Anyone Else Worried About The Bullpen?

[satyr9]

Relievers are volatile. Even those without glaring question marks can implode at the drop of a hat. People have pointed out that there are questions about virtually every Jays reliever. That's true, it's just not particularly noteworthy in the context of the league. What the Jays have is some reasonable, but not fantastic, depth for high leverage, and better than most depth for the other innings.

Looking in the division first, the Yanks have 1-2 guys,but less depth and Rivera has to be a bigger question mark than Janssen or Santos at this point. BAL isn't worth discussing. They had a fantastic year, but I have no idea what they'll be. If you love them, great. TB is the classic case that you can sign anyone and succeed if you're starters are bad ass. BOS I think is actually worth comparing. They have a supposedly very strong 'pen and they spent quite a bit of money/talent building it as well, more than we did I'm fairly confident:

Hanrahan vs Janssen (Hanrahan was terrible last year. Janssen was excellent, but is coming back from an injury)
Bailey vs. Santos (Bailey is always hurt. Santos is coming back from 1 big injury)
Uehara vs. Oliver (Super reliable, but old)
Tazawa vs. Delabar (1 year only. Delabar also has weird arm stuff so bump for BOS here, but it's not like Asia imports aren't prone to flash in the pan either)
Aceves/Bard vs. Rogers/Lincoln (If they hadn't messed with Bard so much it'd be a huge edge, but I have no idea what to expect here)
Brewslow/Miller/Morales vs. Jeffress/Schwimer/Cecil/Loup (These are just guys. They're fine, but they're jsut guys).

I'd give BOS the edge, but it's not an enormous gap, especially from a consistency/reliability perspective, and that's an expensive and well thought of bullpen right there. The thread about WAR pointed out that careers are not stable at all and nowhere is this more true than in the bullpen. It is virtually impossible to proof your bullpen against failure, but many of us like that AA went the route of depth; The alternative is trying to spend 50m on a Papelbon or worse, which I'd hope we can all agree on is a terrible way to try to accomplish the same goal, 'cause you get Paps at best and all the issues that crashburn alley points out, or you get Heath Bell as your closer. That goes from bad to very very very bad.

And for the love of all that's holy, you cannot cite ST performances as evidence of anything. Unless you provide video evidence that a pitcher was throwing their regular repertoire, you have no idea if he threw 20 splitters, or tried throwing breaking stuff every time he got behind, or whatever. Even if you could prove that, it wouldn't matter, as they're working on getting better. If you look at something unfinished, it doesn't usually look great. I would marginally allow you can get a little confident/dissuaded by how they look the last week or so in their final tune-ups, but even then it's more for demeanor and stuff than results.

It's Spring Training, they're training.

Henderson Alvarez looked like a Greek God last year in ST. I think the career ST HR record for the Jays belongs to Simon Pond (to be fair, Delgado may have tied/beat him, I can't remember). The flipside - the sucks in ST kills it in regular season examples - are impossible to remember because they happen with incredible frequency and there isn't a good reason on earth to remember a bad ST performance. As long as a pitcher doesn't give up a HR on every single pitch he throws in the strikezone, you shouldn't give a darn about his ST performance. You can have your freakout after a single batter in the regular season and it'll be a better indicator than all his ST innings.

[Schad]

Yes, it will all come down to health.

Jannsen (injuries? Check)
Santos (injuries, check)
Delabar (rebuilt arm/set for regression to the mean? Check)
Oliver (a billion years old--granted, it hasn't stopped him yet)
Cecil (velocity back up but performing terribly so far--check)
Lincoln (failed so badly in one start they gave up on the idea? Check)

So far, the most reliable piece right now is a guy who wasn't even going to be a part of the staff! And no one would be surprised if this was the year he failed.

That's kinda what bullpens are, though. Here, I'll do it for the Yankees and the Rays:

Mo Rivera (ancient and coming off knee reconstruction? Check)
David Robertson (ongoing shoulder problem? Check)
Boone Logan (rode his luck with high BB/9, just got shut down with elbow issues? Check)
Clay Rapada (two years removed from being awful, good chance of regression? Check)
Joba Chamberlain (can't stay healthy, can't eat healthy? Check)
David Aardsma (has pitched one inning in two years? Check)



Fernando Rodney (freak season, likely to regress? Check)
Joel Peralta (declining fastball and about to turn 37? Check)
Kyle Farnsworth (lurches from good to bad to worse to good seemingly at random from year to year? Check)
Jake McGee (possible one-year wonder? Check)
Cesar Ramos (small sample size of success? Check)


And so forth.

[BigLeagueChew]

Our bullpen looks very strong right now. Watching the old World Series' reminds me how we only had to play 7 innings games until we turned it over to Ward / Heinke and the game was over. We have that this season with Janssen and Santos. If anything happens to our 8th or 9th inning guys we have Oliver and Delabar to fill in temporarily as well.

If people aren't confident in this years bullpen, which bullpens of Jays passed seasons would you have been more comfortable with than ours currently ?

For me the main concern is staying healthy and our catching depth. We have catchers but not really the top calibre ones.

[suntzuballin]

the bullpen is not that great for bluejays santos be setup and will earn his closer role back for janssen honestly i dont think thats reaaly suited for him like he sub in for the role

[Fenris-77]

Toronto fans are so lame sometimes. The bullpen is obviously well stocked, and while there may not be an overwhelming favourite to close there are two guys who have both proven they can do the job (and that's two more than some teams have right now). The Jays also have a bunch of capable middle relief types with strong resumes and/or skill sets. Why anyone wants to bitch and moan about the bullpen this year is really beyond me.

[akakalakin]

not so sure Janssen has proved anything, closing out the high pressure games with the season on the line in NY or Boston will be a whole new situation, one that he may not do well in- still wait and see imo

[Lateral Quicks]

Here are the quality arms that at this point likely won't make the team out of the starting gate:

Happ
Lincoln
Loup
McGowan

When those guys aren't making the team, it's a sign of a pretty deep pitching staff/bullpen. Yes, the 'pen lacks big names, but big names aren't necessary for success. Injuries are a concern, but unlike last year the team has depth to deal with them, and a manager that actually knows how to properly manage his personnel.

BTW, here's a freak stat. from last year: in 30.2 IP, Loup allowed precisely zero home runs and two walks. Not too shabby. I'd be surprised if he didn't find his way onto the team before the season is out.

[Randle McMurphy]

The rumour is that Loup is making it right now and I don't see much reason he shouldn't.

[Avenger]

he has options left, Cecil, Jeffress and McGowan don't, the latter will probably pass through waivers and even if he doesn't its not a big loss. I'm not sure it makes sense to give up on Cecil or Jeffress for Loup who might not be that much of an upgrade.

[Randle McMurphy]

he has options left, Cecil, Jeffress and McGowan don't, the latter will probably pass through waivers and even if he doesn't its not a big loss. I'm not sure it makes sense to give up on Cecil or Jeffress for Loup who might not be that much of an upgrade.

You can count on McGowan starting the season on the DL. Cecil probably makes the team too and I'd be surprised if they cared enough about Jeffress to worry about whether he passes through waivers. He may have stuff, but he's never shown the ability command it at any level.