First Half Review: The Bullpen
by Freneau on Jul 14, 2010 3:31 PM EDT
in Kansas City Royals News
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PrintThe Royals' bullpen ERA was 4.08 in the first half, 8th best in the American League, and just a tick worse than the league average of 4.00.
The days, however brief they were, of the Royals having a competent bullpen that strikes people out, appear to be over. 2007 and 2008 were fun, but they are gone now. Like last year, the bullpen doesn't strike many guys out (6.82 K/9, 10th in the AL) and other than Soria just hasn't been, on the whole, very reliable. On the other hand, the bullpen improved when Tejeda turned his season around and the Farnsworth implosion never came.
Gigantic chart after the jump:
Behold:
| ERA | G | IP | R | H/9 | HR/9 | BB/9 | SO/9 | SO/BB | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joakim Soria | 2.31 | 35 | 35.0 | 9 | 8.0 | 1.0 | 2.3 | 11.1 | 4.78 |
| Rob Tejeda | 3.35 | 35 | 40.1 | 16 | 7.1 | 0.2 | 4.9 | 8.5 | 1.73 |
| Kyle Farnsworth | 2.41 | 30 | 37.1 | 10 | 7.7 | 0.5 | 2.4 | 7.2 | 3.00 |
| Dusty Hughes* | 3.99 | 34 | 29.1 | 15 | 9.8 | 0.9 | 3.7 | 5.5 | 1.50 |
| Blake Wood | 3.96 | 25 | 25.0 | 11 | 8.6 | 0.7 | 3.6 | 2.9 | 0.80 |
| ERA | G | IP | R | H/9 | HR/9 | BB/9 | SO/9 | SO/BB | |
| Victor Marte | 5.56 | 16 | 22.2 | 14 | 7.9 | 2.4 | 4.0 | 5.2 | 1.30 |
| Brad Thompson | 6.41 | 16 | 19.2 | 16 | 11.4 | 1.8 | 1.8 | 4.6 | 2.50 |
| Kanekoa Texeira | 2.00 | 11 | 18.0 | 4 | 9.0 | 0.5 | 2.0 | 5.0 | 2.50 |
| Josh Rupe | 5.59 | 11 | 9.2 | 6 | 13.0 | 0.9 | 6.5 | 7.4 | 1.14 |
| John Parrish* | 3.00 | 9 | 6.0 | 2 | 6.0 | 3.0 | 7.5 | 6.0 | 0.80 |
| Juan Cruz | 3.38 | 5 | 5.1 | 2 | 15.2 | 0.0 | 6.8 | 11.8 | 1.75 |
| Luis Mendoza | 22.50 | 4 | 4.0 | 10 | 22.5 | 9.0 | 6.8 | 2.3 | 0.33 |
| Bryan Bullington | 12.00 | 3 | 3.0 | 4 | 21.0 | 3.0 | 15.0 | 6.0 | 0.40 |
| Roman Colon | 18.00 | 5 | 2.0 | 4 | 22.5 | 0.0 | 9.0 | 4.5 | 0.50 |
| ERA | G | IP | R | H/9 | HR/9 | BB/9 | SO/9 | SO/BB |
Are we all building our bomb shelters in preparation for Blake Wood's luck running out?
The important thing to remember about some of these bullpen guys is that the innings pitched totals are just so low. The bottom of that table, everyone from Marte down, pitched just 88 innings total in the first half. In that vein, seeing Soria with just 35 innings pitched makes me sad. It'll be interesting to see if he can match last season's total of 53.
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Tejeda putting it together was key and I like the Texeira pickup
Hopefully Farnsworth has built his trade value up anything to get something in return for him. It just seems unrealistic why Blake Wook is not striking anyone out, hard to believe that his K rate is that low considering how hard he throws even Peralta and Tomko averaged 6-8K/9 with 90 plus straight fastballs.
Checkout Royals minor league notes at www.14for77.blogspot.com
Blakes minor league stats
http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=wood—001bla
His k/9 ranges from 5.8 to 8.7, though it was on the lower end the last two years. Still that would be an improvement to where it’s at now.
Are there other ML relievers who have been successful with a really low K rate?
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by SagehenMacGyver47 on Jul 14, 2010 4:27 PM EDT up reply actions
The Quis had a very low K rate
But I kinda doubt that Blake Wood is Quis v2
Bradford looks like an encouraging comp
Though he had some 8 & 9K per 9 periods in his career. I suppose we can hope Wood’s K/9 will improve some as he adjusts to ML hitting.
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by SagehenMacGyver47 on Jul 14, 2010 5:00 PM EDT up reply actions
Kenneth Herndon is getting it done, at least in his lone half ML season
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=9264&position=P
3.86 K/9, 4.26 xFIP
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by SagehenMacGyver47 on Jul 14, 2010 5:04 PM EDT up reply actions
The difference with Bradford
And Quiz is they both have unorthodox arm actions. Wood doesn’t have that advantage. Even Herndon throws from a 3/4 slot
Quiz, Bradford, and Herndon are extreme groundball pitchers and have better K/BB ratios
Bradford’s career groundball rate (GB%) is 63.7%, which is about as extreme as you can get. Unlike Wood (so far), Bradford has struck out guys at 5.46 K/9 rate, which is below average but not horrible. He also rarely walks anyone — his walk rate is only 2.39 BB/9, which gives him an above average K/BB rate of 2.28 (2.0 is about average).
Herndon’s GB rate is 57.3%, which is still pretty extreme. His K/BB of 1.63 is not great, but he is at least striking out 3 guys (3.86 K/9) for every 2 walks (2.37 BB/9). With that kind of groundball rate, that skill set works.
Quiz never walked anyone — 1.4 BB/9 rate is phenomenal, and his K/BB rate is above average at 2.34. Pure groundball rate is not available for his time period, but his Ground Out per Air Out (GO/AO) was 2.15, dobule the major league average of 1.07.
Woods has a K/BB rate below 1.0 (remember 2.0 is average) of 0.8. He is walking more people (3.6 BB/9) than he strikes out (2.88 K/9), which is horrible. Similarly, Woods’ GB rate of 46.3% is just above average. He needs to figure out how to strike out more people or generate a ton more groundballs to have any sustained success.
A 2.88 K/9 is bad?
Not to mention a 5.31 xFIP.
Tex looking good.
Luis Mendoza is not good at baseball
Let us never forget.
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
The only person who seemed to have trouble with that bit of knowledge
was Dayton Moore. I think even Mendoza probably knew before Dayton did.
"Now…put that in your [BLEEP]ing pipe and smoke it." -Hal McRae
"I was doing this when BJ was in his father's nutsack." -Renzo Gracie
by Sweep_the_Leg on Jul 14, 2010 5:02 PM EDT up reply actions
I will maintain my stance that the only former Rangers pitcher that I would ever
want in a KC uniform is the newest one. Cliff Lee.
Ned likes Kendall in the 2-hole!
by mitchfreakingmaier! on Jul 14, 2010 5:06 PM EDT up reply actions
Lewis, Hunter, and Wilson
Would probably be better than Davies, Chen, Lerew, and Bannister.
"Now…put that in your [BLEEP]ing pipe and smoke it." -Hal McRae
"I was doing this when BJ was in his father's nutsack." -Renzo Gracie
by Sweep_the_Leg on Jul 14, 2010 6:01 PM EDT up reply actions
OH-ver-RAY-ted - clap - clap - clapclapclap
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
by Royal Kingdom on Jul 14, 2010 6:17 PM EDT up reply actions
Farnsworth has been legitimately good
He is getting some luck with a 5.4% HR/FB rate (his career rate is 11.7%) and BABIP (285 BABIP versus 24% LD%), but he is striking out 3 batters for every 1 walk, and it looks like the introduction of the cutter last year helped his groundball rate and his success against left-handed hitters. (The magic new and improved change up, however, seems to be missing, however).
Farnsworth is still not going to earn his contract, his flyball problems should prevent him from pitching in high leverage situations, and he is not nearly as good as his current ERA. But that said, he has pitched well this year, and helped the bullpen out.
Remember when Farns was an option to be a starter in the rotation?
ha.
His 3.9 xFIP isn’t THAT much worse than his ERA, but we’ll likely see some correction.
His ERA is 2.41 and his xFIP is 3.90
1.50 runs is a pretty big difference. Zips has him with 4.32 ERA/3.99 FIP the rest of the season.
SELL! SELL!!
Methinks Dayton probably overvalues the stocks he picks, too.
"Now…put that in your [BLEEP]ing pipe and smoke it." -Hal McRae
"I was doing this when BJ was in his father's nutsack." -Renzo Gracie
by Sweep_the_Leg on Jul 14, 2010 6:25 PM EDT up reply actions
The problems are relievers rarely bring back much at the deadline and the money owed
Farnsworth is still owed around $2 million for this season plus a $500K buyout, so in this market, no team is going to give up anything for him unless the Royals eat the contract. Even if they do, relievers (at least non-closers) rarely bring back much in value (due in part to the fact that just about every team out of contention has at least one decent reliever that they can trade).
With (unfortunately) nearly all of Dayton's veteran FA questions
eating the remainder of their contracts in any trade is essentially a given. The only question is which is worth more: Another 2-3 months of Farnsworth, or a C(?) level prospect? I’ll go with the prospect. I just hope Dayton does, too, and that he’s able to convince any willing contender that Farnsworth’s smoke-and-mirrors performance thus far is worth more than some other random reliever from another team.
"Now…put that in your [BLEEP]ing pipe and smoke it." -Hal McRae
"I was doing this when BJ was in his father's nutsack." -Renzo Gracie
by Sweep_the_Leg on Jul 14, 2010 7:15 PM EDT up reply actions
I have been arguing that he has a higher likelihood of success than 4 of our starters:
Lerew, Davies, Chen, Bannister
i was the strongest advocate of that
and with the struggles of Lerew and Davies, it still might be a decent idea.
R.I.P. cwhitman412, Frederick0220, & Mets2k9
I miss Luis Mendoza
Given enough velocity even a pig will fly
by MarioVanPeebles Republic of China on Jul 14, 2010 6:13 PM EDT reply actions
what about Parrish?
And I don’t mean Lance, either.
"Shot by my own men."
by StonewallPDS on Jul 15, 2010 10:22 AM EDT up reply actions
Things I'd like to see in the pen the 2nd half:
Lerew DFA, Texeira given an audition in the rotation
Davies tried in the pen
callups for Louis Coleman and Blaine Hardy
DFA Victor Marte
"We're gonna win with pitching and defense" General Manager Dayton Moore, circa winter 2009
"Where did all these Indians come from?" General George Armstrong Custer, circa summer 1876
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