Rays Bullpen Splits

Last night, I spent a lot of time looking at the baseball reference splits page, and became a little obsessed.  It’s a great site, with the downside being that there is no tRA or FIP data on this stie.

Some info I found interesting, in a numbers can tell a narrative way, are the: home/away; leverage, bases occupied, and times facing opponent splits. 

I took a look at the most obvious pitching split (vs RH/LH hitting) for our bullpen, just to have a Manager-like reference sheet for the rest of the season.    tOPS+ is just a measure of how that split matches up against his typical OPS.  The smaller the number the better for a pitcher.  100 is the benchmark.

Lance Cormier – RHP

Vs RHB:     SO/BB – 1.49     OPS - .885        tOPS+:  103

Vs LHB:     SO/BB – 1.18     OPS - .816        tOPS +:  96

So-so RH releiver, who has outplayed his career numbers this year. Which has lead him a some higher leverage situations this year.  The good news is that he historically pitches better in high leverage spots. 

I looked at his Staring/Relieving split differentials, and they are massive, mainly due to his ineffectiveness after his first time facing a batter.  His tOPS+ goes from 89 after seeing a batter once, to 111, and then 189 the next two plate attempts.  His career OPS looks subpar, but he’s been much better as a reliever.

Grant Balfour – RHP

Vs RHB:     SO/BB – 4.80     OPS - .594        tOPS+:  94

Vs LHB:     SO/BB – 3.63     OPS - .624        tOPS+:  105

He is what you expect against righties, but also pretty dreamy against left handed hitting.  I didn’t expect his career numbers to be this strong.  Also, he used to throw a changeup pretty often with the Twins though I’ve never seen it.  

Randol Choate – LHP

Vs RHB:     SO/BB – 0.80     OPS - .741        tOPS+:  109

Vs LHB:     SO/BB – 2.68     OPS - .669        tOPS+:  89

For someone I thought was a pure Loogy, Choate has seen a lot of RH hitting in his career and he is not awful. He walks a ton of righties, but when they make contact they are not crushing him.  Of our entire bullpen, I should say, I am most pleasantly surprised by his splits.       

James P. Howell – LHP

Vs RHB:     SO/BB – 2.26     OPS - .725        tOPS+:   103

Vs LHB:     SO/BB – 2.00     OPS - .685        tOPS+:   92

Rightly, lefty, the drummer from Def Leopard, bring it on.

Here, the problem with using career numbers is that you would think Grant Balfour is a superior pitcher by looking at the data.  Let us employ another set of splits:

As starter:     SO/BB – 1.84     OPS - .825      tOPS+:   130

As reliever:   SO/BB – 2.63     OPS - .571       tOPS+:   60

By the way:  His high leverage tOPS+ is 83.  He gets better as things get hairier.

As with most starters, his problem was with seeing batters the second and third time through the order.  But with some experience and a move to the pen, he has been lights out against both sides of the plate. 

This begs the question:  If he had started in the pen, and put up these kind of numbers, with all the pitches he has, would he have been given a(nother) shot in the rotation?  If he wasn’t so blatantly valuable in our bullpen, I would love to see him to start a game, just to see how it would pan out.

Brian Shouse – LHP

Vs RHB:     SO/BB – 0.68     OPS - .865        tOPS+:  140

Vs LHB:     SO/BB – 4.78     OPS - .595        tOPS+:    64

This is what I don’t get.  He has always been a relief pitcher but he has faced righties and lefties about the same amount despite his glaring R/L split.   Crazy effective against Larry’s as we know, blah against Rogers.  Maddon has kept him in 31 times against righties this year and he has been awful (vs. 42 for lefties.)  We should all wish for this to be discontinued with a quickness.

Dan Wheeler – RHP

Vs RHB:     SO/BB – 3.91     OPS - .629        tOPS+:  76

Vs LHB:     SO/BB – 1.75     OPS - .840        tOPS +: 133

The slider kills righties. Without it he is meh against lefties.  His splits are worse than I thought given how he is used.  This year has been really dramatic in difference. To be used with serious caution against strong left handed hitting, especially at Tropicana.

Jeff Bennett - RHP

Vs RHB:     SO/BB – 2.06     OPS - .699        tOPS+:  83

Vs LHB:     SO/BB – 1.10     OPS - .864        tOPS +:  126

ROOGY.   Not great last night.  Saving a spot for Sonny. 

Troy Percival - RHP

Not Much to say.  Just goto 1:58 of the following clip re: Baby D and see my feelings on Troy.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Sv7YGAcyw

Not much on the agenda tomorrow, so the plan is to see how these numbers hold up independent of fielding, and follow up.