FanPost

So you want to buy a better bullpen?

Leon Halip

Dombrowski has said it. You have said it. I have said it. Your neighbor has said it. Kurt's dog Donner has probably said it. The Tigers need to improve their bullpen. The biggest sore spot for Tigers fans this year was the hair-pulling level of disappointment found in the Tigers bullpen. Even when it seemed Dombrowski made the right moves, they didn't work. Thus, the Tigers and their fans were subjugated to the cold hard reality that is relief pitching. The only reliable thing about relief pitchers is that they will always be unreliable. And it's why the Tigers need to be careful about who they bring in, and Tigers fans need to temper their expectations.

Given the Tigers lack of internal depth in relief pitching, it’s inevitable they will look to sign a free agent or two for the bullpen. Last year the Tigers brought in two free agents over the winter to help; Joe Nathan and Joba Chamberlain. Nathan was arguably the best closer on the market and he received a two-year, $20 million dollar deal accordingly. Chamberlain was coming off a tough 2013 with the Yankees, so the Tigers signed him to a cost effective $2.5 million deal. Obviously, the Tigers deal with Chamberlain proved to be the better contract signed to this point. I started to wonder, and I'm sure other Tigers fans wondered, "what if we had signed someone else"?

So I went back and looked at all the relievers who became free agents last year and compared their 2013 season to their 2014 season and rated their performance with respect to their contract signed. I chose to limit this to only pitchers who signed a major league deal over the winter. There were a bunch that signed a minor league deal (like Pat Neshek, who ended up having a GREAT season in St Louis), and some that signed major league deals part way through the season (like Joel Hanrahan), but to include that many players who never sniffed the majors would have made the list incredibly long and skewed the results. I looked at several stats, including: Innings Pitched (IP), Strikeouts per 9 innings (K/9), walks per 9 innings (BB/9), ERA, FIP, and WAR. I then looked at how the performance stacked up from this year to last year, as well as the length and amount of money earned, and rated the deal as either "good" (green cells) or "bad" (red cells). I admit this is purely subjective based on my interpretation of the results. There were several borderline cases, but for those I asked myself "if I were a fan of this team, would I consider the deal good or bad?" So, without further ado, the results:

First, here are the closers. These were relievers signed to be the closer for their team heading into the season.

 photo 2014FAClosers.png

The results: three good, four bad.

Next, right handed relievers (non-closers)

 photo 2014FARHR.png

The results: seven good, eight bad

Finally, left handed relievers

 photo 2014FALHR.png

The results: five good, four bad.

Overall: 15 good, 16 bad

Average annual value of good contracts: $3.55M

Average annual value of bad contracts: $4.32M

It’s a virtual coin flip in terms of good and bad contracts. It could not have been split closer. There is also no pattern to who turned out good or bad. There were big contract winners like Joe Smith, but there were big contract losers like Boone Logan and Javier Lopez. To sum it up, it was a crapshoot. You were just as likely to have a deal work out in your team’s favor as you were to have it blow up in your face. Unfortunately, this will likely not deter big name relievers from getting big multi-year deals. With big names like Andrew Miller and Luke Gregerson heading into free agency this year, teams will likely have to commit to two- or three-year deals with them, and more than a few will likely get burned. Dombrowski needs to choose very carefully, and Tigers fans need to be prepared for some level of disappointment, because the numbers don't lie.

Relief pitchers are reliably unreliable.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the <em>Bless You Boys</em> writing staff.