By Jesse Severe
League 3
Continuing my yearlong sales job for bullpen bulls, let me start with a confession: I have a lot of trouble letting go of marginal starting pitchers. Every time I open up one of my rosters, it seems like I see Matt Garza.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with Matt Garza. Some of the publications love him, and he may break out eventually. After all, Tampa’s run support and defense are better this year. The problem comes when you have seven Matt Garzas on your team.
The problem starts on draft day. You remember what you were thinking in the 25th round. The hitters were all Mendoza line material or platooners and only a few starting pitchers sounded intriguing … even that late: Zach Duke, Greg Maddux, Tim Wakefield.
Drafting another starter seemed like the best choice for value, even with six already on the roster. But six weeks into the year, you now start to see that you shouldn’t tie up too many roster spots, or too many of your precious 1550 innings, on four-and-two-thirds inning starts with mediocre Ks, ERA, and WHIP rates.
Sooner or later, you have to make like a fisherman and practice catch-and-release with marginal starters. There’s nothing wrong with taking a chance on one or two, depending on how many really good starters you have, but don’t use rosters spots on four or five. Getting down from ten or eleven borderline pitchers to eight core pitchers (starters and closers) frees up roster spots.
In a Mafia-format league, you can’t afford to hold a surplus of middling, replaceable players at any one position, including starting pitcher. May is a good time to start whittling your staff down and making up for some of those missed starts by your catcher or second baseman on Mondays and Thursdays.
Cutting down can be a problem, because all the starters on your roster probably have a reason for still being there. Either they went on some kind of run (see: Gavin Floyd), show some interesting potential (see: Johnny Cueto), or have some past favorable memories working for them (see: Jeremy Bonderman).
Once you throw a few Garzas overboard, don’t be surprised if tomorrow’s starters look picked over. Resist the temptation to gamble for a while, and pull from some of these guys to heal the damage to your ratios.
I’ve mentioned Casilla, Carlson and Ramirez in past weeks. You no doubt know about Marmol and Joba. So who is continuing to impress with great strikeout rates and acceptable ratios?
I’ve narrowed down the list to relievers with more than 8 IP, a sub-3.50 ERA, sub-1.20 WHIP, 8 or higher K/9 IP, under 4 BB/9 IP, and under 1.2 HR/9 IP.
Matt Thornton would look even better if he hadn’t given up four runs in three days against the Yankees a couple of weeks ago. His K rate has been over eight per nine innings for several years running now, so that stat is for real. Wait for a week when the White Sox are playing in a pitcher’s park, and you might give him a chance.
My beloved Brewers brought in five former closers from the outside last winter (Mota, Torres, Riske, Gagne, McClung) and are so far getting a better performance from a rookie minor-leaguer than any of them. Mitch Stetter is a lefty with a great strikeout rate. He is a little behind some of the other leaders in innings because he wasn’t called up until mid-April, but looks solid (at least his first time through the league). I’m taking a flyer in my NL-only.
Joey Devine once was an Atlanta Braves ‘closer-in-waiting’, but he ended up being shipped to Oakland for Mark Kotsay. His greatest claim to fame in Atlanta will probably be the 18th inning home run he gave up to Chris Burke of the Astros in the playoffs a couple of years back.
This year, he has jumped out to three vulture wins and is one of three Oakland As on this list. The stuff has been there, so don’t look too shocked if he keeps it up. I know the Braves needed outfielders, but given the state of the Atlanta bullpen, do you think they wish they had this one to do over?
Some would say picking up a Colorado pitcher without even getting the likely benefit of a save or a win is tempting fate and an offense against the laws of baseball and atmospheric science, but consider for a minute … Matt Herges.
While the story in the Colorado bullpen this year has been Brian Fuentes taking back his job from Manuel Corpas, Herges has outpitched both of them to date. His road ERA is nearly three runs better than at Coors, partly due to the two homers he has given up there. It might be a while before you’d pick him up if you are looking strictly based on matchups, however, as Colorado isn’t headed to many pitcher’s parks for the next couple of months.