Saturday, June 04, 2005 |
Pickoff Moves
Brewers 7, Dodgers 5
Wasn't it just last year I was exulting about Dan Evans' last good trade, Jeff Weaver and Yhency Brazoban for Kevin Brown? This year Weaver's turned back into the Guy Who Couldn't Get The Job Done, Ever. While I was sitting in the stands at Petco, I decided to flip open the Verizon phone and check the game, and sure enough, bases loaded in the first, and then, kaboom, 4-0 Brewers.Little wonder, then, with the team struggling to stay even at .500, Jon comes up with a novel axiom for bullpen management, namely, the Reliever Reciprocity Rule, expressed as
If you would use a reliever in a given moment in a game with a lead of X, you should use him with a deficit of X.I would respond that the formulation of such a rule is largely a function of the middle-of-the-pack circumstances the Dodgers now find themselves in. Consider:
- The Dodgers no longer have a top-tier bullpen. Last year, the Dodgers' bullpen finished second in ERA (3.06); now they're eleventh.
- The Dodgers are a .500 team at present. What that means is the Dodgers have to scratch for every advantage, and to the extent that other options in the bullpen are likely to extend the opponent's lead, this makes some sense.
On the other hand: let's say you did use only your best relievers in win situations. This isn't such a problem if you're a .500 team, but if you start winning, the team could end up with the kind of problem the Yankees had last year: an exhausted top tier of quality relievers obscuring junk below. Ultimately, the way to answer these questions is to run it through a Win Expectancies matrix a few hundred thousand times and figure out how this plays out. I don't find RRR compelling, and I don't find my objections to it especially compelling, either.
Update: More on this from Fire Jim Tracy.
Red Sox 7, Angels 4
Overreliance on Shields, again? I don't know. I didn't see it; another game I watch the critical inning of by way of my cellphone (and what a nifty thing that is, by the way).Padres 6, Cubs 2
A brilliant win for the Pads, and just as messy for the Cubs. Derek Lee did exactly zero, Sergio Mitre served up a meat tray, and the Pads just clicked and clicked behind Adam Eaton. The park was gorgeous, of course, and I'll have a slideshow up later.On The Toughness Of Sportswriters
Ray Ratto, who so far as I can tell is usually fairly levelheaded, today utterly loses his mind and decries Octavio Dotel for having the temerity to shut down his season and have surgery on his arm despite four different opinions telling him otherwise. Mr. Ratto: you are not the one who has to pitch in pain. If Dotel cannot pitch with the pain, he can't make a living with it. Ratto has no idea how much it hurts for Dotel to pitch, but we have a pretty good idea because he opted for surgery anyway after four doctors said it wasn't necessary. Ratto here is simply unsympathetic and juvenile.Bradley To The DL
Shite. Replaced with Jason Repko.
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