Brandon Hyde 2024

[Aristotelian]

2 hours ago, LGOrioles said:

I agree. It’s tough because the team has been playing well and has constantly been ahead or “in it” in the later innings, so naturally you’re going to use your top end guys. But you can’t run them into the ground. He clearly doesn’t trust Ramirez and Baumann at all (and Tate only slightly more) but he’s going to have to use them in close games until the bullpen is upgraded through the guys coming back and/or Elias making a move.

The innings distribution looks pretty even to me. 

Cano 14.2

Akin 13.0

Tate 12.2

Webb 12.0

Kimbrel 11.1

Baumann 10.2

Coulombe 10.1

For a little perspective, check out the injury situation around the league. A lot of pitchers get injured. The Orioles do not appear to be alone in this problem. 

https://www.covers.com/sport/baseball/mlb/injuries

[OriolesMagic83]

57 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

The innings distribution looks pretty even to me. 

Cano 14.2

Akin 13.0

Tate 12.2

Webb 12.0

Kimbrel 11.1

Baumann 10.2

Coulombe 10.1

For a little perspective, check out the injury situation around the league. A lot of pitchers get injured. The Orioles do not appear to be alone in this problem. 

https://www.covers.com/sport/baseball/mlb/injuries

Hyde needs to have the low leverage relievers pitching more innings.  This seems counterintuitive.  The low leverage guys need to soak up those innings so the high leverage guys are actually available when needed and not used with a 3 run lead in the 6th.  There's no reason a multi inning reliever can't throw 100+ innings/year.  Even lousy starters throw 150 innings a year.  There's no reason to use 3 or 4 relievers if the starter leaves with a 7-3 lead after 6 innings.  If Hyde used a long reliever there, the bullpen is rested for tomorrow, when there might be real high leverage innings.  Also, as is often mentioned, if you use enough relievers, you are bound to find one who is totally off his normal performance and might cost the team the game. 

How this would work.  Look at a typical week where the starters go 5 and occasionally 6 innings.  Let's say 5 5 inning starts and 2 6 inning starts.  That leaves 5x4 + 2x3 (26) innings for the relievers.  26 innings divided by 8 relievers is 3 1/3 appearance per reliever.  Shorter starts and relievers are having 4 appearances/week.  Instead of this, 2 long relievers both pitch about 5innings/week.  We'll just call it 10 innings/week.  The remaining 6 short relievers only have to cover 16 innings, which is about 2.5 appearances/week, assuming 1 inning/appearance.  Less appearnaces = better rested = more likely to handle appearing in back to back games when needed.

[SilverRocket]

6 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

He has to start allowing guys to cover more than one inning to stop worrying so much about every matchup

I wonder how much of this is decided by Hyde vs Elias? Hyde gets the final say in game but I just wonder it's like the lineup where general workload is decided by analytics.

We went through this last year early on being worried about workload and came out of it relatively okay, but we had a solid shuttle and also Jacob Webb, Fujinami, and DL Hall coming in later in the year to eat some innings. I don't know that we have enough optionable relievers to make the shuttle work as effectively this year. Not sure about the pipeline from the minors.

With Bradish and Means coming back though, we're set up for multi-inning guys ready to head to the pen. I want to see Wells, Irvin and Akin in more multi-inning roles going forward.

[OnlyOneOriole]

IMO Hyde lost the game today.  Not Burnes.  Burnes has very obviously been 'off' the past 2 games.  Something has been wrong.  IMO you change it up and pitch someone else in the 9th.   He probably could have thrown a dart at the available pitchers for the 9th inning and the O's would have won 9 x out of 10.

Just a bad feel for for the inning, the game, the situation, and the pitcher in this case on Hyde's part. 

[Moose Milligan]

Yeah I don’t think Burnes lost the game yesterday considering he wasn’t a part of it. 

[Aristotelian]

5 hours ago, SilverRocket said:

I wonder how much of this is decided by Hyde vs Elias? Hyde gets the final say in game but I just wonder it's like the lineup where general workload is decided by analytics.

We went through this last year early on being worried about workload and came out of it relatively okay, but we had a solid shuttle and also Jacob Webb, Fujinami, and DL Hall coming in later in the year to eat some innings. I don't know that we have enough optionable relievers to make the shuttle work as effectively this year. Not sure about the pipeline from the minors.

With Bradish and Means coming back though, we're set up for multi-inning guys ready to head to the pen. I want to see Wells, Irvin and Akin in more multi-inning roles going forward.

They definitely have a system for determining who is available. It may be a bad system but I don't think it is exclusively Hyde. It seems to me that it has worked pretty well but any time the bullpen loses the game it is natural to question it.

[waroriole]

21 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Yeah I don’t think Burnes lost the game yesterday considering he wasn’t a part of it. 

Yeah just like he said not Burnes….

[Warehouse]

14 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

The same problem I had with Hyde's bullpen management last year is the same one I have this year. 

After pitching today, Kimbrel (36), Coulombe (34), and Akin are all on pace to appear in 78 games. Cano and Webb are on pace for 84 games. 

You just can't keep constantly running these guys out there this much. They are going to either break (Bautista/Kimbrel) or become ineffective with overuse.

He has to start allowing guys to cover more than one inning to stop worrying so much about every matchup. I'm sure in a computer printout it makes sense to get a little platoon advantage, but pitchers are just not built to pitch this often now that everyone is pitching max effort so much.

He got away with Bautista pitching so much early on last year, including multiple innings in extra inning games, but he eventually imploded. 

36-year old Kimbrel didn't make it to May under Hyde. Hyde is the 1980's Billy Martin, except instead of riding his starter's until they implode, he's riding his bullpen arms. 

I agree 100%.  On a game-by-game basis, implementing more sustainable bullpen management won’t win Hyde any popularity contests on the “Brandon Hyde 2024” thread, but it’s still the right move for the overall season.

Teams ranked by fewest innings pitched per reliever appearance:

1. BAL - 0.96

2. WSN - 0.99

3. PHI - 1.00

4. CLE - 1.01

5. KCR - 1.01

6. SEA - 1.02

7. PIT - 1.04

8. CHW - 1.05

9. ATL - 1.06

10. HOU - 1.09

11. SDP - 1.10

12. ARI - 1.10

13. SFG - 1.10

14. TOR - 1.11

15. STL - 1.13

16. CIN - 1.15

17. NYM - 116

18. NYY - 1.17

19. MIN - 1.17

20. TEX - 1.18

21. DET - 1.18

22. OAK - 1.20

23. CHC - 1.20

24. MIL - 1.22

25. LAA - 1.23

26. MIA - 1.23

27. TBR - 1.25

28. COL - 1.26

29. BOS - 1.27

30. LAD - 1.29

[RZNJ]

Sure, use the low leverage guys more.   Then there will be a million posts complaining about how Hyde used Baumann or Ramirez instead of Coulombe or Cano.   The answer is that Elias has to get better low leverage guys.   If Hyde has 5-7 guys that he trusts (and we trust) he’ll get the high leverage guys more days off.    With Bradish, Means, and later Wells, I think there’s a chance to achieve that.   We need to get Kimbrel healthy and pitching like he was the first 3 weeks and then manage his workload better.

I do think Hyde overworked Bautista last year but I wasn’t complaining while he was doing it.  It was winning us games.

[glenn__davis]

I don't really have a problem with his bullpen usage in general because I think that's clearly an organizational philosophy.  Shorter stints, not longer.  We can disagree with it if we want but I don't think that's just a Hyde thing.

I didn't understand not PH Kjerstad for Mateo.  Mateo is helpless against average righties, against a high leverage RHP he has no shot.  Put Kjerstad in and hope he runs into one.

[Moshagge3]

The bullpen has, to this point, lacked a long man. Someone who can go 3 innings a couple of times a week. There are guys who maybe fit this profile like Akin or Baumann, but Hyde and Elias seem to want to make them high leverage guys, which has kinda worked for Akin, not so much for Baumann.

As I said in the Kimbrel thread, in the ten days between April 15-24, Kimbrel was used five times and earned four saves and a win. Those four saves were for games in which the O's had leads of 7-2, 7-0, 4-0, and 6-0. The Orioles do not have anyone they can hand the ball in the sixth inning and say, we're up six, we trust you to go 3 and 1/3 innings and not give up six runs. Now, maybe Suarez becomes that guy. Maybe Wells when he comes back. Maybe Irvin.

[Aristotelian]

16 minutes ago, Warehouse said:

I agree 100%.  On a game-by-game basis, implementing more sustainable bullpen management won’t win Hyde any popularity contests on the “Brandon Hyde 2024” thread, but it’s still the right move for the overall season.

Teams ranked by fewest innings pitched per reliever appearance:

1. BAL - 0.96

2. WSN - 0.99

3. PHI - 1.00

4. CLE - 1.01

5. KCR - 1.01

6. SEA - 1.02

7. PIT - 1.04

8. CHW - 1.05

9. ATL - 1.06

10. HOU - 1.09

11. SDP - 1.10

12. ARI - 1.10

13. SFG - 1.10

14. TOR - 1.11

15. STL - 1.13

16. CIN - 1.15

17. NYM - 116

18. NYY - 1.17

19. MIN - 1.17

20. TEX - 1.18

21. DET - 1.18

22. OAK - 1.20

23. CHC - 1.20

24. MIL - 1.22

25. LAA - 1.23

26. MIA - 1.23

27. TBR - 1.25

28. COL - 1.26

29. BOS - 1.27

30. LAD - 1.29

That's interesting. Note that Tampa is using Armstrong as an opener with Alexander pitching starter innings in relief. Not sure who else is using openers these day. We are #1 but not a big spread down to ATL and HOU. Good teams at the top and bottom of the list. 

[Aristotelian]

6 minutes ago, glenn__davis said:

I don't really have a problem with his bullpen usage in general because I think that's clearly an organizational philosophy.  Shorter stints, not longer.  We can disagree with it if we want but I don't think that's just a Hyde thing.

I didn't understand not PH Kjerstad for Mateo.  Mateo is helpless against average righties, against a high leverage RHP he has no shot.  Put Kjerstad in and hope he runs into one.

I agree with this. I will say it could have something to do with Erceg's 5 BB/9 rate and Mateo's speed, and he has been looking for the walk lately. A leadoff walk and 2 SB's would have set the stage nicely but it didn't work out. Not saying I agree with this but just a guess at the thought process.

[Warehouse]

2 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

I agree with this. I will say it could have something to do with Erceg's 5 BB/9 rate and Mateo's speed, and he has been looking for the walk lately. A leadoff walk and 2 SB's would have set the stage nicely but it didn't work out. Not saying I agree with this but just a guess at the thought process.

I think Hyde just didn’t want to have to use McKenna or Mountcastle at 2B if we tied it up.  I think that’s probably wrong - need to optimize for getting a run to continue game and then worry about defense - but I expect that was the thought process.

[RZNJ]

5 minutes ago, Warehouse said:

I think Hyde just didn’t want to have to use McKenna or Mountcastle at 2B if we tied it up.  I think that’s probably wrong - need to optimize for getting a run to continue game and then worry about defense - but I expect that was the thought process.

Wasn't Westburg still available to play 2B?