Reasons For Future Bullpen Optimism
While most of the focus on the farm is on guys like Dustin Ackley, Michael Pineda, and Nick Franklin, there’s some other guys flying under the radar a bit who could be making an impact in Seattle sooner than you might think – the M’s have quietly put together a pretty nifty group of relief prospects, all of whom aren’t that far from the big leagues.
Josh Lueke, RHP (A/AA/AAA): 47 2/3 IP, 35 H, 13 R, 2 HR, 10 BB, 80 K
Anthony Varvaro, RHP (AA/AAA): 50 1/3 IP, 36 H, 19 R, 2 HR, 26 BB, 55 K
Dan Cortes, RHP (AA, relief only): 6 2/3 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 HR, 3 BB, 10 K
Edward Paredes, LHP (AA/AAA): 42 2/3 IP, 45 H, 20 R, 2 HR, 19 BB, 43 K
Brian Moran, LHP (A/A+): 54 2/3 IP, 48 H, 11 R, 0 HR, 7 BB, 65 K
The first four guys on that list are all mid-90s fastball guys, so the strikeouts aren’t from tricky deliveries or change-ups that won’t work in the majors. Cortes has had all kinds of commands problems as a starter, but since the move to the bullpen, he’s been pitching really well, and scouts have had him up to 98 out of the pen. Moran is the one that is not like the others – he’s a deceptive southpaw with a mid-80s fastball, but everything moves and his command is excellent. The stuff might not work in the big leagues, but he’s been getting people out for years (he was unhittable at UNC) with it, and so he deserves a shot.
Toss in guys who are currently starters but who a lot of people believe will end up as relievers long term (Mauricio Robles, Maikel Cleto, Stephen Hensley) and guys that showed some promise when they were healthy (Josh Fields, Nick Hill), and the Mariners are probably deeper in young bullpen arms than they’ve been in a while. I know it isn’t that much fun to look at a relief squad that includes guys like Chris Seddon, Garrett Olson, and Sean White, but there’s help on the way. Don’t be surprised if several of these guys are pushing for jobs next spring.
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Something we really have to look forward to! Yay! Just fix this gawd awful offense and we may have something here…
White? Of course. Olson? Absolutely. Seddon? Seriously? Seddon looks fine to me. Stats? Any reason to think Seddon is a problem? Comparing him to White and Olson is a huge insult.
Seddon has very little in the way of pure stuff. He’s an 89 MPH FB/curve guy that tries to keep hitters off balance. He may be better than Olson (and he may be worse), but he’s pretty clearly in the same family.
It pains me to say that, as good as he’s been for Tacoma, but he’s not in the same league as Paredes as a lefty bullpen option. Of course, Seddon would make a better starter, but if Seddon is starting for your MLB club, then congratulations, you’re the 2010 Seattle Mariners!
Worth mentioning that most of these guys aren’t low-minors flukes. Paredes, Varvaro, Lueke are all in AAA Tacoma and doing pretty well (Paredes had a disastrous first appearance, but has looked sharp since). Varvaro’s velocity is not what it was billed at, but he’s got a real breaking ball that mitigates that.
I’d imagine that Cortes has the most upside of any of ’em, if his recent control improvement sticks. Lueke’s been solid, but can’t match Cortes’ velo out of the pen, and I think Cortes curve MAY be better than Lueke’s split, though I’ve not seen the former. I’ll admit I’m swayed from an inning of Cortes I ‘saw’ through pitch fx this spring.
Moran needs to be pushed to AA quickly, as they’ve got a hole with the departure of Lueke, and I’m curious to see how he’d do there. His stats are eye-popping, but he’s exactly the kind of guy who SHOULD put up eye-popping stats: major college soft-tossing lefty with weird delivery.
Cleto’s definitely a future bullpen guy, though I’m still holding out hope that Robles sticks in the rotation for a while.
Speaking of future loogies, anybody know what happened to Derrick Saito? Has he been out all year with an injury or something? I’d read some pretty positive stuff about him, but haven’t seen him once this year.
Saito had elbow problems, don’t know if he ever went under the knife.
Link
I’d add Stephen Pryor to Dave’s list. He too has been hitting 98 & as a college arm should rise fast.
Stephen Pryor (RK/A): 19 1/3 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 0 HR, 7 BB, 28 K
Kahn has been out a ridiculously long time but if the velocity returns & he magically discovers command then he could be a factor too.
Not to mention the already amazing bullpen we have with Rafael Soriano and Matt Thornton – oh wait! whoops.
I’m still hoping Robles sticks in the rotation, too, and I don’t think I’m a pie-eyed optimist about that, either. As for the ‘pen, I’m betting we see Lueke and someone else this year, in September if not before.
Thanks for writing this Dave. Bullpens tend to be overlooked, or at least the last piece looked at, unless you’re talking closers. This post counterbalances my concern that the bullpen at the MLB level has been every bit as bad as the offense, and worse if you look at it in terms of performance vs. expectation.
We’ve blown 37% of our save opportunities this season (13 out of 35)… The only bullpens with a worse SLG% allowed are Kansas City, Houston, and Arizona…
Whereas our starters are tied for 3rd best WHIP in the league. Poor guys. (Laugh)
It’s encouraging to hear we have some bullpen guys being successful at SOME level of pro ball.
So yeah, thanks for posting this.
Add me to the list of people praying Robles sticks as a starter…
I think Robles sticks as a starter. He ran a 27:3 K:BB ratio in July thus his peripherals are really improving. Stick both he and Hensley in the 2011 Tacoma rotation and see how it goes. Its possible one could be in the 2012 rotation. Given our possible bullpen surplus, shouldn’t the M’s really be looking to move Aardsma and any other bullpen arms? I’m surprised neither him nor League were moved at the deadline because for a team that will lose 90+ games again next year it makes no sense to pay anyone in the bullpen 3+ million next year.
I think you have lined to the wrong JOSH FIELDS.
Mariner guy is JOSHUA FIELDS, the last Bavasi high end draft mistake.
He was supposed to be MLB ready at the time of drafting–what has happened?
I’d be happy if Robles and Cortes ended up as a 4-5 rotation filler. We can assume Felix 1. We can sort of assume Pineda a 2. I have Ryan Anderson nightmares. We can sign a #3. It would be nice to produce a couple league minimum guys to fill 4&5. We can spend the Snell $2-4 and the RRS mil+ on guys who can… HIT. This is 2012 talk. We should be looking to contend then
Sign a number 3? Hasn’t Vargas earned that job?
Didn’t RR-s earn that job before the season? Okay Point being Vargas/RR-s put up good years before but they’re someone you’d want at the back-end of your rotation. If you find an opportunity to improve the MOR you do it especially considering the rotation might look like Felix/Vargas/Fister/RR-s/Oh god… Obviously you might Pineda in there but the rotation is still very weak.
Vargas as a 4 candidate. Would you like him as a 3 with a young Pineda? Drop Pineda to a 3, Vargas 4, Robles\Cortes as a 5. Sign a 2. We can sign a starter easier then hitters. We can develop Ackley, Saunders, Smoak, Moore. Maybe Franklin as a SS. Figgans, Guti & Ichiro are here. Our hitting improves with the young guys and a DH? We can use the young bullpen arms, spend $ on a DH, a starter and a SS. Assuming the prospect flame outs, where do we add hitting? I hope not 2B or 1B
Vargas and Fister both look to be the back of the rotation guys we have been looking for. Vargas maybe as a #3 starter?? Maybe if he keeps it up, but I like the rotation in the future if Pineda turns out to be the #2 starter.
Any hope for Future hitting Optimism? 🙂
Pryor has been impressive as well. But our ‘Pen should be good and add in Josh Fields if he can get his control together then he is a nice option. BTW is there any hope that we could see Lueke as the closer of the future? All I’ve heard is he has the stuff, just hasn’t been in many high leverage situations.
So the Ms can build next year’s bullpen entirely in-house, and concentrate their offseason work on a #2 starter, a DH, a vet backup catcher and possibly a SS? With any other moves being all about continuing to clear deadwood and build the farm?
The whole 1-5 starter is B.S. anyways. I never understood the value of identifying them as such.
It’s not like a staff with no aces has to be significantly worse than a staff with an ace, and a “proper” 2,3,4, and 5.
The only time it really ends up mattering is when you get into the playoffs, when your 4 and 5 usually don’t pitch as starters. However, let’s all not forget Game 1 of the ALCS in 1995, and who started (and won) that.
What do we need? We don’t need a 2-3-4, etc. We need some damned pitchers who can throw the ball over the plate, and get groundballs and strikeouts. Maybe a lefty who can stop having to groove 3-1 fastballs.
Was it Bob F*&*&^$ Wolcott?
I agree with Chris… and I rarely do. A bullpen=fungible assets. A young 2011 bullpen seems like a good time to find out who works. The same with the 4-5 starter
Great, let’s just move all of our promising young starters to the pen. (Robles, Cleto, Hensley) That is a depressing thought.
Regular season “spots” in a rotation don’t matter all that much. It’s nice to have an older “ace” who will take the pressure off of the younger guys. This is psychology as much as stat leaning. Every other team follows this system, even if the off days don’t sync up, I’d rather have Felix vs Sabathia, or Lee, Weaver, or… I’d rather have Seddon vs. Sergio Mitre, or LAA #5, or Boston’s #5.
Thank you, Henry. It gets tiring reading so many people saying “no, this guy is a 3, we need a 2” or whatever. They’re all starting pitchers, you just try to get the best ones you can find to fill your rotation.
I see you pulled out Brian Moran there. I hadn’t heard anything about his stuff before now, but he’s been getting great results no matter.
Robles has averaged just a hair over five innings a start this year. Even when he minimizes walks & hits he doesn’t go deep into games. In his previous milb stops the same thing happens: he’s around five innings a start. Robles likely won’t be a starter for too much longer. Most GMs don’t like the Sid Fernandez-types.
It’s true that it’s silly to talk about #1 pitchers, #2 pitchers, etc. as if they are positions. There are no such positions in baseball as #1 pitcher or #2 pitcher … for any one game, you’re either a starting pitcher or a relief pitcher, that’s it.
But these numerical descriptions can still be useful shorthand to indicate the quality level of a pitcher. Baseball starters are unique in sports in terms of the roster depth required — I can’t think of any other sport where you need to have five (or at least four) players playing the same position i.e. starting pitcher. Most sports and positions have a starter, a backup, and maybe a backup to the backup (3rd catcher, 3rd goalkeeper, 3rd quarterback, etc.). And there might be a few other terms to indicate quality amongst the starters e.g. all-star or all-pro vs journeyman or role player.
None of those quite capture what we often want when we we want a shorthand way of describing a pitcher’s quality level; #1, #2, etc. offers a convenient shorthand way of describing what we’re talking about.
Mike Sweeney, traded to the Phillies for some “hugs to be given later.”
I sort of understand the concept of ranking a pitcher based on their general ability as a 1, a 2, a 3, etc. But those descriptions are vague and generally inaccurate. What really boggles my mind is when people think that you have to form a rotation based on those guidelines. “We have Felix, he’s a 1, we have Vargas and Fister, who are a 4 and a 5, so we need a 2 and a 3”.
How is that helpful? It’s not like the Mariners should be looking at it that way and go hunting for a “2” and “3”. They need to find the best available starters they can that fit in with their overall team structure no matter what someone thinks they profile as. Last offseason, we had Felix at the top of the rotation — should the Mariners not have traded for Cliff Lee because they already had a #1? If you don’t have a #1, does that mean you can’t go into a season without finding one? If you have starters that look like a 1, a 2, a 3, and a 4, does that mean you should be looking for a #5? You wouldn’t want to add another pitcher that was a #3?
It’s not helpful at all. Find the best pitchers you can, regardless of where someone thinks they should slot into a rotation.
You’re correct that those are examples of sloppy, off-base thinking, but that’s exactly what I’m saying: it’s a mistake to think of #1 starter, #2 starter, etc. as positions.
But let’s use another example. If your starting rotation has a clear ace (a “#1”) and four #5s, would you say that your rotation needed some shoring up? And maybe you upgrade it by trading one of the #5s and a prospect for a #3. Is that good enough?
That’s what I mean by convenient shorthand. I could be more specific and name specific names (but people often disagree about how good a specific pitcher is so what have we really gained); I could be even more precise and cite the five pitchers’ WAR or VORP (or get even more detailed and give their xFIP or FIP and also innings pitched). For a complete analysis of a starting rotation we need a boxload of stats such as those. But for a one sentence description of why that hypothetical rotation needs to be upgraded (a description which is more detailed than simply saying “we need to upgrade the rotation” with no evidence, and more descriptive and meaningful than saying “we have one really good starter and four not so good ones”) — that’s where the convenient shorthand comes in.
If you have an ace, and 4 “number 5’s”, you don’t need a “number 2”, you need more starters who don’t suck.
But it’s all semantics. Generally, when a team talks about needing something, they just need something better than what they have.
We have 4 terrible catchers. We don’t need a starting catcher, or a back-up catcher. We need better catchers. Preferably ones that can “catch” the ball.
OMG we DID trade Mike Sweeney. I thought that was a joke!
“for cash”. Like $9. Also, a half eaten 3 Musketeers. And a ziplock of peanuts.
To an NL team! HA HA HA HA. Was Philly playing the whole year with 24 and they just noticed?
No matter what your rotation looks like, if you can upgrade it, and it fits in with everything else you’re doing, then you do it. If you can’t upgrade it, then you go with what you have. It doesn’t matter what the pitchers profile as, you try to put out the best ones you can. If that means you have a “#1” and 4 “#5’s”, and you can’t find any reasonable opportunity to upgrade, then that’s what you go with. It doesn’t mean you can’t win — if you’ve made good decisions elsewhere, then you can have a good team overall even if your starting rotation doesn’t have the 1,2,3,4,5 guys that people think you need. If you’ve got 3 “#1’s” and 2 “#5’s”, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to upgrade if you can. There’s no need to think of it like “I’ve got a this and a this and a that, so I need one of these”.
Shorthand is one thing — using these rankings as if they were the framework around which a pitching rotation should be built is another. We’re going to hear a hundred times from now until next season “the Mariners don’t have a #2 starter. They need to find a #2 starter for their rotation next year”. No, they don’t need to find a #2 starter. They need to find good players that fit into their budget structure and current team construction, whether that be starters, relievers, firstbaseman, catchers, whatever. How these starters rank in relation to where people think they fit into a rotation is meaningless.
Now, the real question in regards to the bullpen is “Do we have 3 relievers in Tacoma or West Tenn that have two good major league pitches that can actually work in high-leverage situations?” Probably not, but hopefully by 2012 the can get there.
I didn’t know Paredes was a hard-thrower. All my reports on the guy say that he’s a tick-above in velocity. Did I miss a velo spike?
Well I use the number system to make things easier by dirty stereotyping. My point of using it is we use 5 starters right now you’re looking at Felix/Vargas/Fister and maybe Pineda. When I saw they need to grab a MOR starter I really mean the M’s need to sign someone who can easily be a 2-4 win pitcher and while he might not overpower hitters he will provide innings and won’t walk people.(Kind of like Carl Pavano) The M’s do need to upgrade their rotation or else they’re dipping into the abyss of AAA fodder or their farm system which features players who are still a little ways off also you can only expect roughly 140-160 innings from Pineda. Like you said rankings in the rotation are stupid but it does make things easier. (Hell the Yankee’s number 5 man could be our number 2)
Got some reports that it’s “50-50” that James Paxton will even sign with the Mariners. Littlewood and Stanek are reported to be better bets to sign.
Paxton has no college eligibility remaining and already a year in at the indie-leagues. And we all know the miserable track record of guys who take that route.
What the blazes is he (and Scott Boras) thinking?
Now, the real question in regards to the bullpen is “Do we have 3 relievers in Tacoma or West Tenn that have two good major league pitches that can actually work in high-leverage situations?” Probably not, but hopefully by 2012 the can get there.
Josh Lueke, RHP -FB/SL/SPL
Anthony Varvaro, FB/CB
Dan Cortes, RHP FB/CB
Edward Paredes, LHP FB/SL
Brian Moran, LHP You got me there but crazy movement and crazy good command of his pitches.
Don’t worry they have quality stuff now the only thing you should be concerned about is their flyball tendencies if they have them or their control issues. (Varvaro/Cortes)
These examples are straw men. OF COURSE a team can always upgrade, even if it has three #1s and two #5s. (It wouldn’t even have to be one of the #5s that got upgraded — you could trade one of the aces for an even better ace.)
Are there any thinking fans who truly believe that a rotation needs to have a #1, #2, #3, #4, and #5 and is off-kilter if it has say the three #1s and two #5s of your example? That’s why it’s a straw man argument. (But notice the usefulness of the shorthand: we can tell at a glance that your hypothetical three #1s and two #5s is a strong rotation, without even having to list the statistics or names of the five pitchers … maybe they’re Cliff Lee, Felix, healthy Bedard, and oh RRS and Snell or whoever — a prospect that many of us were fantasizing about as this season started, a rotation that looked good for the regular season and awesome for the playoffs. Notice how much shorter it is to simply call it three #1s and two #5s.)
The mistake that you’re making is thinking that just because people are using terms like “#1 starter” or #5 starter”, people think that the rotation has to have exactly one of each of those. Only an dummy would think that, and most people are not dummies.
Even a statement such as “the Mariners don’t have a #2 starter. They need to find a #2 starter for their rotation next year” need not be as bad as it seems. It could reflect what you say in your next sentence “They need to find good players that fit into their budget structure and current team construction, whether that be starters, relievers, firstbaseman, catchers, whatever.” Because it is almost meaningless to say something such as “the Mariners need to improve their pitching” — teams can always improve their pitching, the real question is how or where to improve it. Any team would improve its pitching by adding say Cliff Lee to its rotation. But you don’t just go out and add Cliff Lee, not without judging what your team’s needs are and how much Cliff Lee will cost. If you can do so for low cost, even if just for one season, then great do it, just as Zduriencik did this past off-season. (Again, find me a Mariners fan who was unhappy that the Ms had two #1s in their rotation for much of this season.) Or maybe the best upgrade is to get someone who’s not quite an all-star but will not be astronomically expensive — i.e. a #2 starter.
That doesn’t mean that you literally look only for #2-level pitchers. Maybe Cliff Lee will fall into your hands, or maybe there’s a nice opportunity to pick up someone who’s a #5 but at least is better than Snell or RRS have been. I.e. you are correct that we don’t want to imprison ourselves into thinking that if we have a #1, #3, #4, and two #5s then the only thing to look for is a #2 starter. But: straw man. Only a dummy would think that.
Meanwhile, what I have not heard is a superior but equally concise way to describe starting pitchers. For most positions, we can simply say “starter” and “bench” (with additional detail if needed provided by terms such as “AAA”, “AAAA”, “McLemore-type supersub”, “all-star”, “Hall of Famer”, etc.) But all of the pitchers in the rotation are starters, and typically only one or if we’re lucky two will be all-star caliber.
We have a reasonable contender with a device that posters often use here: to describe a player as a 3 WAR player, or 3.5 WAR, or whatever. That’s not bad, but I don’t like being tied down to WAR as the necessary metric to use (WAR’s good, but I believe that five years from now, thanks to Pitch f/x, Hit f/x, and who knows what sort of statistical innovations, we’ll have even better measures of player quality).
What, no Tom Wilhelmsen love? He’s an easy one to root for given his background, but he’s also got a legitimate shot at helping the M’s in the near future.