The Angels bullpen power outage

Velocity is so overrated, or at least Jerry Dipoto seems to think so. While nobody was looking, the Angels GM has turned a bullpen full of power arms into a crop of soft tossers. Yep, the Angels bullpen doesn’t need your stinking 95 MPH fastballs, even if that is the core of just about every other bullpen in the league.

Dipoto has been looking to find a combination of arms that he can mold into an effective bullpen ever since he took over the front office. He finally found one in the second half of the 2014 season. That turnaround came about thanks to the additions of Joe Smith, Huston Street, Mike Morin, Fernando Salas and Jason Grilli. All pitchers that throw in the low-nineties or lower. This is a trend that has continued on into the offseason.

As it stands right now, the Angels bullpen consists of Huston Street, Joe Smith, Mike Morin, Fernando Salas, Cesar Ramos and Vinnie Pestano. Not one of them throws a fastball higher than 92 MPH. The only hope of adding such an arm lies in Cory Rasmus, who sits around 93 MPH, or maybe flame-throwing Cam Bedrosian. If neither of those guys makes the roster, Morin will be the team’s “power arm” with his “blazing” 91.8 MPH four-seamer. That’s not even enough to give the JUGGS gun a workout.

This has been a pretty stark turnaround form the bullpens of recent Angels past. In 2013, the Halos had six guys (Ernesto Frieri, Dane De La Rosa, Michael Kohn, Garrett Richards, Juan Gutierrez and Kevin Jepsen) who averaged 94+ MPH on their heaters that logged 25 innings or more. Richards is the only one of those pitchers that is even still in the Angels organization. The rest have all been kicked to the curb.

That is definitely a trend that has continued. Dipoto seems to be going out of his way to divest himself of his power bullpen arms. He traded R.J. Alvarez at the last trade deadline. He dealt Jairo Diaz for Josh Rutledge. He moved Mark Sappington in the Cesar Ramos deal. Jason Grilli was allowed to walk in free agency. Kevin Jepsen got swapped for Matt Joyce. He just last week traded Ricardo Sanchez for Kyle Kubitza. Just about every move that Dipoto has made in the last few months has involved the Halos sending out a guy with a big fastball.

Is this just a coincidence or is Dipoto making a concerted effort here? It well could be a fluke. Dipoto spoke recently about his strategy of stockpiling pitching in the farm so he could have the depth to make all these deals. This is just his strategy bearing fruit. He’d probably be willing to trade the softer-throwing guys if the price is right, but thus far it hasn’t been.

Perhaps he’s found a market efficiency to exploit. Scouting prospects is hard, but one of the easiest things to scout is velocity. It is right there on the radar gun. If Dipoto has discovered, intentionally or accidentally, that teams will pay a premium for guys that throw hard, why not take advantage?

Thus far, it hasn’t hurt the Angels bullpen. Clearly there is more than one way to skin a cat. In fact, that is another point of Dipoto’s professed strategy. He has been wanting to build a diverse bullpen that can throw a lot of different looks at teams. He’s now got a lefty, two sidearmers, groundball specialists, a righty with a killer changeup, a closer with a very deceptive delivery and whatever the hell Fernando Salas is. Ironically, the one thing he doesn’t have right now is a reliever that can reach back and just blow people away with a fastball, although he will at some point when Cam Bedrosian finishes developing.

What will be interesting to watch is if this is a plan that Dipoto continues to employ out into the future. He’s constructed the Angels bullpen around power arms before and just had it not work. In a lot of ways he just kind of fell into this low velocity Angels bullpen. Maybe he thinks he’s onto something now or maybe he just has stopped caring how a pitcher gets guys out so long as he keeps getting them out.