Brandon Bullpen comment worrisome?

[HowAboutThat]

“You’d like to have a real structured-type pen, and you’d like to have a structured closer, and you would love to have an eighth-inning guy.”

 

It sounds like Brandon wants to be 2014 Ned Yost, who used his BP like clockwork. Same 7,8 and 9th inning guys. It worked ok for Ned, but isn’t it extremely limiting to have specific guys tied to specific innings? Moving away from a designated closer etc to a bullpen full of moving parts used as necessary sure seems to increase versatility.

what says the crowd?

[Moose Milligan]

[LookinUp]

For all of the talk about having a fire fighter (e.g., your best reliever in the highest-leverage situations), look at what the Yankees and Red Sox have done over the last couple of years. They haven't given up on a closer. They've just added more arms to improve their odds for those fire fighter types of outs.

[glenn__davis]

Ideally, he's right IMO.  You'd love to have a structured bullpen that was talented enough to do that.

I think the problem comes when teams/managers don't have that talent and they try to shoe-horn guys into those roles.

[Frobby]

Eh, let’s just see how it plays out.   I just hope we have some leads to protect in the late innings.   

[Aglets]

My take on this is that that comment is mostly meaningless and not worth getting worked up over at all.

Ideally I'd like to be a millionaire.

[sportsfan8703]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Eh, let’s just see how it plays out.   I just hope we have some leads to protect in the late innings.   

Heck I hope we see Givens, Kline, Scott/Castro work the 7-8-9 innings all the time. 

[LookinUp]

8 minutes ago, glenn__davis said:

Ideally, he's right IMO.  You'd love to have a structured bullpen that was talented enough to do that.

I think the problem comes when teams/managers don't have that talent and they try to shoe-horn guys into those roles.

Right. If you have one dominant reliever and use him in a high leverage 7th inning, you're ultimately going to end up with a ton of traditional blown saves. The 8th and 9th are frequently high leverage too, though maybe statistically less so than earlier points in games. So I'd love if we optimize our bullpen use, but you need a bullpen full of good arms in any scenario if you want a good pen.

As an aside, I'm worried about Givens. Think he may not be the same. 

[spiritof66]

5 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

For all of the talk about having a fire fighter (e.g., your best reliever in the highest-leverage situations), look at what the Yankees and Red Sox have done over the last couple of years. They haven't given up on a closer. They've just added more arms to improve their odds for those fire fighter types of outs.

 

12 minutes ago, Philip said:

“You’d like to have a real structured-type pen, and you’d like to have a structured closer, and you would love to have an eighth-inning guy.”

 

It sounds like Brandon wants to be 2014 Ned Yost, who used his BP like clockwork. Same 7,8 and 9th inning guys. It worked ok for Ned, but isn’t it extremely limiting to have specific guys tied to specific innings? Moving away from a designated closer etc to a bullpen full of moving parts used as necessary sure seems to increase versatility.

what says the crowd?

Things may change, but right now I think pretty much every MLB manager has that as a goal.

All that I take from this is that Brandon is hoping to identify, over this season and next, guys who will be under team control in 2021-22 (or beyond) who can be components of a strong three-headed, one-inning-apiece bullpen. I'm sure he's hoping to do pretty much the same thing with the starting staff, infield and catcher. 

A difference with bullpen-building is that most of the young guys on a successful team excelled offensively and defensively in the minor leagues (and many of them were identified as potential major league stars or contributors before their professional careers even began, when they were drafted or signed as international free agents), while strong bullpen contributors can come from the scrap heap of failed or mediocre starters. 

[mdbdotcom]

A pitcher who performs well in a defined role usually has more trade value, so I'm for that.

[NCRaven]

Players also prefer to have a defined role in which they are comfortable.

[theocean]

46 minutes ago, NCRaven said:

Players also prefer to have a defined role in which they are comfortable.

I came here to say this. Players like knowing their role and being prepared for it. Most teams still use closers. They just have been loading up on talented arms to make better use of the bullpen.

[Dark Helmet]

I think he's talking in a perfect world type situation. What team wouldn't want a situation where your SP goes 6 innings, then you can match up on your terms and have a shutdown setup man and closer?

I think Hyde is right. Does that mean that's how he plans on doing it? I think he will see what he has to work with, then go from there.

[baltfan]

Do you really think Elias et al don’t have firm opinions on this that have been formed by a combination of research and data?

[Frobby]

29 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Eh, let’s just see how it plays out.   I just hope we have some leads to protect in the late innings.   

Save opportunities for the O’s since 2012: 73, 84, 72, 58, 68, 53, 46.    I’m actually surprised we had as many as 46 save opportunities last year.   Almost one for every win, though it doesn’t really work that way.    Put it this way, we had 7 fewer save opportunities in 2018 than 2017, but 28 fewer wins.    That’s not because the bullpen was that terrible — they blew 18 saves both years.    It’s mostly because we had very few games where we led by 4+ runs in the late innings and hence there was no save even though we won.   In 2017 we had 27 games that we won by 4+ runs; in 2018 there were only 16 such wins.