The Misadventures of the 8 Man Bullpen

For as much as Terry Francona appears to love his bullpen, he historically hasn’t treated it very well. It was a topic of discussion for much of last year and the year before as Bryan Shaw and Cody Allen have pitched constantly with few others being given the responsibility of late inning work. We’ll have to see how the Indians manager decides to work the bullpen in April, but he will have hard enough time negotiating the month with an eight man bullpen, five man rotation and three days off (exactly one per week) after starting the season a day late.

The Indians used 17 relievers last year (not including that one game where Ryan Raburn and David Murphy pitched), often holding eight or even more men in the bullpen. In fact, the 2015 Indians broke out of camp with 8 men in the pen, nine if you include Zach McAllister who only made one start. Early on, when the starting rotation struggled a little bit, Francona didn’t have much trouble getting everyone work. It also helped that they rarely held a lead in the first two months, so there weren’t many close situations worth protecting.

When things got a little weird was when Cody Anderson was added to the rotation, Scott Atchison was removed from the bullpen and Austin Adams added on June 23rd. This five man rotation lasted for almost all the rest of the season and this particular eight man pen stuck around for awhile as well. From June 23rd through July 31st, Indians relievers made 79 appearances in 33 games, an average of 2.4 per game. In that span, eight games were played using one or fewer relievers and in one particular juncture, the combination of Ryan Webb, Nick Hagadone, Jeff Manship, Kyle Crockett and Adams pitched 12 times total in 19 games. Manship, who was arguably the Indians most efficient pitcher last year, had seven games off before pitching twice, then had another six without playing. There were 29 times an Indians pitcher was on the roster without pitching for at least five games.

Take the above chart with a grain of salt as none of the numbers are really qualified individually, although as a group they hold some value. Almost universally, Indians relievers were best last year when when pitching with two or fewer days of rest between appearances. In particular, two of the Indians most dependable relievers in 2015, McAllister and Shaw, were horrendous in limited duty after five or more days off with even Allen pitching below his normal level.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that a reliever couldn’t get used to pitching every five days, but even if he did, would he really be worth a roster spot? In general, a team doesn’t have eight lights out relievers and the Indians this year are no exception. While keeping Trevor Bauer in a relief role may be more of a roster manipulation than bullpen strategy, that doesn’t necessitate keeping others like Ross Detwiler, Dan Otero and Joba Chamberlain in the bullpen as well. This is not to say these pitchers won’t have some measure of success this year, but it is to question whether one of their spots would be useful holding another outfielder.

The chart above shows the reason why the Indians should be concerned about getting their relievers enough innings to stay sharp. All five pitchers scheduled to start this year averaged more than six innings per start last year and Kluber neared seven. This is not their maximum output, but their average for the entire year and chances are Salazar, Carrasco and Anderson will be better this time around. If that is the case, there will only be about three innings per game available to relievers and 18 in a typical week. If no reliever was ever used in consecutive games or for more than one inning at a time, it would seem that they could easily survive with a six man bullpen. Assuming Detwiler is expected to pitch to just one or two batters at a time, seven makes sense.

Bauer throws a wrench into that math, though. He averaged almost six innings per start last year and could likely throw a similar amount every four or five days out of the bullpen. One of the benefits of having Bauer in the bullpen is that he would be able to take over early in a game, should one of the starters get knocked out in the fourth or earlier. Normally, this would be a situation that could destroy a bullpen for two or three days, but since Bauer should be able to finish the majority of the game, the rare case of a short start won’t be that disastrous.

To say that short starts should be rare for the Indians this year is an understatement. In 117 starts made by this years rotation in 2015, only 12 were four or fewer innings while 52 lasted at least seven. In addition, the chance of consecutive early exits is extremely low given that only Carrasco had more than two during the entire 2015 season.

This may seem a small aspect of the team to be nitpicking this early in the season, but unless changes are made soon, Francona will either be in the situation where he has to use relievers he’s uncomfortable with just to get them regular work or risk using them less often than once every five games and live with the chance that they won’t be ready when called upon. The Indians rotation gives them an opportunity to go with a short bullpen and use the extra bench spot for more offense, but instead Francona and Mike Chernoff have opted for the challenge of figuring out how to use five starters and eight relievers to maximize their value to the team.