From Jeremy Greenhouse:
It’s the manager’s job to get the most out of his players. With regards to the bullpen, this means optimally inserting relievers depending on such factors as the current baserunners, batter, and score. Hence, relief contributions tend to be measured by Win Probability Added. Having a bullpen ace makes the managers job easier in that he doesn’t even have to think about whom to give his highest-leveraged innings. LOOGYs are always nice too. FanGraphs has a statistic that compares a player’s WPA in high-leverage situations vs. his WPA in low-leverage situations, to see how relatively Clutch that player is. Looking at the bullpen as a collective unit, we can more or less make the assumption that a Clutch bullpen has been managed well, which is to say that better relievers are pitching in well-deserved, higher-leveraged innings.
Click through to read the rest of the article, where you will find that the “clutchiest” bullpen in baseball this season has been that of the Yankees. As I have said on many occasions, while we may quibble with some of the individual moves made by Joe Girardi, he has done a very good job keeping the big picture in mind when making his bullpen moves. This has allowed him to leave important spots for his best pitchers without overworking any of them.
(Just as a point of comparison, Joe Torre’s Dodgers grade out as one of the worst clubs in this regard, despite having a large number of very good relievers.)
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
4 Responses to Girardi Best At Bullpen Management?
Leave a Reply
TIQ IQ
It is nice when data confirm our impressions. I am not surprised by this because I have admired how Girardi has avoided overworking his key bullpen guys,expanding the roles of Aceves and Robertson in particular. The closest he has come to overuse might be Phil Coke. By contrast, it drove me nuts when Torre went back again and again to his few “trust” guys until he blew out their arms, most notoriously Scott Proctor.
[...] don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of things Joe Girardi does well, I just don’t see any of them in this brief blurb. What do you think? Should Girardi be given [...]
No matter what you say about the man you can not take away the fact Girardi is a people person and a players manager and was even with the Marlins and you can see a real belief in him with the players, they just want to win for the man because he treats them like men and he manages to find a way to have everyone on the team feel important to that team. He involves everyone off the bench both in a bench player way and getting them starting at bats as well and he puts all his pitchers in big game situations and if you can’t handle that you don’t need to be in his pen and he will find someone who does.
[...] don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of things Joe Girardi does well, I just don’t see any of them in this simple blurb. What do you think? Should Girardi be [...]