Well, let's backtrack a bit. Last night, Francisco Liriano dueled with Max Scherzer over seven innings in the type of game that bores casual fans but delights hardcores. Both pitchers were at the top of their game; Scherzer mowed down the Twins hitters for nine impressive frames but hiccuped in the sixth inning and yielded a single run, while Liriano executed big pitches and performed well enough to exit after the seventh with a 1-0 lead.
It's a shame that Ron Gardenhire, a man whose bullpen management I typically commend, felt the need to engage in a needless chess match with his relievers that ultimately cost Liriano a win and could have cost the Twins the game.
With Liriano gassed after seven innings, Gardenhire rightfully turned to his best reliever, Jesse Crain, to start the eighth. Crain gave up a lead-off single to Austin Jackson but then got Will Rhymes to pop out on a bunt attempt. With one out and the tying run on first, and lefty-swinging Johnny Damon due up, Gardy decided to flex his managerial muscle and counter the Detroit lefty with one of his own. He turned to Randy Flores. The manager was ostensibly playing the percentages, but Flores has not proven to be a particularly effective weapon against lefties (certainly not more effective than Crain, whose devastating slider baffles hitters from both sides) and Damon doesn't have much of a platoon split.
Gardenhire's move completely fizzled when Jim Leyland subbed lefty-mashing righty Ryan Raburn to face the southpaw. Fortunately, Flores was able to get a strikeout anyway. With MVP candidate Miguel Cabrera stepping in and representing the tying run, Gardenhire elected to turn to Matt Guerrier.
This is where he lost me.
I could understand the reasoning behind Gardy's prior moves in the inning. Tying run on base, you want to get the lefty-lefty match-up, maybe preserve Crain a little bit... sure, you use Flores. But when I saw Gardenhire call upon Guerrier from the bullpen, I shook my head. Guerrier hasn't been effective lately, and he'd worked in three of the team's past five games. Why not let him rest a little? I wondered to myself (and to my tweeps) why the team was unwilling to turn to Matt Capps for a four-out save. They traded one of their best prospects for the guy, you'd think they'd be willing to trust him to come in and get one extra out against the opposing team's best hitter.As I questioned the decision, I decided to put my perception that Guerrier has been struggling to the test. So I looked up his numbers since the All-Star break. His ERA sat at 4.50 -- not too bad. He'd allowed only 15 hits and five walks in 20 innings, which is actually quite good. Then I looked at this strikeouts. He had four. Guerrier has struck out four of the 76 batters he'd faced since the All-Star break.
He came into the game, walked Miguel Cabrera, gave up a game-tying RBI single to Jhonny Peralta and then got Brandon Inge to ground out and end the inning. That pushes Guerrier's post-break total to 79 batters with only four strikeouts.
Guerrier has never been a strikeout artist, but that type of minuscule whiff rate makes Nick Blackburn look good. It's irresponsible to repeatedly trust a guy that's allowing contact that frequently high-leverage late-game situations. Yet, Gardenhire continues to do it, and did it again last night.
That appearance marked Guerrier's 62nd of the season, which ranks him third in the American League. Guerrier is being used more than almost any other reliever in the league, and he's breaking down late in the season. We've seen this exact story before. More than once.
It's one lesson that Gardenhire just refuses to learn. Brian Fuentes' unavailability puts the Twins' manager in a bit of a bind, but there was no reason he really needed to use Guerrier last night and he should be taking any possible opportunity to rest him because at this point the righty reliever isn't fooling anybody and it's hard to believe his taxed arm isn't running on fumes.
25 comments:
I understood Guerrier's poor post-ASG strikeout rate better when I converted it into K/9.
4 K in 20 1/3 IP = 1.77 K/9
Ouch.
Gotta agree on this one. To me the most baffling part of the sequence was removing Crain. The way Jesse has been pitching I think you trust him in that spot, especially given the fact that removing him for the lefty lines up Guerrier on Cabrera.
My theory is that Crain's gold necklace is the secret to his powers. Tigers players successfully lobbied to have him remove it and he was powerless.
Can we get a Crain with and without necklace split here?
What was up with the necklace? Do the Tigers get distracted by little shiny things?
Part of the issue might be that Gardy has so many back-end options in the bullpen that he's overthinking his moves in an effort to conserve arms - i.e. let's use all of these guys to get 1 out rather than 1 guy to get 3. I don't have a huge problem with that, except that if you're going to do that, start the 8th with Guerrier (lower leverage situation) and go from there - don't get to a spot where the tying run is on 2nd and your best reliever (Crain) is on the bench.
But really, you can't be too surprised that Gardy didn't put Capps out there. Gardy almost never uses his "closer" to get more than 3 outs. That's nothing new. It's stupid (though I trust Capps about as much as I do Guerrier), but it's classic Gardy.
You are exactly right Ed, Gardy very very very very rarely uses his closer to get anything more than 3 outs. In tampa bay I was wondering why he didn't bring capps in to try and get us out of the bases loaded jam and I have done that serveral times over the year when we are in a jam with 2 outs in the 8th. Guerrier has struggled this last half of the season, Crain has just taken off and became the best reliever in baseball. I wouldnt trust Guerrier unless we had a 3 run lead as of late. This year I have questioned alot more of Gardy's pitching changes. I remember the Tampa Bay series at home when he won't let Liriano start the 8th and he is just cruising through the lineup and the bullpen blows the game, BUT the very next game he lets blackburn start the 7th who has been struggling the whole game and even leaves him in when we got runners on once again it was a close game. I never understood why he did that, to me he should have pulled Blackburn the same way he did Liriano or if he is gonna play it that way let Liriano go back out and pull Blackburn in his game not the other way around. To me it cost us at least 1 game if not 2!
Last night was not due to recent overwork. Guerrier had three days off before throwing all of seven pitches on Tuesday. He then threw 13 pitches last night. And that was only the fifth time since the All-Star break that he's pitched in back-to-back days. He hasn't pitched three straight days since April. He's on pace for 76 games this year, which is what he's averaged the last three years, and two of those years were excellent. His K rate is a concern because it has gone down the last three years, but the guy is 32 years old. That may be more the issue than his usage.
Couldn't agree more. I was just happy it wasn't a two run jack to Cabrera but figured the run was inevitable. Gardy probably should have given Crain the entire 8th. There really isn't that much preservation only having him face two instead of four guys, he has to warm-up the same.
Guerrier needs a few days off to rest because at some point he will probably be needed in the playoffs. If this continues that is a lost game.
It is difficult to understand why Gardy continues to trust Guerrier when the game's on the line; however, it's actually quite easy to understand why he went to him when he did last night. Miguel Cabrera had previously faced Guerrier 14 times in his career and had attained one single hit against him (.071 BA). Similarly, Johnny Peralta had previously went 4 for 24 lifetime vs. Guerrier (167 BA). This is a case study in playing odds to ones favor...one which, unfortunately, backfired last night...
He's on pace for 76 games this year, which is what he's averaged the last three years, and two of those years were excellent.
Guerrier has led the league in appearances out of the bullpen in each of the past two years. The year before that, he ranked seventh. This year, he ranks third. Guerrier has consistently been one of the most heavily used relievers in all of baseball over the past four years, and -- assuming this current slide continues -- his numbers have taken a dive in the final months of three of those seasons.
This is a case study in playing odds to ones favor...one which, unfortunately, backfired last night...
I would argue that it's a case study in over-reliance on small sample sizes. Guerrier's historical success against those two hitters in 40 at-bats was far less predictive of his outcome than his recent performance this season.
Guerrier has always been walking on egg shells and for the most part his era has outperformed his peripherals significantly. Even when hes not "over worked" his k rate is below average, combined with a below average groundball rate, guerrier is a guy that should be a mid 4 era guy as opposed to a 3 era guy.
I have always despised the way that gardy manages the bullpen. Last night epitomized a lot of what i dislike. Gardy puts way too much faith in lefty-lefty righty-righty matchups. He's often opted for handedness over pitcher ability and when things dont go as planed the twins end up with inferior reliever unnecessarily pitching in big spots. This is where i think the addition of flores is going to hurt the twins. He's a bad reliever but gardy will be willing to use him as a late inning loogy at the expense of a guy like crain even if the advantaged gained doesnt actually exist.
The other major thing i hate about how gardy operates is his formulaic, cookie cutter use of his closer thats designed with the goal of accumulating saves rather than winning games. If you're going to burn up crain so flores can pitch to one tough righty you have to use capps to finish the inning. That would have been the highest leverage and most important out of the game. But gardys thought process dictates that capps not pitch because hes the closer and the closer picks up saves, and typically only pitches the 9th. But what makes me mad is that once the save opportunity is gone, gardy gets his closer in as soon as possible, no doubt not wanting to leave his best reliever on the bench and have the game end. Last night that meant capps had to pitch the 9th with the bases empty and the 7-8-9 guys coming up. Guerrier ended up pitching to 4-5-6 ( cabrerra and peralta), capps got 7-8-9 and a different inferior reliever in rauch had to face the 1-2-3 batters. Gardy doesnt match pitcher ability with leverage at all. He always goes with this simplistic hierarchical system where pitchers pitch based on inning and while this system is fine most of the time its motivation is stupid. Last night gardy used up his actual best reliever to face 2 batters, pulled him for a loogy to pitch to a guy that isnt particularly susceptible to lhp, that player was predictably subbed for a guy that mashes lhp, then he brought in the twins 4th best rhp to protect a 1 run lead against the tigers best hitters and a runner on second, then he brought in his second best pitcher to get the easiest 3 outs in the tigers lineup before finally bringing in a very average pitcher to pitch to the top of the tigers order in a tie game. It would have been difficult for gardy to do much worse than he did last night and whether his methods work or not this is the type of flawed decision making process he uses too frequently.
You guys are right, again. It's a shame Gardy's ridiculous bullpen management cost the Twins another win last night.
What's even worse is that despite having the league's best closer all year--Joe Nathan--Gardy has 'overmanaged' the Twins' bullpen to a cumulative 3.24 ERA and 1.24 WHIP, with the AL's lowest inherited runners scored percentage.
Turrible. Jus' turrible.
Hey, I'm with you Chief. Gardy takes way too much flack and generally does a fine job, especially when it comes to bullpen management. I don't see how even his most adamant defender could call last night anything other than a total blunder, though.
Chief,
So because the Twins won in the 10th, Gardy's moves in the 8th that sent the game to the 10th were brilliant? That makes absolutely no sense. Thank goodness you have that hilarious sarcastic delivery going for you, otherwise you'd come off like a moronic tool.
Every manager (if they're human, and not armchair managers, that is) makes mistakes; lineups, bench use, and of course, bullpen.
However, the Twins have had a serious lack of fireball strikeout guys over the last several years, yet always end up with a competitively low bullpen ERA by the time the season is over.
Oh yeah, ERA is a "terribly over-rated" statistic.
My bad, Gardy sucks.
Using results like era to classify the methodology of gardys bullpen management as either good or bad is stupid. If you work through the logic of gardys bullpen management they are very simplistic and typically dont optimize the relievers and in turn dont maximize the twins chances to win games.
Nick, you're so much smarter than Gardy. All managers should have to begin as bloggers so they can really figure things out like you have. Those 30 plus years he's spent in professional baseball couldn't possibly compare to yours. "Irresponsible"? Seriously Nick, get over yourself and your "preception" that your such an authority.
I think it could be argued that Gardy didn't make the worst managerial decision last night. Why did Detroit even pitch to Valencia with 1st base open and 1 out after cuddy stole 2nd? Why wouldn't they go after a slow catcher in morales who has 6 at bats this season and is easily double play prone?
Using results like era to classify the methodology of gardys bullpen management as either good or bad is stupid. If you work through the logic of gardys bullpen management they are very simplistic and typically dont optimize the relievers and in turn dont maximize the twins chances to win games.
So...
Are you saying that no matter the ERA, the Twins could have won more games in the Gardy era had he "optimized" his pitchers more? Even with a higher ERA? Or, are you implying that the ERA from the 'pen could be even lower were Gardy a better 'pen manager? Not quite understanding your logic there, Anon, please clarify.
While I agree that individual relief pitcher ERA has a limited value (due to inherited runners and whatnot), the ERA as a whole bullpen is more significant since starters usually finish innings out and a reliever trots out to a fresh 0 out 0 on base situation.
Maybe the Twins should read your Blog Nick. That way, maybe they wouldn't bring in Guerrier game after game to ruin it for us
How fitting of a post for tonights game....shows just how good our managing of the pitching staff goes. This one pitcher to get one out thing is getting ridiculous not to mention then they let Guerrier come in and try and get the last out and always ends up pitching to 5 batters and blows the lead!!! This is why we will never do anything in the playoffs because we can't manage the pitching staff, during the regular season we can get wins and everything but against the good teams we don't have room for error. UNBELIEVABLE!!!
We can't keep relying on our offense to bail us out after Guerrier costs us the lead. It won't happen come playoff time, IF we make it!
"Are you saying that no matter the ERA, the Twins could have won more games in the Gardy era had he "optimized" his pitchers more? Even with a higher ERA?"
What im saying is that a bullpen era is going to be much much much more dependent on pitcher skill and team play than it is management of the bullpen. If you have a bunch of stud relievers, even if they are mismanaged are going to have better results than a group of perfectly managed bad relievers. It's pointless to try to use era as a comparison of coaching ability. I put almost no stock in era because i think its bad stat, but if it were a good stat it would be a horrible way to determine bullpen management. Instead of trying to find a number thats indicative of bullpen management just look at the reasoning behind his moves. I think gardy does a bad job because i think the way he handles closers and loogys is poor.
Seriously Nick, get over yourself and your "preception" that your such an authority.
I don't know what a preception is but I don't think I've ever presented the stuff I write on this blog as anything other than my opinions. My opinion is that Gardenhire mismanaged his bullpen in that game and it happened again in the series finale.
Everyone knows a preception is when someone makes a ception before an event.
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