Rays Bullpen=Weakness?
by Tommy Rancel on Feb 6, 2009 9:07 PM EST
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PrintAccording to Tracy Ringolsby, the Rays were able to make it to the World Series by overcoming a weakness; their bullpen. This is news to me, Grant Balfour and JP Howell.
A key for the Rays is their offense, which will be better with the addition of needed right-handed power hitter Pat Burrell, who can be a designated hitter in the AL. The Rays, however, balked at paying the price to strengthen their bullpen, a weakness that manager Joe Maddon was somehow able to overcome a year ago.
As for improving the bullpen, the Rays didn't spend a lot of cash on a "big time" reliever like Frankie Rodriguez or Brian Fuentes, but they still improved the bullpen. Brian Shouse and his LHOPS against of .486 is an upgrade over Trever Miller's .612. Joe Nelson and his K/9 of 10 and FIP of 3.45 should take most of the 71.1 innings that were pitched by Gary Glover, Scott Dohmann and Al Reyes. Plus the Rays will have about 1,500 other reliever all battling for a possible spot in the bullpen in a week. Paying big bucks for relief pitching is generally not a smart business move. If the 2008 Rays bullpen taught us one thing, it was that fact right there.
In other news:
Bill Chastain seems to think the Rays would actually chance DFA'ing Jeff NIemann.
In Hammel and Niemann, Tampa Bay has two quality arms. Each has the potential to be a top-shelf Major League pitcher, and in past Rays seasons, each would have been in the rotation. Other teams know which players are out of options, so it's likely clubs will be like buzzards circling the Rays' transaction news so they can claim either pitcher in the event they are designated for assignment.
Another "Next Rays" story. I think it's getting a little much when we're including the Braves and A's , no?
Atlanta Braves
The boys from Atlanta have made some huge improvements this offseason that can't be overlooked-Derek Lowe, who is locked up in a new contract, Japanese star Kenshin Kawakami, and the contract extension of their first baseman, Casey Kotchman.
The Braves are in a tough division that includes New York, Philadelphia, and Florida. I do not see the Braves making the playoffs unless they win at least 90 games, which does not seem likely. Though they have made great acquisitions, I don't think that they can compete.
They do, however, look like they could finish in the top three.
Oakland A's
With the recent additions of Jason Giambi and, especially Matt Holliday, along with a potentially stellar young pitching rotation led by Justin Duchscherer, Oakland will, without a doubt, be competing with the more vulnerable division, except the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, who have lost some key players.
The A's will have a race to the finish for the division and they will be a competitor in the Wild Card.
Finally, RJ's farewell to Cliff Floyd without a chart and or graph.
Floyd is not going to help the Padres win many games next year. There’s a perfectly correct case to make that the Padres should be taking shots on high-upside players rather than playing the twilight of Floyd’s career. I agree with that and Floyd would be better suited to serve as a coach with San Diego, but even still I’ll miss Cliff Floyd the person next year.
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One time Tracy Ringolsby wrote this
For some reason there is a faction that doesn’t grasp the meaning of the word “valuable.”
Let me spell it for you: v-a-l-u-a-b-l-e, as in Most Valuable Player. It is not a synonym for outstanding or best. Valuable means having great use or service, in other words the Most Valuable Player is the one whose service was the greatest for his team, and in the world of sports, greatness is determined by winning.
There are intangibles, in addition to statistics, that should be considered in determining an MVP, and a key element is that a player helps his team into a contending status.
What value does a great year have on a mediocre team?
He is a former president of the BBWAA.
I wouldn’t put too much stock into his opinion, Rays fans.
Scored three times and detonated an indisputable in four visits to the batting box.
This is one of those things that gets my blood boiling.
How can the best player NOT be MVP, even in subjective terms like Ringolsby has laid out?
Also, this gets me.
"A key for Tampa Bay last year was its ability to handle opposing bullpens. Tampa Bay opponents converted only 31-of-56 save opportunities last year, the lowest success ratio (.554) against any major league lineup.
Milwaukee was second, allowing opposing teams to convert only 35-of-61 opportunities.
At the other extreme, the opposition made good on 53-of-73 chances against Washington, which was 1-93 in games in which it trailed after eight innings."
No where does Ringolsby mention that Tampa and Milwaukee were 90 and 97 game winners, where as Washington was a 59 game winner. Good teams can win close games.
I've noticed that a common characteristic of bad writers is making up stats (this is a long comment, sorry)
they criticize stats and praise intangibles and make up random-ass stats to defend stupid decisions made by old-guard baseball people, or their own stupid viewpoints.
Today some Reds fans were exasperated about their team signing Jacque Jones and Daryle Ward, presumably to block more talented young players— which Dusty Baker has a tendency to do. Here’s a quote from one of their writers:
In his career, Jones has played in in 21 playoff games, including both Division Series (2002-04, 2007) and the 2002 American League Championship Series. He has a 20 career leadoff homers and a .287 lifetime average with runners in scoring position.
Ward’s 11 pinch-hit homers ties him with Tony Clark for fourth-most among active Major Leaguers. Ward has made 11 career post-season appearances, all in the National League Division Series (1999, 2001, 2007, 2008). He is the son of 2-time AL All-Star Gary Ward.
Hey, VORP doesn’t support my point, so I’ll make up some random things!
This year, we Brewer fans were happy with Jason Kendall’s overall production, but we didn’t appreciate the fact that he started like 152 games, which is just ridiculous. So after the year Tom Haudricourt, our beat writer, wrote this to reaffirm Ned Yost/Dale Sveum’s lineup and playing time for the catchers:
But Kendall had a 50-45 walk-strikeout ratio and batted .351 with runners in scoring position and less than two out.
You look at that quickly and you’d probably criticize him for using a stupid stat like RISP w/2 out. But it’s even worse than that, it’s RISP with less than two out. He actually hit .123 with RISP 2 outs. So it’s like, Kendall is clutch. How do I prove this. Hmmm, not that one… ooh. I’ll just make up this one. Lets put it down.
He tries to trick readers into thinking that the “Sabermetric stats” say that Kendall is clutch, then he goes back and writes articles about how statistics can’t measure heart.
Scored three times and detonated an indisputable in four visits to the batting box.
"Good teams can win close games."
I don’t think this is true. Check me on this, but I believe there have been studies that demonstrate no correlation between winning close games and being a winning team overall. Rather, the good teams tend to play and win a lot of blowouts or games with 3 or more runs as margins of victory. As for close games, winning or losing them seems random, with excellent teams having poor records in them as often (or nearly so) as they have good records, and bad teams often doing well in close games.
Right.
If you find all the teams who have great 1-run records, they tend to do well. Well, duh. If you tell me a team does well in any subset of games, they probably do well overall, too.
But if you look at top teams and at bottom teams, there’s very little difference in 1-run game winning percentage. Maybe a bit, but nothing very big.
Good teams score a lot of runs and give up not a lot of runs. But when RS ~ RA, anything can happen. It’s just that good teams tend to outscore their opposition by a few runs a lot more often than bad teams do.
Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.
The assumption about winning close games
seems of a piece with the approach to baseball that focuses on character as the determining factor in winning. And once again, while it is foolish to ignore “intangibles” altogether or to deny that in specific cases (anecdotally) they were very important, it is also foolish to emphasize their importance or to claim they are generally the key factor in determining a team’s or individual’s ability to win.
I would say that the 08' Rays were particularly susceptible to the "close game factor".
The Rays had a decent offense last year, not great, but decent along with have very good pitching and defense. I think that most would agree in almost any sport that if you have a defensive minded team they tend to play in lower scoring, closer games. I think it would be interesting to see how teams with good team defense/pitching compare to teams with average-or-worse pitching/defense in 1-run game winning percentage.
I will agree though that there is a certain amount of luck to 1-run winning %, and the Rays will probably see their % regress, although if the offense improves how we all think it will, we should play in less 1-run games overall.
"although if the offense improves how we all think it will, we should play in less 1-run games overall."
This is what we are aiming for.
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