Long term trend: MiLB relievers

[southsider2k5]

The White Sox trend of bringing in loads of minor league high ceiling relievers is a super interesting trend for me. Historically relieving in the minors has been near zero value.  But with the trend of less and less IP out of your SP are the Sox actually playing Moneyball thing and picking up value by bringing in these players?

There is no question that relievers on the trade market at the major league level have more value than ever. The other thing is that the White Sox are always willing to deal relievers for position player prospects. 

If the Sox are either able to build a pen of these kinds of pieces and/or able to turn these guys into position player prospects in the future,  they build an extra source of prospect depth it is a huge lift to the sustainability of this build in the future. 

[BigHurt3515]

I feel very optimistic about the future of the bullpen & I love what the Sox are doing acquiring bullpen guys through trade & the draft. Like you mentioned relievers are in demand around this time of the year every season especially with that 2nd wild card. So if we can hit on this bullpen guys and we have more in the minors ready to go we can flip them for SP or hitting prospects. 

Fry, Burdi, Hamilton, Burr, Frare, Johnson, Danish, Ruiz, etc. I am sure I am missing more

[bmags]

I have been interested in seeing it workout. If the zig where others zag stuff where you could see an advantage for the Sox, building an organic costcontrolled bullpen could allow more leeway to go after position and SP upgrades.

that said, the huge weakness I see in it is the raiding of the group in rule 5. Are eel going to lose interesting starters or position players because we have to protect a huge number of prospect relievers?

[Balta1701]

Here's one other thing worth considering. I took a look at the top 11 relievers on Fangraphs in WAR this season and went through what they were doing in the minors (#10 and #11 are tied). There are 2 of them who were not starters in AA - Sean Doolittle and Aroldis Chapman, who is something of an obvious exception. Aside from those 2, the best relievers in the league today were not relievers in the minors, at least they weren't drafted that way. The guys who are having the biggest success are guys who were converted from starting to relieving right before they were called up, or in some cases after they were called up. The guys in the bigs who have made huge impacts on bullpens the last few years - Andrew Miller, Wade Davis - these guys followed that same setup. 

Some of the White Sox's guys, like Danish, Fulmer - they are getting some experience as starters before they're brought up. Guys like Burdi, Hamilton, Frare, Fry - these guys are being put on a path that looks fundamentally different from the path that is being taken by almost all of the top relievers in baseball today. 

For this to be a "moneyball" setup, where there's value teams aren't recognizing, the White Sox need to be better at turning full time relievers in the minors into quality big league relievers, because what the white sox have done with these guys is in fact different from the paths that produced the top relievers in the league right now.

[GreenSox]

I'm not sure that the relievers that the Sox are bringing in are particularly "high ceiling."  Frare has been a reliever virtually his entire career; he was a 24 year old AA pitcher who just recently turned it on.    The Sox have used some high picks on college relievers, but are college relievers really high ceiling? Or are they "quick to the majors"  I can recall Huston Street being a first round pick, but they are rarely picked in the first round, where teams seek ceiling.  I'm not convinced that high picks for college relievers is good value.
 Fry was a starter for the Sox until his surgery, so he too has starter pedigree.   We might eventually see Lopez and Giolito in the pen - I hope not, but it could happen.  I guess Fulmer too, but I think he needs a new coach/approach.  Too much stuff to give up on.  Medeiros is here to start.  If he doesn't hack it, fine, he goes to the pen.  But for now he's a starter. 

From Balta's numbers and my own sense, the best approach is to assemble as many quality minor league starters as possible; and from that group, you will find most of your relievers. 

[Chicago White Sox]

Burdi, Hamilton, & Johnson all have incredibly high ceilings.  Those are the guys to watch to see if the strategy works.

Edited July 30, 2018 by Chicago White Sox

[steveno89]

19 hours ago, bmags said:

I have been interested in seeing it workout. If the zig where others zag stuff where you could see an advantage for the Sox, building an organic costcontrolled bullpen could allow more leeway to go after position and SP upgrades.

that said, the huge weakness I see in it is the raiding of the group in rule 5. Are eel going to lose interesting starters or position players because we have to protect a huge number of prospect relievers?

There will always be 24-26 year old relief prospects available in the rule five draft each season, as teams run out of space to protect those guys in favor of other prospects. 

All you can do is hope a couple of these guys we acquire end up sticking

[bmags]

15 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

 

For this to be a "moneyball" setup, where there's value teams aren't recognizing, the White Sox need to be better at turning full time relievers in the minors into quality big league relievers, because what the white sox have done with these guys is in fact different from the paths that produced the top relievers in the league right now.

This isn't really a question. That is the gamble. The sox have invested a bunch into college relievers and presumably because they expect a return.

Perhaps they are expecting the high leverage relievers to be the converted starters and just have these be the depth so you don't need to pay for a MR on the market or during season, but this is the play.

[bighurt574]

15 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

Here's one other thing worth considering. I took a look at the top 11 relievers on Fangraphs in WAR this season and went through what they were doing in the minors (#10 and #11 are tied). There are 2 of them who were not starters in AA - Sean Doolittle and Aroldis Chapman, who is something of an obvious exception. Aside from those 2, the best relievers in the league today were not relievers in the minors, at least they weren't drafted that way. The guys who are having the biggest success are guys who were converted from starting to relieving right before they were called up, or in some cases after they were called up. The guys in the bigs who have made huge impacts on bullpens the last few years - Andrew Miller, Wade Davis - these guys followed that same setup. 

Some of the White Sox's guys, like Danish, Fulmer - they are getting some experience as starters before they're brought up. Guys like Burdi, Hamilton, Frare, Fry - these guys are being put on a path that looks fundamentally different from the path that is being taken by almost all of the top relievers in baseball today. 

For this to be a "moneyball" setup, where there's value teams aren't recognizing, the White Sox need to be better at turning full time relievers in the minors into quality big league relievers, because what the white sox have done with these guys is in fact different from the paths that produced the top relievers in the league right now.

I think that all just shows that who develops into elite relievers is pretty random.  Also a lot of variability from year to year.

So all you can really do it develop some depth/volume and hope you hit on a bunch.  

On Fulmer, he was drafted too high to ever really be a value play as a reliever candidate.  

[bmags]

My guess would be that the college relievers could be successful but may be the more highly volatile, up and down relievers as they have less experience changing things up as hitters see them more.

Converted starters are more consistent because they have worked through trying to make their stuff play up when tired, when going through a 2nd/3rd time through, etc.

Just a hunch, but it makes sense to me. 

[Jake]

We also have taken a few college relievers and tried to make them into starters, which is a whole other unconventional way of doing things.

[GreenSox]

Henzman is a college reliever turned starter; Dunning was a reliever, but he always projected as a starter; the Fla rotation was full.

Hamilton as an 11th round pick college reliever as fine;  4th/5th round relievers are questionable. 
A college reliever in round 1 is super questionable.
A guy I followed closely in college, was a college reliever, drafted in the teens a couple of years ago, and  is the closer on a AAA team.  He has a WHIP near 1.00 and averages well over a K per inning.  He is not even in his team's top 30 prospects 

Edited July 30, 2018 by GreenSox

[Dominikk85]

Some teams did try to draft relievers in the late first round hoping they would arrive quickly. I'm not a fan of this.

 

However 3rd to 5th round it isn't bad, there are not many college pitchers who make good mlb starters past round 2. So why not draft a reliever in round 4 instead of a potential bench bat?

[southsider2k5]

5 hours ago, bmags said:

This isn't really a question. That is the gamble. The sox have invested a bunch into college relievers and presumably because they expect a return.

Perhaps they are expecting the high leverage relievers to be the converted starters and just have these be the depth so you don't need to pay for a MR on the market or during season, but this is the play.

And the creation of relievers is changing.  Especially at the college level pitchers are being converted without being failed starters because of the growing emphasis and number of pen innings being used at that level.  Because of their importance as relievers, these guys are spending 3 years in college as relievers and coming into the minors as such. With minor and major league pen needs, many of those pitchers are staying in the pen instead of being moved back as starters. 

It is my personal opinion that the White Sox feel player valuations for these players may not have caught up on a level commiserate to other minor league prospect valuations as they relate to their major league counterparts.

In short major league relievers are really expensive while the minors ones have no real value. The Sox have been able to stockpile a ton of these guys. If they are able to pick up a guy like Ryan Burr for half a million in Intl cap space and then turn him into a middle to late inning reliever that is a huge surplus value. It is also one that could bring back a big time prospect if the Sox were to decide to move said reliever with three or four years of control down the road.

For example if a Vieira turns into a Kahnle down the road, we could turn a small amount of international cap space into either a big time set up guy, or a top 100 prospect.  That is a huge value gain.