Eddie Bonine mops up games well
by Kurt Mensching on Nov 10, 2010 6:00 AM EST
in Detroit Tigers Analysis
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Every weekday between now and mid-November, we'll be looking closer at a Tigers player. For more information on the series, including a schedule, please check this post out.
Eddie Bonine dipped is toe in the major leagues in 2007, bounced back and forth between Detroit and Toledo a few times in 2008 and finally settled in for a long stay in 2009. Almost a prototypical mop-up pitcher, Bonine just wasn't quite good enough to stick around in a major league rotation. He allows a few too many baserunners. He doesn't strike out many. However, a knuckleballer, he is perfectly capable of going several innings when the starter falters in order to save the bullpen for another day. He even kept his ERA acceptable at 4.63 this year.
He's the kind of player a team can always use but he also falls into a group large enough to keep him from having great career security from year to year. In fact, his wins above replacement is actually -0.1. He is almost the definition of a replacement player. A free agent, he may have pitched his last innings in a Tigers uniform. On the other hand, he could end up signing a minor league deal and earning his way back to Detroit.
I'll give him a C.
| Year | Age | G | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | IBB | SO | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 29 | 47 | 68.0 | 84 | 37 | 35 | 7 | 22 | 2 | 26 | 91 | 1.559 | 2.9 | 3.4 | 1.18 |
Well, you get what you see, or you see what you get there.
Fangraphs.com reports Bonine's changeup gets above-average results. However, his knuckleball and other pitches are all below average. The fastball is worth about -1.66 runs per 100 pitches, so it's nothing too dramatic. A few other interesting notes: Batters don't like to swing at his pitches out of the zone, and his swinging strike rate is only 4.8%.
One thing that helps Bonine is that he is able to get batters to hit the ball on the ground about half the time.
What 2010 tells us about 2011:
Well, it's hard to say really given his arsenal of pitches. But given his past results have resulted in ERAs in the mid-4s, it's probably a safe bet that Bonine could go a season between 4.50 and 5.00 again. Of course he could escalate above 5.00 too. I think 4.50 is best case.
I don't think Bonine has seen his last inning in the MLB in any case. I wouldn't want to see him in the late innings, but I could see him continuing in a swing/mop-up role with some club.
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Dipped is toe?
Has Jhonny stolen another “h”?
Mascot of the "Bring back the Big Tilde in 2k11" Campaign
I hate to be "that guy"
But how does Bonine get the same rating as Ramon Santiago? Are you rating them with consideration to their role (Bonine is an ‘average’ mop up guy)? If so, Santiago should have gotten an ‘A’ for being an excellent reserve middle infielder. If not, just give Bonine an E for being a replacement player.
MotorCityBengals.com
Did you use fangraphs WAR?
I dont really like using fangraphs WAR because it uses FIP… doesn’t really seem fair to strip out defense when looking at actual performance, because that defense actually happened.
by cloud computer on Nov 10, 2010 10:05 AM EST reply actions
whoops
just saw that baseball reference has bonine at -0.1 too… guess he is pretty much the definition of a replacement player
by cloud computer on Nov 10, 2010 10:11 AM EST up reply actions
I like Eddie, and I would not have cut him, but he gets a D from me
Bo9 is fine in a Zach Miner type of role. Every bullpen needs to have a mop up man to come in and give you a few innings when the starter gets shelled and has to be pulled out before the fifth inning. Ideally, the guy can step in and give you a spot start if necessary.
His knuckle ball was coming along and I thought had some promise, but Eddie is not a premier, or even an average reliever, so I can’t give him a C. I’ll give a C to a reliever that is above average among all relievers. To rate him among the mop up men in the league would mean that an average closer could get a C, while Bo9 gets the same grade. Ideally, every pitcher in the bullpen has a WHIP under 1.35 and an ERA under 4.00, but that’s not realistic for most teams in most years. He filled a role and did okay. If the position can be upgraded for $ 4 million or so, go for it.
If you survived 2003, you can get through this!
I gave him a C
For a while in 2010, he was a very reliable pitcher in his mop-up role. He didn’t finish very strong, but overall he was pretty average.
I’m a little conflicted about what to do with this role on the team. We hardly ever used him when the game was close, so I’m almost tempted to say we could put ANYONE in this role and it wouldn’t really hurt the team all that much. Part of me wants to cut ties with the guy and give these innings to someone like Grangier (much cheaper) where the organization can see if somene sticks and maybe performs well at the MLB level. Heck, maybe someone like Furbush could work on things against MLB pitching and see how he does.
However, Eddie has 4 wins. Like many here, I don’t much care for the wins stat, but I took a look at when Bonine got his. Two were in the Brad Thomas starts where Bonine was basically the 2nd tier fill-in to get 6 innings since Thomas only went 2 or 3. One was an Oliver game where Oliver bailed after 1.2 innings. The other was a Dontrelle start where the D-Train actually went 6 innings, but Bonine vultured the W. In the first three situations, without a solid effort from Bonine, we would have probably lost that game. Three wins are pretty important and I’m not really willing to put those wins at chance if our new mop-up guy isn’t getting the job done.
Just rambling I suppose.
Granderson was my Tiger, then Sizemore, then Willis. Since they're all gone, I'm taking Raburn and hoping the pattern holds.
The more often a pitcher comes in when the team is losing or tied, the more chances he has to get a W
Closers rarely get W’s unless they are vulture wins when they blow the lead and the team comes back to win. Same for set up men, who usually only come in with the lead. It’s the guys lower on the depth chart that tend to pick up the wins. They can’t get a loss if they never take the mound with the lead, or tied. Bo9 was often planned to come in when a starter wasn’t projected to go five innings.
But to rate him as a C means that he’s not being graded in the same category with all relievers, only mop up men. C means he’s an average No. 7 bullpen guy. If the best players are going to get the best grades, I think we have to grade them among all players in their position. That would mean among all relievers. There are seven bullpen spots on a team, and Eddie is no way an average reliever, IMO, although he’s fine for the role that they carved out for him. (And may be as good in the rotation as a Bonderman, Figaro, Oliver, etc. )
If you survived 2003, you can get through this!
Right
I was saying that he did a good enough job in those three games (and I’d say the two Thomas starts were planned) to keep our team in the game as we took the lead. I’m not sure that I’d like to leave that role (which was very important in those two or three games) to chance, which is what I had just mentioned by thowing just about anyone in there.
As for grading by role, I’ve been doing this during the process. People could spend all day debating this, and it’s futile anyhow because it’s just an excuse to discuss their performance on the field. Ultimately, everyone has a role to fill and I’ve been grading how well they fill their role. Yes, that means Bonine could get a better grade than Verlander if Bonine is a better mop-up man than JV is as a #1 starter. Perhaps my grades would fit better in a system where we grade each position, but since we don’t have that, I’ve been assigning grades this way and now I have to stick with it because we’re almost done.
Granderson was my Tiger, then Sizemore, then Willis. Since they're all gone, I'm taking Raburn and hoping the pattern holds.
In his role...Bonine gets a B
as a mop up guy he’s what you want. Can eat innings and occasional spot start. NEVER a rotation guy, but for what they’ve asked I think he’s provided…
Country Strong
Had to give him a B because he had to change his pitching style
Bonine had a great first half but I think he got away from his success pitch and he started pitching like he did in 09.
The result was a disaster in the second half of the season. Why did change his pitching style?
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