A Bullpen Journey in Philly
Relievers get the final word in deciding whether it's been a good day at the park
Pardon me if after last week’s dalliance with my baseball cards I’ve been feeling sentimental. There must be a residual effect from those ‘80s treasures that’s had me singing Journey all week.
With less than three weeks to go until Opening Day, there are two songs spinning in my head that apply to the upcoming season:
“Who’s Crying Now” was released in July 1981, in the middle of the players’ strike that bifurcated the season. Yes, a potential work stoppage lies on the horizon, but that’s not the reason this 40-year-old song resonates.
“Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” was off of Journey’s next record, Frontiers, released early in 1983. No doubt it dominated the airwaves as the Orioles were marching to the World Championship that year.
Now, the O’s are Worlds Apart from the Rays, Jays, and Yankees, while teams like the Cardinals and Padres head in Separate Ways from the Pirates and Rockies.
And that leads me on my search, less about who’s crying now and more about who’s trying now.
The expanded postseason will not carryover into 2021, so baseball returns to the more traditional 10-team postseason structure. Each league will send five teams into October baseball, and the one-game do-or-die contest between the two Wild Card teams will return.
With fewer opportunities to pop Champagne, plenty of teams have waved the white flag well before the first pitch of the season. Safe to say competitive balance is a bit off.
There is no try
Looking back at last year’s abbreviated season, which may prove a dangerous sample for making predictions, there was only a small number of teams that tried — that really had a roster that demonstrated the intent of winning — and failed. In the American League, the Angels were the biggest disappointment, at least in relation to their owner’s expectations. The Halos 26-34 record led to the dismissal of their general manager.
In the National League, each team in the East believed it had positioned itself to win. The defending champion Nationals fell flat with a 26-34 record. In fairness to the Nats, though, they were only 27-33 at the same point in the 2019 season. Easy to give them a pass.
The Mets and the Phillies both fell short of expectations, and each organization saw shakeups among their baseball operations decision-makers. While the Mets changes also included a sale of the team, the Phillies actions were a direct result of underperformance.
The lesson here is when you have Mike Trout or Bryce Harper on your roster, losing is never acceptable outcome. The same could be said for the team that had Nolan Arenado under contract, and that’s as good a reason (excuse) as any for the Rockies to have traded him.
It’s funny (unless you’re in Colorado): Trout’s team and Harper’s team underachieved, so the GMs were both replaced. In Colorado, after the Rox went 26-34 — what is it with that record? — the GM was retained and proceeded to trade a generational star for a return that’s been panned — and deservedly so.
Of all these teams, I’m most curious about the Phillies. Dave Dombrowski, the newly appointed president of baseball operations, is following a model that I watched closely during my years working for Kevin Towers. With his patented “dumpster diving,” KT always believed he could build — and rebuild — a bullpen on the fly and on the cheap. He valued different looks — arm angles, repertoires, bodies — coming out of the pen. The desire was to create a situation where, if the team was leading after six innings, the manager could go on auto-pilot in turning the ball over to the correct trusted arms for the final nine outs.
I’ll never forget — in 2005, while working the Petco Park radar gun — watching lefty Chris Hammond enter games and unleash his 59 MPH Bugs Bunny changeup. There were times it seemed like the ball would never cross the plate. Pitching is all about disrupting a hitter’s timing. Fifty-nine will accomplish that.
Over the years, there were knuckle-scrapers like Cla Meredith in San Diego and Brad Ziegler in Arizona. There were veterans with a career of experience and just enough left in the tank like Doug Brocail, and there were reclamation projects like David Hernandez. On top of that, there were shrewd scouting finds like Luke Gregerson and Joe Thatcher. So many contributors who alone — when graded solely on stuff — might not have found a spot on the roster, but as part of the whole were significantly greater than the sum of the parts.
Bullpen construction by voodoo is largely shunned today. It doesn’t need to be clever, though; it just needs to result in outs. Dombrowski knows the most fertile area for overnight improvement is in the pen and he knows his team is expected to win now.
He overhauled the pen by bringing in four outsiders:
Archie Bradley was signed to a no-strings-attached one-year deal
Lefty flame-thrower Jose Alvarado was acquired from Tampa Bay in a trade
Brandon Kintzler, in big league camp on a minor-league deal, has nailed his audition; Kintzler, who’s on his fifth team in the last five years, is used to proving himself
10-year veteran Tony Watson is a left-handed workhorse with a career 2.80 ERA and career ERA+ of 139
Meanwhile, Conor Brogdon, whom the Phils selected in the 10th round of the 2017 draft, is a 6’6 righty who throws 97 and should have the luxury of pitching his way into higher-leverage roles.
A bad bullpen can crush a team’s spirit. A historically bad one (see: 2020 Phillies) scars a franchise for life. I expect this new-look relief corps to restore clubhouse morale.
Dr. Manfred’s Laboratory
In a memo to all teams on Thursday, Major League Baseball announced a number of experimental rules that will impact play in the minor leagues this season.
The concluding paragraph of the memo included:
We understand that some of these changes may create challenges in your player development initiatives, and we appreciate your Club’s cooperation in complying with these experimental rules changes for the 2021 season.
The experimental rules vary at each of the four full-season minor league levels. Each rule — from requiring all four infielders to have both feet on the dirt to limiting pick-off attempts per plate appearance — chips away at the integrity of the game and distances the minor league product from Major League competition.
The memo states that these rule changes are intended to “increase action on the basepaths, create more balls in play, improve the pace and length of games, and reduce player injuries.” Of course, no one will contest player safety, but that selling point feels as hollow as the adulterer or criminal or racist who mentions his devoutly religious lifestyle as a reason to believe his actions were somehow out of character.
A more honest assessment is that the current brand of baseball is not to the commissioner’s liking. Don’t like the results? Change the rules!
It’s a way of mitigating any one team’s individual intellectual power, and it’s also a power play designed to remind minor league owners who’s in charge.
Consequently, the bases used in Triple-A games will increase in size to 18 inches square from 15 inches square. The distance between the bags will now be slightly less than 90 feet, and the formerly bang-bang play will have a little less bang to it. (Yes, I know it will be replaced by a new wave of bang-bang plays for a slightly slower runner. How compassionate.)
I’m thinking about the catchers. Everything a catcher has ever believed about throwing a runner out will change. The internal clock will now be a split-second slow.
Will some teams leave catching prospects in Double-A? I wouldn’t be surprised. It won’t be long before a catcher changes his mechanics or technique in an attempt to be just a little bit quicker. That’s generally when the trouble starts.
So is the plan to ignore tanking (or electing to field a less-competitive team) as a franchise-building or cost-saving strategy while creating a diversion with pitch clocks in Low-A ball? Keep an eye out for the guys with the lab coats and clipboards in the scout sections around the country.
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