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May 25, 2012

Prospectus Game of the Week

Bullpens, Banana Suits, and Ryan Braun

by Sam Miller

The bottom of the eighth inning starts with a man in an orange tuxedo.

Normally, orange tuxedos don’t start appearing on camera until the game is in extra innings, the clock has struck midnight, the baseball is #weird. Other than the orange tuxedo, this game is totally normal in the eighth inning. The Giants lead 3-1. Madison Bumgarner is pitching well. He strikes out the first batter of the eighth inning for his ninth K of the game, and he strikes out the second batter for his 10th. He jumps ahead on Norichika Aoki, and Buster Posey sets up for a high fastball. Bumgarner throws a high fastball. Aoki grounds it to shortstop. Brandon Crawford backs up, rather than charge it, then fumbles it. It’s an error. Ryan Braun is coming up.

Sergio Romo is warm in the Giants' bullpen, but Bruce Bochy doesn’t even bother with a trip to the mound. “He’s gonna let Bumgarner go after Braun,” Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow says, “just by the way he has pitched him tonight.”

He gets ahead 1-2. Posey calls for a back-foot slider. Krukow: “It’s a good call.” But it doesn’t reach Braun’s back foot. See the guy in the yellow shirt, around the middle of the screen? Now see the other guy in the yellow shirt, 10 feet behind him? That’s where.

The first time I remember hearing about a team that could “shorten the game” with three outstanding relief pitchers was in 1990: the Reds, with Dibble, Charlton and Myers. That year, Dibble, Charlton and Myers combined for a 2.28 ERA and 9.4 strikeouts per nine innings. That’s nothing compared to what relievers these days do. The Braves’ top three last year had a 1.66 ERA and 10.9 Ks per nine. The Yankees’ top three had a 1.66 and 9.9. The Angels’ top three had a 2.34 ERA, and the team was widely seen as needing to upgrade the bullpen in the offseason. The Rangers' entire bullpen has a 2.03 ERA this year, and their three lowest-leveraged relievers—Uehara, Lowe, Ross—have a cumulative 1.87 ERA.

Which is all to say: the world is absolutely drowning in good relievers right now. In 1990, there were seven relievers (minimum 30 innings) who had an ERA of 2.00 or lower, 27 at or below 2.50, and 49 no worse than 3.00. In 2011, there were 15, 40, and 78 below each mark. It is this flood of strikeout arms, as much as any change in managerial strategy or any perceived need to protect starters, that has enabled the change in bullpen usage over the past two decades. In 1990, teams used six or more pitchers in a game 118 times. Teams have already surpassed that total in 2012. If your bullpen is deep enough, why not? Why, in retrospect, should Madison Bumgarner ever face Ryan Braun, as the tying run, in the eighth inning, if Sergio Romo is warm?

This episode of Game of the Week didn’t start in the first inning, because, as they say, after the Ryan Braun home run we had a brand new ballgame. A ballgame that would see each team reach the six-pitcher mark and that would feature a Giants bullpen that, somewhat quietly, and perhaps only temporarily, but in this era darned-near predictably, has put up the following ERAs deep into May:

• Sergio Romo: 0.64
• Jeremy Affeldt: 2.87
• Clay Hensley: 2.00
• Javier Lopez: 0.93
• Santiago Casilla: 1.37