The new White Sox bullpen is a MAJOR upgrade

[VAfan]

Let's look at the 2022 Sox bullpen and compare it to the 2021 bullpen.

2021	IP	K%	BB%	ERA		2022 w 21 stats	IP	K%	BB%	Era
Liam Hendricks	71	42.30%	2.60%	2.54		Liam Hendricks	71
Aaron Bummer	56.1	31%	12%	3.51		Aaron Bummer	56
Garrett Crochet	54.1	28.30%	11.70%	2.82		Garrett Crochet	54
Cody Heuer	28.2	23.50%	6%	5.12		Kendall Graveman	56	27.50%	9%	1.77
Ryan Tepera	18	32%	9.30%	2.5		Joe Kelly	44	27.50%	8.20%	2.86
Craig Kimbrel	23	36.70%	10.20%	5.09		Craig Kimbrel (total)	59	42.60%	9.80%	2.26
Jose Ruiz	65	23.20%	9.20%	3.05		Jose Ruiz	65
Evan Marshall	27.1	23%	8%	5.6		Reynaldo Lopez	55
Michael Kopech	55.1	36.10%	8.40%	3.9		Ryan Burr	36
Reynaldo Lopez	20.1	24.80%	5.90%	2.21			496
Mike Wright	18	13.60%	13.60%	5.5
Matt Foster	39	23%	7.50%	6
Ryan Burr	36.2	21.90%	13.90%	2.45
	510.9

What do you notice?  

If you keep Craig Kimbrel, which I believe the Sox will do, then you've swapped out 

Cody Heuer, Evan Marshall, Matt Foster, Mike Wright, and Ryan Tepera for Kendall Graveman and Joe Kelly, and you've added Reynaldo Lopez for a whole year instead of just the end of the year.  

That strikes me as a major upgrade.  The only good reliever the Sox have lost is Ryan Tepera, but they've dropped 113 innings of relievers who all had ERAs above 5 runs per game, for 2 pitchers who put up 100 innings, one of whom had an ERA of 1.77 and the other 2.86.  

Last year we thought the bullpen would be good, but Heuer, Marshall, and Foster all pitched much worse than they had in 2020, and we needed to bring up Mike Wright to eat innings.  

This year, we've added much more experienced pitchers to replace those guys.  Sure, there is some year-to-year fluctuation, but this looks like a much better bullpen even after moving Michael Kopech into the rotation.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

I swear you work in the White Sox sales department: 

On 2/1/2021 at 2:24 AM, VAfan said:

 

Bullpen

2020 v. 2021

1. Colome v. Hendriks. Improved. Colome was very good at converting saves, but his underlying numbers have been declining, and he might not be good enough for playoff baseball. Hendriks is better.

2. Bummer v. Bummer. Big improvement. He wasn't healthy in 2020. Hopefully he will stay healthy this year.

3. Heuer v. Heuer. Improved. Has to be as he gains more experience.

4. Marshall v. Marshall. Stable. 

5. Crochet v. Crochet. Improvement if Crochet is used in the pen instead of stretched out to be a starter in AAA.  He will improve with experience. 

6. Cordero v. Cordero. Same.

7. Fry v. Fry. Same

8. Cishek v. Fill in the blank. Improvement, as Cishek was bad last year. 

9. Detwiler v. Fill in the blank. If Crochet takes Detwiler's innings, this will be an improvement. 

This is a better bullpen, and could be one of the best, if not the best, in baseball. Hendriks can compete with anyone, Bummer is super solid, and the rest are very good. Crochet is the wild card. If they use him in the pen and he stays healthy, we should blow away teams at the end of games. 

Bullpen: Hendriks better, Bummer healthier, Heuer more experienced, Crochet the wild card. The rest are the same.

 

[VAfan]

20 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

I swear you work in the White Sox sales department: 

Very good catch.  I'll admit I was optimistic last year about the pen, but I was obviously wrong, as I've said above.  (And I wasn't the only one who liked last year's pen.)  Heuer, Marshall, and Foster were all much worse.  The difference this time is that Graveman and Kelly are higher quality replacements.   More like Tepera, who was a good addition last year.   The wild card is Kimbrel, but while he's unlikely to be as good as he was for the Cubs in 2021, he's very likely to be better than he was for the Sox last year. 

What do you think?  Is the bullpen better this year, or not? 

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, VAfan said:

Last year we thought the bullpen would be good, but Heuer, Marshall, and Foster all pitched much worse than they had in 2020, and we needed to bring up Mike Wright to eat innings.  

All 3 of those guys had FIP numbers better than their ERA. While Fosters was still bad, the other two weren’t. 

Joe Kelly and Graveman both had FIP better than those guys, but both had ERA that were better than their FIP. Thus, it is the opposite setup of the pitchers discarded.

For example, Graveman had an ERA of 1.77 but an FIP of 3.19. Heuer with the White Sox had an ERA of 5.12 but an FIP of 3.69.

Are the White Sox getting substantially better, or are they picking pitcher who were lucky and had better defenses and catchers to make up for their unlucky pitchers who had poor defenses and bad catchers?

[Texsox]

I'm loving our pen. You left out one key aspect other than health, the guys who are coaching and managing them. 

I agreed with 90% plus of TLR's bullpen usage. He made some moves that didn't work out, a couple total head scratching decisions, but overall I hope he continues on the same path. 

I think the coaching will continue to improve as well, no reason not to believe additional MLB experience helps Katz. 

[soxfan49]

We heard how awesome they were going to be last year, too. Let's see it play out first.

[Sarava]

I like the pen a lot. I just worry that it might come at the expense of a good right fielder, a good starter pitching addition and maybe a good DH solution. We've already seen it came at the expense of a good 2nd base solution.

[ptatc]

1 hour ago, Sarava said:

I like the pen a lot. I just worry that it might come at the expense of a good right fielder, a good starter pitching addition and maybe a good DH solution. We've already seen it came at the expense of a good 2nd base solution.

Since they went FA for 2B , you would think they are saving their trade chips for one of the others. 

[Eminor3rd]

On 3/12/2022 at 10:38 PM, VAfan said:

Very good catch.  I'll admit I was optimistic last year about the pen, but I was obviously wrong, as I've said above.  (And I wasn't the only one who liked last year's pen.)  Heuer, Marshall, and Foster were all much worse.  The difference this time is that Graveman and Kelly are higher quality replacements.   More like Tepera, who was a good addition last year.   The wild card is Kimbrel, but while he's unlikely to be as good as he was for the Cubs in 2021, he's very likely to be better than he was for the Sox last year. 

What do you think?  Is the bullpen better this year, or not? 

This is the issue: relievers are the most volatile performance bets on a year to year basis, by a lot. It isn’t clear if they’ll be better — it’s nearly just as likely that the poor performers you were excited about going into last year will bounce back. 

There’s a very good reason that zero franchises spend their offseason budget nearly exclusively on relievers. The last team to do it was the historically inept Rockies, and they were laughed at when it happened and again when it didn’t work out for them.

[KBX]

The Sox org is pathological about free agents. Reliever spending is back-door and low competition. The thing is, if they do get lucky with performance then in the last analysis you will say that they took the next step and turned a first round team into a championship team. There is enough bullpen talent that they don't all need to have great years, but if 4 of them do, that's an awesome bullpen. 

[VAfan]

Do you know how teams often have their A relievers and their B relievers?  The A guys are used in close games with leads, and the B guys get used when we're getting shelled and aren't likely to rally, or when we have big leads.  

If you tried to divide the current White Sox pen, who would be an A, and who would be a B?  

There aren't many Bs on this squad.  

[Balta1701]

16 minutes ago, VAfan said:

Do you know how teams often have their A relievers and their B relievers?  The A guys are used in close games with leads, and the B guys get used when we're getting shelled and aren't likely to rally, or when we have big leads.  

If you tried to divide the current White Sox pen, who would be an A, and who would be a B?  

There aren't many Bs on this squad.  

B guys include Lopez, Velasquez, Kimbrel. Joe Kelly had been that level before too. Graveman only has 1 year as a reliever so harder to know if he could have that downside.

[Balta1701]

A long time ago here there was someone with the slogan “trade the relievers.” Any time there was a deal proposed where the white Sox gave up a reliever he liked it, on the grounds that there were only a handful of fully reliable, dominant relievers in the whole league. However, the fact that they were pitching only 60 innings meant that some relievers would look way better just by chance, and if you sold those guys at their peak you could win the deal every time and build up talent because the other GM would overpay based on luck more than talent.

I don’t remember who that was , but I can’t help but notice that Hahn’s strategy Is the exact opposite. He’s the GM that poster wanted on the other side, to take advantage of.

[Colome's Hat]

To be honest, if Kimbrel can find his shit, I wouldn't mind keeping him and alternating him and Liam at closer.  I think the Sox will spend regardless.  And I think we will get a left handed power bat and another quality starter.  I think bullpen help is critical because the accelerated spring training likely fucks over the starting pitchers for the first part of the season.