.
With the Mariners desperately trying to hold onto a 9-run lead Tuesday, like a cat hanging onto a screen door by its claws, they turned to Brandon Maurer. Maurer struck out 3 Rangers in the inning, and ... there should be a different term for it, when a pitcher sprays flaming napalm like that. Sending three batters staggering back to the dugout as burning zombies.
Wow, said Mike Blowers. In a 10-1 game, you sure don't expect to see a guy like THIS come into the game.
You get it? It's like the old NCAA football overmatches, when the Crimson Tide would send on their second string and then that squad would bury the Huskies' starters. How do you describe the sinking feeling? Realizing that you, as a starter, couldn't make the other team's bench? The moment comes when a man realizes his limitations...
.
But We Thought the Wil Myers Trade was 20th-Century Thinking?
Two weeks ago, Dave Fleming, at Bill James Online, wrote an article "Are the Royals Smarter than Everyone Else?" He can't fathom the idea that the Royals are truly competing with the Tigers -- that's not a swipe at Fleming -- so he breaks it down.
First he figures it's luck. He kind of rules that out, sort of. He taps his chin, and taps his chin, and finally it occurs to him, "Hey, the Royals have a nuclear bullpen." This is not a sabermetrically PC theorem, because it sort of implies "chemistry," but .... let's move on.
Then, as if blinking and waking up from a hallucination, he realizes that all of the AL surprise teams are doing it with bullpens:
...
|
Rank
|
Team
|
Bullpen ERA
|
|
1
|
Mariners
|
2.35
|
|
2
|
A's
|
2.83
|
|
3
|
Indians
|
2.91
|
|
4
|
Royals
|
3.19
|
|
5
|
Orioles
|
3.29
|
.
Chemistry = Change of the Composition of Matter through Interaction
Later, Dave goes on to ponder the idea of team chemistry. He doesn't like the idea, but neither does he sneer at it. Some discussion takes place as to what causes a team's players to LIKE one another.
Full stop. Did you see the false equation there? Sports Chemistry = Teammates Liking Each Other?
No, no, no. And it occurred to Dr. D that this idea had been latent in every saber "chemistry" discussion he'd seen. No wonder the non-athletes are skeptical! Usually teammates ARE caused to "like each other" by the root cause of success. First you win, then you are friends. That's largely true.
So, Dr. D's empathy rose. :: tut, tut ::
...
Sports psychology is about expecting the positive -- on a subconscious level.
Being "in the zone" is about 1) doing well, and 2) trending slightly better, ever better ... and 3) getting feedback for it (the swish of the net, the golf ball landing on the green), and 4) focusing on positive technical keys, and 5) anticipating problems, and their solutions, ever-more quickly.
Chemistry is about 1) helping your teammate succeed, about 2) compensating for his weaknesses, and 3) helping him get into his favorite situations.
...
There comes that magical instant, in basketball, when --- > you step over to rotate defensively because you realize your teammate will quickly step in to cover the baseline. Basketball players do not need to like one another in order to achieve this on-field "zone." Usually they don't like each other, as a prerequisite for playing "Duke basketball." Duke players themselves, Bobby Knight IU players, aren't usually best buds.
But it does help, some. There's some correlation, and so people mistake "chemistry" for "being friends."
.
MLB(tm) "Change in the Composition of Matter through Interaction"?
In baseball, there isn't as much chance to help your teammate, comparatively speaking. There isn't as much chance to help him expect to win that day.
There are only a few "elective" situations in baseball:
Lloyd McClendon is subbing in relief pitchers, probably more aggressively than we have ever seen in Seattle. And that means what? It means that Roenis Elias, and Chris Young, can walk the high wire differently. They're working with a net.
It means that the lineup can hit differently, playing for an early (small) lead, exactly as they did in the 10-1 Ranger win. The pitchers are helping the hitters believe that 3 runs win. That's the definition of chemistry.
...
That bullpens create chemistry --- > might be novel to us, as sabes. But we'll climb over the last mountain peak, arrive at this Light Bulb, and find 100 years of historical GM's sitting in the mountain cave smiling at us.
Most GM's believe that a great bullpen is the "secret ingredient" to a "surprise" team. Pat Gillick, and Bill Bavasi, were notorious for their bullpen emphasis. You know about the 2001 Gillick 'pen ... the team before, in Baltimore, Gillick collected four top-of-their-game closers: Randy Myers, Armando Benitez, Arthur Rhodes, Jesse Orosco.
Bavasi helped build a monstrous bullpen -- Percival, Schoenweis, Shields, eventually K-Rod and Donnelly -- that the Angels parlayed into their world championship.
...
The 2014 Mariners have such a bullpen, and it is entirely to Lloyd McClendon's and Jack Zduriencik's credit. They're going to have a great bullpen NEXT year, too.
We trust, at this point, that the average skeptic can --- > relate to the way a "safety net" bullpen could help a team visualize positive things happening, and the way it could "pick a teammate up," compensate for his bad days.
Never saw an 8-man bullpen, deployed routinely in the 4th inning. I'm blinkin' lovin' it.
Enjoy,
Dr D
I can't remember a team that acknowledges the pen as much as this M's team. Seager was the first guy I saw do it. He would hit a double, turn to the pen and give them a little celebration. Now they all do it. Doubles, triples and HR's - the hitters are celebrating with the pen. And I love it.
Actually, now that you mention it, the last decent M's team in 2009 had that kooky bullpen. It was really only Aardsma, White and Kelley, but they did force the league to issue a ban on onfield gladiator helmets.
... who spent a lot of time out there, of course, and was laughing-and-pointing out there pretty early.
But yeah. I'd forgotten about the way the team had picked up on this bullpen shtick. Great stuff :- )
........
John Buck was picked up a week later by the pesky rodent Angels, where he's cooling his heels in AAA. Waiting for a chance to become The Perfect Backup Catcher.
In hindsight, was the Jesus Sucre move the right one? Well, they are 12-3 in Sucre's starts, I think I heard ... Also, there is an imperative (Rule 5, etc) to move your prospects up when they're ready ...
HATED to see Buck go, but a "questionable" decision that works out awesomely, that is one suggestion that the shot-callers are operating at a high level...
I wonder if the "personality" thing, out of the bullpen, has a little effect of "underlining" their role and amplifying it.
Good catch CS!
Lets just say you get 480 innings out of your pen in a year. That's 3 a game, a reasonable assumption considering extra inning affairs and the like.
480 innings of 2.35 ERA = Felix + Kuma + another extra 50-80 innings.
In essence, that gives us Felix/Kuma squared and then a handful of extra innings. And then we get James Paxton as the cherry on top.
In a 4-game series, opposing teams are looking at 25 innings (or so) of 2.35 ERA in Felix, Kuma and the pen. There are only 36 innings in that series. Let's say that 6 of the remaining 10 are thrown by Paxton. Well that's even more depressing if you're the bad guys. The good news is you might get 5 innings of Elias or Young.
That's the good news. Really. Really.
Elias comes in and it might be the only chance for Orcs and bad guys to "smoke 'em while you got 'em, boys."
Man, that's a potent staff of chuckers.
In any 5 or 7 game series against any team in MLB*, is there a single opponent the M's could face that would cause the bookies to give the M's worse than even money odds? In the first 5 games you get nothing but Felix/Kuma/Paxton? Can you beat those three 60% of the time?
Ya' gotta believe!
moe
Vegas bet against Seattle for Paxton vs. Gray and Felix vs. Lester. Perhaps betters will wise up a little bit for the next set.
I think the holdup here is ... the range of bullpen ERA's is so much smaller than for one SP vs another. A bullpen throws great, well, it seems like all bullpens throw well.
But your ideas, there, put "paid" to the resistance ticket. That 36 innings thingy, where the soft underbelly is your 5 innings against Roenis Elias.... whew.
.......
That is a real good question. If you've really got Felix-WBC-san-Paxton-Bullpen for 33 of 36 innings :- ) then who is the favorite?
.......
And, supposing we apply that to 100 different "just one game" Wild Card iterations...
...since we've seen plenty of that in recent years in Marinerville too. Namely, the bad bullpen that destroys team chemistry. The rest of the team builds hard-won leads over 7 or 8 innings and then watches them randomly evaporate. Sometimes multiple times in a single week! This is the direct inverse of the "chemistry" of a good bullpen...the ingrained expectation that NO amount of effort will ever be enough to reliably get the desired/deserved reward...and that it's not even in your own control at all.
Great point about how chemistry doesn't just mean social chemistry...it means performance chemistry as well. And these are somewhat distinct of each other, yet mutually reinforcing.
Shortening the game to 6 innings with a killer bullpen...not too dissimilar from Richard Sherman eliminating 1/3 of the field laterally, and Earl Thomas eliminating the back half of the field...there's just not much field left. The enemy's tactical options start to exponentially shrink. And the rest of the team gets to narrow its focus to much more achievable tasks.
...and not only does their manager use it aggressively...but Robinson Cano was the first to realize that it was going to be absolutely a catalyst to a WS contending club. In early April, after they lost 6 in a row (on their way to 8) Cano said the Mariners had the best bullpen in the league. Didn't take him long to realize it. Or report it to the press as the reason he expected that the Mariners were going to be very good in 2014.
So interesting & complex, building a team is.