Jays lack bullpen versatility postseason demands

As a bullpen arm, you might only work an inning every couple of nights. But if that inning goes poorly, you’re sunk. Small sample sizes, high pressure and numbers that stick aren’t the best recipe for a long career or a good reputation.

The Blue Jays bullpen earned the tag of team weak link early in the season, blowing leads and handing away wins like parade candy. In fact, if it weren’t for the awful relief work early, the Jays would be way ahead of the American League East pack.

In all fairness, Toronto’s offence also started the year poorly. Remember that when the Jays acquired pitchers during the off-season, both for the rotation and the pen, the expectation was they had to be good, not great, in order for the club to win. The Jays produced 5.52 runs per game last season, nearly a full run more than the next closest club in all of baseball. With that much firepower, the thought was Toronto’s pitchers just needed to get the ball over the plate for the team to be successful.

But when the 2016 season started the Jays offence was stuck in neutral. Toronto bats stayed cold through most of April and into the beginning of May. Those early games were kept close thanks to the excellent efforts of the rotation. J.A Happ was and has been nothing short of phenomenal this season. Marco Estrada picked up right where he left off at the end of 2015. Aaron Sanchez emerged as a star starting pitcher. While the starters did their job, they were handing off tight margins to a bullpen group who — outside of Roberto Osuna — quite simply weren’t prepared.

It’s odd how many baseball consumers will allow a starting pitcher a number of turns on the mound to find himself. R.A. Dickey gets a whole month. Some hitters can have entire seasons. But bullpen arms get two, maybe three outings before demands for their trade, demotion or release rise to the top of every internet comment thread. The expectations were high, the sample sizes were small, and the results were poor. Thus it was decreed early in the season that the Toronto bullpen was garbage. If drastic changes weren’t made, 2016 would be wasted, another victim of bullpen incompetence.

Yet, as is often the case after nearly a full season of play, many of those lost causes have found their footing. So too has one of baseball’s most potent offences. The question now is does the bullpen have what it takes to survive in the postseason?

April is a horrible month to take the pulse of a season. There is so much time for fortunes to rise and fall, especially in markets like bullpen usage. Consider Brett Cecil who, for the last two seasons, has seen both catastrophic failure and record-breaking excellence. Cecil had an ERA of close to 6.00 last May, followed by 37 consecutive appearances without giving up a run to end the year.

This season Cecil broke the record for most losses by a pitcher in one month in May. His last his seven outings before Sunday’s eighth-inning meltdown in Cleveland had yielded a 1.42 earned-run average and an opponents’ batting average of .050.

Before you think this is some crazy Cecil-only stat, it’s not. Many bullpen pitchers experience this type of streaky behaviour, which makes them so difficult to analyze.

The success of the Jays postseason pen will largely come down to the usual suspects - Osuna, Joe Biagini, Jason Grilli, Joaquin Benoit, and Cecil - getting unusually abused. Grilli has been strong since joining the Jays in late May, with a WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) of 0.80 and 40 strikeouts in 28 innings. Biagini has been fantastic, with a 1.97 ERA and even better 2.25 FIP (an analytics stat that measures how well a pitcher is pitching outside of the defence behind him). Osuna has cemented himself as one of the best closers in baseball with 2.89 FIP, .890 WHIP, 28 saves, and 67 strikeouts in 55 innings.

All in all, this pen has players who can compete, but it’s not deep and there are serious questions about whether the arms available can be effective on short rest.

Consider the career and 2016 WHIP of the pitchers I just mentioned on short rest (zero days) or, back-to-back usage:

Now for a little signal in the noise. Biagini has just one year in the bigs, so his numbers don’t tell us much. Osuna is getting stronger on short rest, meaning he’s embracing the role of fireman closer. Youth is on his side and Osuna is comfortable and ready for the demands of the role. Grilli is having a strong year on short rest.

However, before we declare victory here, both Benoit and Cecil are serious concerns.

Benoit has trended sharply downward on short rest usage over the last few seasons. He’s not the high-leverage arm he once was, and he can’t be relied upon to pitch well on back-to-back nights. He must be rested between outings to have maximum effectiveness. In fact, when I was with the Rays and Benoit was traded, it was often said that he would have to be used like fine glassware as his arm was temperamental from night to night.

Oh, and, in case you were wondering, when I say maximum effectiveness, I mean any effectiveness. Benoit’s 2.43 WHIP this season is essentially batting practice.

Cecil, who is Toronto’s main arm out of the pen against left-handed batters, is really struggling on short rest. This may be because of the limitations of injury, or the limitations of confidence, but, if you’re management, this is the weak link. Matchups are crucial in the postseason, and lefties who specialize in getting an out or two get worked like horses, considered live and available every night.

As it stands, the Blue Jays pen can hold its own when the team is putting up runs and pass the baton off to Osuna. Outside of that, its matchup ability is limited and its effectiveness on short rest is subpar.

For the record, most bullpens have main guns and a collection of supporting characters who pass the baton off to them. But where the Jays will get beat is in the matchup management in tight games. Scott Feldman has been bad since his arrival with the team and Ryan Tepera, while effective in his small role and the owner of interesting reverse splits, isn’t expected to hold down a lineup for more than one run through in a low-leverage scenario.

The Jays simply do not have enough specialized, resilient bullpen arms to grind out a postseason slugging match - and that’s going to happen. Indeed, in the postseason, team’s starters pitch tight games and managers take few risks before opting to go to the pen for a fresh look. In the Jays case, the best arms are in the rotation or at the end of the pen. John Gibbons will have a hell of a time deciding whether to take out Happ or Estrada if they’re cruising in a tight game. Who, exactly, does he have that’s better? Should he use them now or save them until the next night? 

One thing that may work in the Jays favour is the inevitable demotion of two or three starters to the pen. As it stands, Toronto’s bullpen doesn’t have a lot of tricks or surprises. However, the addition of Francisco Liriano as a left-handed specialist or long man, and potentially Marcus Stroman as a setup/long man, could change the equation drastically. Now you have a set rotation of Happ, Estrada, and Sanchez, with a swingman in Stroman and a power lefty in Liriano. Adding those two gives the Jays a very competitive, versatile pen. Add in Happ on short rest and it’s even stronger.

But at what cost? The virtue of a good rotation is it gives the bullpen rest. In the postseason, however, it can be the opposite. The virtue of a deep, capable pen is it can give the rotation a lighter load to carry. If the Jays need their starters to go deep, you can’t count on them to be available for short-rest relief stints. If the team makes the postseason this Jays bullpen will have its work cut out for it.