The Achilles heel for this team is the bullpen

[Roy Firestone]

Always has been no matter what the stats may say(this year). In clutch situations, they just dont get the outs. Tonight that pen took a close game and well piiched effort and turned it into a blowout. Cano has been awful and I still dont trust Perez. Coulombe and Webb as reinforcements can help, but I dont think they are in mid season form, due to the long layoff.I would have Suarez and Povich in the pen and ditch Bowman, but this pen will likely be our undoing in the playoffs.

[LGOrioles]

Perez is way overused as a high leverage guy. He has a 4.60 ERA and is likely their worst LHP in the pen. He shouldn’t be used as their highest or second highest leverage lefty. 

But Akin has a 3.13 ERA. Cano 3.20 ERA. Coulombe 2.20 ERA. Webb 3.15 ERA. Dominguez 3.43 ERA (with the O’s). Soto 5.19 ERA with the O’s (3.80 FIP and 3.35 xFIP). Suarez is solid and is likely going to be in the pen in the playoffs. Is it a dominant pen? No. It’s probably about the same as last year heading into the playoffs. 5 or so guys that are good relievers but no true dominant guy you can count on. Last year it was Cano, Coulombe, Hall, and Wells.

They’ve looked fine the last week or two besides when they’re pitching to Judge and Soto. They need to figure out who is gonna face those two in the playoffs because Perez and Cano definitely aren’t it. 

[Uli2001]

In other news, water is wet. This was the issue last year, too, after Bautista got injured (and even before that). Elias doesn't get a pass here. He goes dumpster diving for relief pitching way too much. In today's game, if you don't have a competent BP you are cooked.

[sportsfan8703]

The Achilles heel for this team is the offense. It’s hard to cry about the pen when we scored 1 run.  I guess we were gonna win 1-0 or get to extra innings and win 2-1 in the 19th inning.

Just gotta be a realist some time.  We have a 90% homegrown lineup, and it’s been struggling since June.  So… blame the non homegrown talent. Aka the bullpen.

 

[ace20251]

well hopefully Hyde can choose the right relief pitcher and not just do the usual ,its only a 3 game series to start. mix it up,use a starter , do whatever it takes to advance

[survivedc]

52 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

The Achilles heel for this team is the offense. It’s hard to cry about the pen when we scored 1 run.  I guess we were gonna win 1-0 or get to extra innings and win 2-1 in the 19th inning.

Just gotta be a realist some time.  We have a 90% homegrown lineup, and it’s been struggling since June.  So… blame the non homegrown talent. Aka the bullpen.

 

Do you look at numbers before you post or nah?

[SilverRocket]

3 hours ago, Uli2001 said:

He goes dumpster diving for relief pitching way too much.

How often is a good bullpen built any other way?

The Guardians have the best bullpen and their key pieces are:

- Emmanuel Clase: acquired through the Corey Kluber trade before he had proven himself. He was never a top prospect: MLB had him as Cleveland's 21st best prospect in 2020, Fangraphs had him as their 15th best. https://www.mlb.com/prospects/2020/guardians/ https://blogs.fangraphs.com/top-46-prospects-cleveland-indians/

- Cade Smith: rookie with a 4.65 ERA in AAA last year. 1.94 ERA this year. Fangraphs had him as the team's 27th best prospect coming into the year.

- Hunter Gaddis: 4.50 ERA in MLB and 6.05 ERA in AAA last year. Converted to a reliever with a 1.59 ERA this year.

- Tim Herrin: 5.53 ERA last year. 1.95 ERA this year.

The Orioles had one of the best bullpens in 2022 and it was anchored by Jorge Lopez, Felix Bautista, Cionel Perez, all of whom you could count as dumpster diving.

[Frobby]

6 hours ago, LGOrioles said:

Perez is way overused as a high leverage guy. He has a 4.60 ERA and is likely their worst LHP in the pen. He shouldn’t be used as their highest or second highest leverage lefty. 

But Akin has a 3.13 ERA. Cano 3.20 ERA. Coulombe 2.20 ERA. Webb 3.15 ERA. Dominguez 3.43 ERA (with the O’s). Soto 5.19 ERA with the O’s (3.80 FIP and 3.35 xFIP). Suarez is solid and is likely going to be in the pen in the playoffs. Is it a dominant pen? No. It’s probably about the same as last year heading into the playoffs. 5 or so guys that are good relievers but no true dominant guy you can count on. Last year it was Cano, Coulombe, Hall, and Wells.

They’ve looked fine the last week or two besides when they’re pitching to Judge and Soto. They need to figure out who is gonna face those two in the playoffs because Perez and Cano definitely aren’t it. 

Perez has a .615 OPSA in high leverage situations.   He has a .529 OPSA when pitching with a lead.  .555 late & close. He’s blown only one lead all year.  I’m completely comfortable using him in those situations.   Where he struggles is keeping games close even we’re down a couple of runs.  And when he has a bad day, things tend to snowball on him.   

I generally have a lot of confidence in Cano, but he’s looked very ragged this week.  I’d give him the Twins series off if that’s remotely possible.   
 

 

[Jagwar]

Hyde apparently believed it was better to limit innings for Burnes before his game 1 start. It meant that the bullpen had to cover 4 innings instead of 2 or 3. Once the Yankees put up 6 in the 6th, Hyde went to mop-up mode. The weird thing is that Baker and Bowman actually outpitched Cano and Perez. 

[sportsfan8703]

4 hours ago, survivedc said:

Do you look at numbers before you post or nah?

What numbers?  We scored one run dawg?  Or do you mean season long numbers?  Those are useless. Look at our offensive ranking post the Yankees series where we scored 15. 

Season long rankings mean diddly poo. You can’t take those into the batter’s box. Now don’t get me wrong, the bullpen isn’t as good as last year, but the offense is our Achilles heal. 

Edited 1 hour ago by sportsfan8703

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Perez has a .615 OPSA in high leverage situations.   He has a .529 OPSA when pitching with a lead.  .555 late & close. He’s blown only one lead all year.  I’m completely comfortable using him in those situations.   Where he struggles is keeping games close even we’re down a couple of runs.  And when he has a bad day, things tend to snowball on him.   

I generally have a lot of confidence in Cano, but he’s looked very ragged this week.  I’d give him the Twins series off if that’s remotely possible.   
 

 

I think all of them should get some work this series.  Don’t want anyone rusty.

[Warehouse]

My thoughts:

- I agree that the Achilles heel is the bullpen and not the offense (especially with Westburg, Mountcastle, Urias, and Kjerstad back).

- I also agree that Perez is overused in high leverage situations. This is going to come down to the degree you expect his “clutch” performance to be predictive going forward. 

- I second the notion that most good bullpens are built with some degree of dumpster diving.  If you go back to offseason threads, there were not many desired bullpen FA targets (outside of unrealistic ones like Hader) that would have worked out well.  Maybe we haven’t “dumpster dived” well enough as evidenced by the success of Kaleb Ort in Houston.

- Jacob Webb hasn’t been sharp since returning from the IL and Bowman has looked shaky his last few times out.

- We don’t have a true closer, only a group of mostly effective set-up men in Dominguez, Cano, and Coulombe.

- Part of me wishes they would be more aggressive with G-Rod and the Mountain. While we expect the team to continue to contend, you never really know how many times you’ll be back in the playoffs. However, I know in my head they are probably making the right decision.

- I also feel like they should be auditioning McDermot, Selby, Young, or Strowd (who has been very good since August after rough Norfolk start). They could option Baker who I think is unlikely to have a path to trusted status after last year’s ALDS performance. This feeling may be mostly driven by dissatisfaction with the current state and wanting something better.  It might be unrealistic to expect options unproven at the MLB level to suddenly step in and be key playoff pieces.

[sportsfan8703]

It’s the 7th inning with Burnes or Eflin on the bump. A tough lefty is coming up. Who you bringing in?  Perez or Coloumbe?  

[Aristotelian]

We would have lost last night regardless due to zero runs scored by the offense. It is worrisome that Cano looked awful in back to back games. After talk about arm soreness. He has been the one reliable guy.

Once we fell behind I don't really care how bad Bowman and Baker are. Hopefully they don't even make the roster for the playoffs. 

[TomDominick]

23 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

It’s the 7th inning with Burnes or Eflin on the bump. A tough lefty is coming up. Who you bringing in?  Perez or Coloumbe?  

I suggest leaving Burnes or Eflin in. But then I'm old.