Bullpen Use Needs Work

I don't mean to pick on Jose Veras all the time. It seems like he's the culprit too often. But I think part of the problem has to do with the manager's use of the bullpen. It's hard to fault Joe Girardi now when the Yankees are doing well, but I think it's better to look at it during these times then when things are going poorly and there's a lot more blame to go around.

I first started thinking about this when River Ave Blues recommended rethinking usage patterns for the bullpen. The one advantage the Yankees have had over other teams is that they've had Mariano Rivera in the 'pen since 1995. Since 1997, he's been their closer meaning that they've just had to find a way to fill the innings before him.

Now there are two strategies to go along with it. The first I'll call "Joe Torre's Scott Proctor Special". It's the manager who takes one hot guy and rides him until his arm falls off. Like literally. Look at what happened to the Yankees bullpen under Torre: every one of those guys got rode until he couldn't pitch anymore (Proctor, Sturtze, Gordon, Quantrill, Karsay, Vizcaino, etc.). But everyone knows their role, their inning, and when they can be counted on to come into the game. This works because you're always going with the hot hand and the guy you can trust. It doesn't work because eventually he's going to run out of gas.

The second strategy is the "Joe Maddon Mix-and-Match" strategy of managing the bullpen. It employs no set role from long relief to middle relief to set up men to closer. It's all based on matchups. Lefty comes up, there will be a LOOGY, righty comes up, the opposite. If a hitter has too much success against one pitcher, you pull him for another he doesn't have so much sucess against. This works because you put people into situations they're comfortable in and you play towards the numbers. This doesn't work because no one feels trusted, too much pitching changes kills a team, and when you need a big out, you have no one to turn to besides your stat book.

I think Joe Girardi finds himself in between those two Joes. Sometimes he'll ride a guy (Bruney, Coke, JA). Sometimes he'll mix and match until you're ill (when he had Marte and Coke as two lefties in the bullpen). Sometimes he likes to define roles. Sometimes he'll just give everyone a different role depending on the game (Phil Coke has closed games, been a long reliever, a short reliever, a lefty specialist, a set-up man and a mop-up guy). This is not necessarily a problem, but it hasn't worked so far (cue those Joba-to-the-'pen-solves-all-your-problems crazies). And I think it makes it hard to really rely on anyone to get the job done because they don't know their role from game-to-game. Some guys like Alfredo Aceves (and Ramiro Mendoza in the past) can thrive on that. But most guys--especially young guys--can't.

The other issue I have with Girardi's bullpen use so far is that he's too conventional with the Great Mariano. Joel Sherman wrote--and I agree with him--that you can't leave your best pitcher in the bullpen. The Yankees lost a World Series game in 2003 because Joe Torre wanted to stick by the book and not use his closer unless he had a lead because it was a road game. I thought Girardi would be different, but the exact same thing happened the other day.

Again, this is being nitpicky beacuse the team has been so good, but with teams like Boston and Tampa coming up, these types of things will become even more important and Girardi's bullpen maintenance and use will be put to the test.