to Emilio Bonifacio in the top 2 spots of the lineup, where he put up a ~.300 OBP and gave away outs on the base paths.
5) We didn't have Arthur Rhodes (or someone similar)
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It's funny you say that because the Yankees rotation is and was their weak point. I don't think we make the playoffs if all you do is switch out JJ - Ricky and the 3 stooges for CC - AJ - Pettitte and whoever is able to go 5 innings.

Here are some names of players that started more than 3 games for the Yankees last season: Joba Chamberlain, Alfredo Aceves, Sergio Mitre, Chien Ming Wang and Chad Gaudin. If you think those aforementioned names are convincingly better than West - Miller - Sanchez - Volstad as a legitimate starter, I respectfully disagree. Also, since we're using ERA as our "better than worse than" stat, in terms of ERA + we had the best pitcher on either staff in JJ. So, no, we wouldn't "certainly" make the playoffs switching up rotations.

They got 630 innings out of their top 3 starters at an ERA around 3.8. The rest of their starters sucked, yeah and that closes the gap a little bit, but they had the better starting staff. We had one guy who was consistently able to throw quality innings.

JJ had a marginally better ERA, but CC threw more innings in a tougher league. I'll take that.

Also ERA+ isn't going to be too accurate or useful in new Yankee Stadium until we get a few more years in there. One year is not enough time to get an accurate indication of how a park plays, so park factors have to be taken with a grain of salt.

[Swifty]

Mmmm, opinions as facts. That's fun.

See, we can play the same game where I say your #5 reason is the #2 reason, that #3 is silly since slumps come and go, we just got all our bad out really in a hurry.

But, since we've come to this point, and you still don't understand my point isn't about why we didn't make the playoffs, but why it's silly to have the expectations we do but make it a real half assed effort when we're oh so close, I'll just say good day.

[Bobbob1313]

Swift never states his opinion as fact!

I understand your point. You can't win in the playoffs without a great pen. We had a good pen last year, so I'm not sure I even agree with your basic assertion that we would have been at a handicap in the playoffs.

Having the ability to win in the playoffs doesn't matter if you don't make the playoffs. That's the whole point. Improving the bullpen was not going to get us into the playoffs last year, and it likely isn't the difference between making the playoffs this year. So you can hate on them for not improving the bullpen, but all that would have done is make us have the best bullpen sitting at home in October.

[Swifty]

Having the ability to win in the playoffs doesn't matter if you don't make the playoffs.

I don't disagree, nor do I believe anyone here thinks that the bullpen is/was a bigger problem than giving 400 PAs to Bonifacio before pulling the plug.

[Bobbob1313]

But this discussion is not even about what was the biggest problem. It's that there's almost no conceivable way the bullpen could have been improved to the point where we make the playoffs. It's almost not worth discussing. We had a good bullpen relative to the league. Yeah, Lindstrom and Nunez blew some big games. They also shut the door quite a few times, and the rest of the guys were mostly very, very effective.

Would that bullpen have been exposed in the postseason? It's possible. You never know. Anything can happen in a short series against the best teams in baseball. One bad game and you blew it.

But improving the bullpen for a potential postseason run doesn't matter when you have the other holes this team did.

[Party]

Swift prepare for another post on why giving 400 PAs to an average 3B would have helped the team more.
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I already said improving the bullpen probably doesn't get us into the playoffs. Did you miss that post?

But it was a factor in why we didn't make it.

[Bobbob1313]

I already said improving the bullpen probably doesn't get us into the playoffs. Did you miss that post?

But it was a factor in why we didn't make it.

It was a factor, sure. Maybe, best case scenario, Arthur Rhodes is a net gain of 1 win. That doesn't get us anywhere close, and certainly wasn't worth two million dollars for a team with limited resources (whether you agree with why they are limited is an entirely different discussion, but the fact of the matter is, Beinfest has limited resources).

There were lots of factors as to why we didn't make it. Not all of them are worth discussing. Improving from 12th in the majors in bullpen ERA to, like 7th doesn't really make a tangible difference. You want to point to the games Nunez and Lindstrom blew, well, everyone blows games. we also had a few games where our starters shit the bed early but our bullpen was deep enough to keep us in it and we eventually won. Maybe if you change the bullpen around some, we don't have guys with the same length and we don't end up winning a couple of those games. You can't just say "Exchange Leo for someone else and he doesn't blow those games Leo did" because it doesn't occur in a vacuum.
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Prepare for a Festa post saying "lol since bobbz sez we cant talk bout it we cant lolz"

[Party]

I simply said having a deeper bullpen probably saves us runs in August and September when some of the everyday guys began to show signs or wear and tear. Calero and Nunez automatically come to mind.

I never said "Oh yeah, remember that game in Washington? Rhodes never blows that."
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Prepare for a post where Bob says something I said that I never said. Watch it as it slowly morphs into a discussion about giving an average 3B 400 PAs.

[Bobbob1313]

Nunez is a good example, Calero not so much, as he allowed 5 runs in August and September in 22 innings.

The only problem with that is, again, as has been said, if we go with someone like Rhodes or whoever from the beginning of the season, we likely don't call up guys like Brian Sanches or Tim Wood or sign Brendan Donnelly. You likely aren't replacing Nunez's innings, since he likely wouldn't have been sent down. You are likely replacing the guys who were borderline candidates to stick on the roster, not the guys who were safely on there.

[Party]

Isn't replacing the borderline guys with someone solid like Arthur Rhodes a good thing?

And I disagree, if Fredi has another dependable arm like Nunez early on, the workload would have been distributed differently.
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Especially on those nights where everyone was thinking "Gee, Nunez has been out there for x consecutive days, I don't know if I like this."

[Bobbob1313]

Not when the borderline guys are putting up 2.56, 2.82, and 1.78 ERAs. The reason they are "borderline" is not because they weren't capable, but because they had options and weren't making any money, so there was nothing to lose in sending them down.

Fredi had dependable guys all season long. I'm not really sure where the idea that he worked with a terribly weak bullpen is coming from.

[lou]

I love how lou and bob keep beating this dead horse of which move would have been more important when I am not arguing with that at all

If all you are arguing is we need to spend money to fix holes so we don't have Abercrombie/Bonifacio/lamer RP holes we hope to fix during the season, sure. I have no qualms.

But you've also said like

If we had spent some money on a closer we would have made the postseason.

But since this is the Marlins and the FO couldn't go out and land a FA starter, the bullpen would be the next area where the organization could have made up for a deficiency

Maybe I read into Bobs either/or argument to much concerning 3B/RP, but these comments are "what?" moments if we time warp back to April 2009. Relievers aren't fixing the 2009 team in April. Even if SP was the first area (which I disagree with strongly), 3B was the second area.

I just don't get this love affair with relievers. Yea Arthur Rhodes is cool, but for every one of him there are three Justin Speier, Jorge Julio, and Kerry Wood signings that bomb. I get how a good bullpen MIGHT give you a better W/L even with a marginal run differential, but it's not determinative and luck has a lot to factor into that. Oakland was # 3 in bullpen ERA last year. Detroit missed the playoffs by 1 game and was # 22. Other offensive stuff matters there, but I mean this works both ways.

I really can't see how anyone whose watched the Marlins is pissed with how they run the bullpen. It's been rock solid for years with vagabond nobodies and bend not break Pinto/Badenhop guys. It's not pretty, but it's getting the job done. And the amount of arms in AAA/AA is crazy for even just 5 relievers to not be productive for this year and for the future.