Lou on the bullpen

[JGalt73]

On the statistical side (per Baseball Prospectus), the Cubs have the 4th best rotation and the 5th worst bullpen in the NL. The Milwaukee bullpen has added about 3 more wins to their team than the Cubs' bullpen.

[C.C.]

I saw a fascinating article on The Hardball Times about this sort of thing.

 

Yoink

 

The Most Boring Teams

 

Not every team has a lot of critical situation, however. Some teams just play boring games, with little in the way of low-scoring late-inning drama and much in the way of blowouts. One way to look at this is to check the leverage index for a team's crew of relievers (Dave ran a similar list last week):

 

Team LI

White Sox 1.54

Cubs 1.41

Reds 1.41

Athletics 1.37

Diamondbacks 1.36

Tigers 1.31

Rockies 1.25

Pirates 1.24

Padres 1.22

Phillies 1.21

Indians 1.19

Marlins 1.19

Brewers 1.17

Nationals 1.14

Dodgers 1.13

Orioles 1.13

Braves 1.11

Blue Jays 1.08

Devil Rays 1.08

Giants 1.07

Twins 1.05

Astros 1.03

Yankees 1.02

Angels 1.01

Royals 0.99

Red Sox 0.97

Mets 0.92

Cardinals 0.88

Rangers 0.73

Mariners 0.65

 

 

Remember, the higher the leverage, the more critical the situation is. The list shows how important of a situation a team's relievers are being thrown into, which is a kind of proxy measure of how tense a team's games are.

 

Chicago fans of both persuasions are being treated to exciting games this year, even if they don't always come out on the winning end. On the other hand, despite being two games over .500, the Mariners haven't played very exciting baseball. The Mets and Red Sox are exerting their dominance by dispatching opponents without drama; the Brewers and Indians are winning and putting on a show at the same time.

 

In other words, the Cubs have been in the second most pressure-filled games when they hand it over to the bullpen of any team in baseball.

 

This basically means that, compared to all but one team this year, the Cubs' bullpen has been placed in situations with little to no room for error. Even if the bullpen has been merely decent, with those kinds of situations constantly popping up, that's not good enough.

 

Take it for what you will. Maybe the starters need to improve, maybe the lineup needs to do a better job, or maybe the bullpen could use an upgrade. Heck, maybe it's all of the above. The bottom line is, these tense situations in games handed over to the bullpen have magnified any flaws it has to a strong extent.

 

That's interesting.

 

That is an amazing stat. I'm changing my tune a bit about the how much the blame goes to the bullpen.

[soccer10k]

Wuertz isn't going anywhere. He's had a very good year so far other than last night. I could see placing Eyre on the DL with a phantom injury to make room for another reliever to be called up.

 

I don't know about Wuertz. Haven't we seen this act from him before? I seem to remember him starting out good one other year and then tanking. I'm not sure I would give him all that much more time. He seems to be unable to maintain any consistency over the long haul.

Watch out soul! The ONE thing i've learned in my short time here is that you don't say ANYTHING bad about Wuertz. The amount of man-love for that guy is enormous here!

 

Well allow me to apologize for all of the Wuertz lovers on the board. I'm sorry that we cheer for a guy who has a career 3.43 ERA in 162.2 IP and has been one of the teams best relievers over the past three years. How dare we cheer and like a good player. Maybe we should start to love Scott Eyre and Wade Miller instead.

[soccer10k]

I saw a fascinating article on The Hardball Times about this sort of thing.

 

Yoink

 

The Most Boring Teams

 

Not every team has a lot of critical situation, however. Some teams just play boring games, with little in the way of low-scoring late-inning drama and much in the way of blowouts. One way to look at this is to check the leverage index for a team's crew of relievers (Dave ran a similar list last week):

 

Team LI

White Sox 1.54

Cubs 1.41

Reds 1.41

Athletics 1.37

Diamondbacks 1.36

Tigers 1.31

Rockies 1.25

Pirates 1.24

Padres 1.22

Phillies 1.21

Indians 1.19

Marlins 1.19

Brewers 1.17

Nationals 1.14

Dodgers 1.13

Orioles 1.13

Braves 1.11

Blue Jays 1.08

Devil Rays 1.08

Giants 1.07

Twins 1.05

Astros 1.03

Yankees 1.02

Angels 1.01

Royals 0.99

Red Sox 0.97

Mets 0.92

Cardinals 0.88

Rangers 0.73

Mariners 0.65

 

 

Remember, the higher the leverage, the more critical the situation is. The list shows how important of a situation a team's relievers are being thrown into, which is a kind of proxy measure of how tense a team's games are.

 

Chicago fans of both persuasions are being treated to exciting games this year, even if they don't always come out on the winning end. On the other hand, despite being two games over .500, the Mariners haven't played very exciting baseball. The Mets and Red Sox are exerting their dominance by dispatching opponents without drama; the Brewers and Indians are winning and putting on a show at the same time.

 

In other words, the Cubs have been in the second most pressure-filled games when they hand it over to the bullpen of any team in baseball.

 

This basically means that, compared to all but one team this year, the Cubs' bullpen has been placed in situations with little to no room for error. Even if the bullpen has been merely decent, with those kinds of situations constantly popping up, that's not good enough.

 

Take it for what you will. Maybe the starters need to improve, maybe the lineup needs to do a better job, or maybe the bullpen could use an upgrade. Heck, maybe it's all of the above. The bottom line is, these tense situations in games handed over to the bullpen have magnified any flaws it has to a strong extent.

 

That doesn't really surprise me. The team has played so many close games this year that the relievers are going to be in tight situations a lot more often than normal.

[MustangMike]

This is crazy. It's not the bullpens fault. Both papers all over that today. The pen gave up one run last night in three innings of work. They've got a 3.77 ERA on the season.

 

Four runs is not enough. We are struggling because we aren't scoring enough runs.

 

The bullpen officially gave up only one run, but Cherry also let both inherited runs score in the 6th. While I agree the offense should have scored more than 4 last night, scoring at least 4 runs has been found as a good indicator of winning. The bullpen hasn't been the biggest reason why the Cubs have the record they have, but it was the biggest reason why they lost last night.

 

You can't get on Cherry for those two runs. Inherited runners are going to score. One of them scored on a sac fly. It's really hard to say the pitcher did a bad job when there were 2 on when he came in. He gave up a double, a lazy pop fly and a strikeout. Those runs belong to Marquis, and justifiably so. The bullpen went 3 2/3 and gave up 1 ER. Wuertz blew it with the walks, but 3 2/3 and 1 ER is nothing to get all pissy about. You can't expect relievers to be perfect. But when you score only 4 runs and repeatedly score only 0-4 runs per game (7 of the last 8 games), you are asking far too much out of the bullpen, and should not be surprised when they come up short.

 

There are a few things that people surrounding the Cubs have gotten hung up on the past few years, that I just don't get. Finding a legit leadoff hitter and bullpen angst are two of the biggest. The focus needs to be on the lineup and starting rotation. When your lineup scores 4 or less, and your starter gives up 4 in 5 innings, you are going to lose, anger toward the bullpen is misplaced.

 

I don't expect perfection all the time, but I would expect a bullpen to hold a 2 run lead for 3 innings, I don't think that's too much to ask. Marquis wasn't great, but he was good enough. Wuertz walking 3 in a row is down right pathetic and no one else can be blamed for this one in my eyes. yes, they should have scored more, but they gave the bullpen a lead, that's all you can do and all I'd expect.

[jersey cubs fan]

I don't expect perfection all the time, but I would expect a bullpen to hold a 2 run lead for 3 innings, I don't think that's too much to ask. Marquis wasn't great, but he was good enough. Wuertz walking 3 in a row is down right pathetic and no one else can be blamed for this one in my eyes. yes, they should have scored more, but they gave the bullpen a lead, that's all you can do and all I'd expect.

 

Marquis went 5, and left with 2 on nobody out in the 6. That means the bullpen had to hold a lead for 4 innings. That's really all you can expect of the starting 9?

 

That's all you expect? You expect very little from the starters, and very much from the bullpen. The bullpen started in a hole, with 2 men on base and nobody out. The average result from a man on 1st and 2nd with nobody out situation is 1.6 runs will score. If he managed to prevent one of those runs from scoring it would be a great accomplishment, and it's still 4-3. Then you are expecting your bullpen to do better than allowing 1 earned run in 4 innings, which is expecting them to have an ERA under 4.25. Then you are going extras with an impotent lineup and Lou making 100 switches so he runs out of guys early and you've got somebody throwing 3 innings who normally doesn't throw more than 15 pitches in a game.

 

Personally I would never expect to win if you tell me the bullpen will come on in the 6th with nobody out, two men on, up 2 runs with the offense going into shutdown mode. Even weak teams average more than 4 runs per game. And those teams lose most of the time. Anytime you score only 4 runs you can't expect a win. That's a below average production, especially against the best hitting team in the league.

[Derwood]

 

Marquis went 5, and left with 2 on nobody out in the 6. That means the bullpen had to hold a lead for 4 innings. That's really all you can expect of the starting 9?

 

and in his last start, he went 9 and gave up zero, which was the only way the team won that game. The offense sucks ass

[sunnydoo]

Wooohooooo!

 

The Cubs bullpen made real progress tonight sending its mediocre 4.00 ERA which was only good for 10th in the league to a soaring 4.16.

 

We would have made 14th had the Reds not tacked on 2 meaningless runs in the bottom of the 10th and the Giants not had an absolute meltdown at the Bay themselves. C'est la vie.

 

Oh well, not to worry there is always tomorrow when you guys can blow another lead for us. We will catch Philly and Colorado sooner or later.

 

Save % at 50% and falling.

Bullpen now 4-12.

 

I think the record for losses for a NL bullpen is 39, set by Colorado in 2004, but i will have to look that up. We are on a pace for 43. Keep up the good work guys.

 

Edit: Guess i was wrong. Pinto stunk up Mitres Game in Fla and Cincy was below us and melted down for 7 in the 10th. So we are still in 10th. Good try boys. You can go back at it tomorrow.