7 responses to “Bullpen Cheapies”

  1. obsessivegiantscompulsive

    Nice analysis, as always.

    What would be interesting is if you can cut all the above tables by pitchers we expect to make the bullpen in 2009, i.e. minus all the pitchers who shouldn’t be in the rotation or now probably not since they are now free agents. Fans often forget that the overall numbers are skewed by players who might not belong in the bullpen, like a few years back when Eyre was out with an injury and the bullpen had pitchers pitching outside their capabilities until Eyre returned to the bullpen. People moaned about the bullpen but once Eyre returned, the bullpen was fine.

    I like Miller too, low risk for possible big gain. Surprised he signed so fast for just minor league contract, he wasn’t born in the SF area (Torrance, CA) have nothing concrete on upbringing, but he entered draft from an LA area CC, so probably a SoCal upbringing. I’m surprised the A’s never gave him a chance, nice minors stats, though not outstanding, but the Blue Jays did as they got him in Hinske/Koch trade.

    Looks like he might have had an injury in 2003. Then he had another injury of some sort in 2006, costing him time again. Then this elbow problem in 2008. Don’t look good long term but he could be OK for short stints. If the Giants can fix his mechanics without reducing his effectiveness, that would be good.

    Oh, found a tenuous link: Giants first drafted him out of high school (Torrance High , so yeah, SoCal upbringing) but he didn’t sign (34th round; good move, Rockies signed 5th round).

    I would put this up there with all the reclaimation projects Sabean has done before that worked out for a season or more, Johnstone, F-Rod, Embree, Chad Zerbe, Eyre, Dustin Hermanson, Jim Brower, Tyler Walker. Sabean has been active in selecting player like this in the past, so it should continue into the future.

  2. MarkOC

    I liked the pickup and your analysis is even more encouraging. Nice work.

    (OT: how’d the brew turn out?)

  3. obsessivegiantscompulsive

    My point was not to strike all the bad performances but to focus on who we can reasonably expect to see in 2009: Wilson, Taschner, Hinshaw, Romo, Yabu, and I would throw in Sadler and Misch to round out the bullpen. I thought I had made that clear, sorry. That’s nothing like what we had in 2008 and thus worth examining what the change might look like.

    And I think a comparison is valid with other teams in general because most teams should have the same mix of guys in their bullpen, some up, some down in 2009, gives a general idea where the other teams will be, in general, in 2009.

    Meanwhile, I think the Giants will be changing greatly, really, only three who was there all year, two others who was there half a year. So to get an idea how changed they might be, I thought a split with just the players we expect to be around, good, bad, ugly, would give us an idea how different the bullpen could be in 2009 vs. 2008.

    That would give a good indication of how high a priority getting bullpen help should be for the Giants. If you prefer, perhaps we could take the Bill James projections that MCC for just the bullpen we expect and see what that looks like.

    I think a separate comparison is good for telling us where the Giants bullpen is right now and what the gap is between the Giants and the better teams. Obviously it’s not written in stone, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to compare what we got versus what was good for other teams last season, as that is relatively representative of what teams will do in 2009, only I would not say that, say, the Giants need to do X to reach the Dodgers, but rather to reach the best, as another team probably will be there, not necessarily the Dodgers in 2009, there will always be a juggling of the positions, but as noted, for those who go up, there are those who go down, and everything will be relatively the same, it’s not like everyone suddenly sign a $10M closer to add to their rotation, some will lose (like Dodgers and Beimel possibly) and some will gain (Mets might want K-Rod).

    I believe that this is a better way to analyze where the Giants bullpen is right now – and give guidance on where it should go going forward – than to look at the mishmash that experimentation did to the overall stats in 2008. Sure they stunk, but many of those players won’t be around.

    Plus, I’m still treating 2009 as a transition year, I don’t really care that lousy guys will be in the bullpen and stink up the joint, I’m more interested in who might be sticking for 2010 and seeing how that particular combination might look like based on their 2008 stats.

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