If the Rays want the recent success of “bullpen days” to carry over to the long term, the team is going to have to embrace the concept at a fundamental level throughout the organization, writes columnist J. Scott Butherus.
ST. PETERSBURG — The Tampa Bay Rays trotted out a menagerie of relievers in every game of their three game-series against the New York Yankees, including a 7-6 walk-off win in 12 innings in the series finale on Sunday at Tropicana Field. The team plans to do the same in their upcoming series against the Houston Astros, another 50-win team.
So far, it has proved successful. The Rays sent their AL East divisional rival New York Yankees packing with a series sweep, including holding the powerful Yankee lineup to just one run through the first 18 innings. Since enacting the unorthodox rotation setup on May 19, the Rays staff has compiled a 2.98 ERA, the best in the Majors. The staff also has a 1.13 WHIP wile opponents are batting just .212, the second-best marks during that span.
The practice of using “bullpen days” has been analyzed and scrutinized ad nauseum as baseball folks around the league try to figure out if it is all just clever ploy to shield pitchers that would otherwise have trouble making it in a traditional rotation or the next iteration of a “Moneyball” innovation. It has even reached the point that we are now splitting hairs between the terms “game opener” and “short-usage starter” to describe the practice.
“Every decision that we make, there’s a lot of thought that goes into it,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “It’s not throwing something against a wall. This was an opportunity that presented itself by having so many young pitchers. It’s nice to see it play out where we have success.”
Any potential flaws in the practice have yet to be exposed in the short-term; adding more variables from the first out to the last could potentially expose a weak link in the chain. So far, the Rays have been lucky to not burn out their personnel through overuse during a particularly arduous span of games. Nobody’s arm has fallen off yet.The Rays also haven’t run out of serviceable pitching to continually get outs, a definite concern in the long haul as players garner service time and minor league options prohibit a constant trolley trip between Tampa and Triple-A Durham.
It also helps that opposing managers have yet to employ an effective counter measure to the practice. Yankees manager Aaron Boone said that he had considered things like stacking left-handers higher in the order or gearing his lineup toward the second pitcher in line — who often ends up pitching the bulk of the game — but ultimately decided to try and let his “dudes” do their thing.
“I get it. It makes sense when they have some starters down,” Boone said. “(Chris) Archer’s down and if you have enough dynamic arms that you feel are big league pitchers in your system, I think it makes a little sense to match up the best you can if you don’t have an ideal starter necessarily and you can pick your spots.
“It’s unconventional and I don’t think it’s ideal but I certainly get it.”
Flattery and Imitation
Other teams have even started to toy with the concept to varying degrees of success. The Mets tried it out on Sunday but, being the Mets, five of their seven relievers ended up giving up a run. Expect to see more teams, especially those who can’t afford a frontline starter in their rotation, to experiment with the concept though.
“Baseball is kind of a copycat game, it depends on how it all plays out,” said Blue Jays manager John Gibbons, who treats Tampa Bay’s bullpen days as though the opposing starting pitcher leaves with an injury. “I don’t like it. But everybody’s got to do what they got to do with what they have and what they want to do.”
However, if the bullpen day concept is going to transcend novelty and become a major strategy going forward, the Rays are going to have to institute changes all the way through the organization. Basically, they’ve got to go balls deep on this.
That means scouting and drafting pitchers whose skill sets are geared toward 60 pitch outings. Kids nowadays are used to it thanks to youth travel ball and showcase tournaments. That means looking for more two-way players that can transition from the mound to the field, something they are currently doing with prospect Brandon McKay. Once players are in the system, that means developing those prospects so that they are conditioned to only throw three or four innings at a time. They’ve got to acclimate their players to the system from the Stone Crabs on up. And at the big league level, that means building a roster built around the concept.
Personally, I’m curious to see what it would look like if three guys went for three innings every third day. I’m not a fan of specialists and one-inning relievers. I like my closers like Goose Gossage and Dan Quisenberry, armed with mighty mustaches over multiple frames. Complete games are a relic and “a solid seven” is getting there too. I say embrace the guy that can give everything he’s got —literally– every time he takes the mound. If a pitcher knows how far he’ll be asked to go, he’s less likely to leave anything in the tank. Max effort.
Of course such an idea would take a serious sell job to the players. Traditional stats would have to be thrown out the window. Five wins in 50 starts isn’t exactly going to win you piles of money in arbitration and if you leave the organization, you’ll have to reestablish yourself in a considerably different role. For a pitcher, focusing on nine outs instead of nine innings is a major paradigm shift. Plus, there is the prestige of being a big league starter that might be hard to let go. Never having to face Giancarlo Stanton twice in one game might be a pretty big incentive though.
Will the Rays’ bullpen experiment end up being a fad until Cash can trust five guys in a row to give him more than five quality innings? Possibly.
But if the Rays want to take this to a new level, I’d be interested to see where it goes. It’s not like they are going to catch either the Red Sox or Yankees — despite the series sweep — any time soon. It would definitely be better baseball than watching some borderline fifth starter implode in the fifth inning every fifth day. We could even have fun squads like Southpaw Saturdays or Mindfuck Mondays where you throw a guy who tosses 100 MPH between a knuckleballer and a shoetopping sidearmer. The possibilities are endless.
And if things work out, GM Erik Neander might even get a movie made about him. Jesse Eisenberg isn’t doing much these days.
