The Phillies and Blue Jays played to a 9-9 tie yesterday, and will spend the remainder of the pre-season working on extra point conversions. But, the real news was the final roster changes, the subject of much discussion here at the Box.
The last remaining decisions concerned the makeup of the bullpen. Curiously enough, Jay bullpen usage and effectiveness is going to be looked at more closely in the Box this year. My focus will be on bullpen usage through my biweekly Game Reports, and Thomas Ayers will be taking a closer look at the effectiveness of the bullpen once the season gets underway.
I will be doing Game Reports every other Friday this year. My plan is to use this as an opportunity to gather information about bullpen usage in a 7 man pen, both objective and subjective. Each Game Report will include a summary of the use of each member of the pen over the previous 2 weeks in a chart.
I will record for each game, the inning that the pitcher entered the game, the number of batters faced, and the opposition's Gross Production Average or GPA (1.8 X OBP + slugging percentage divided by 4). For those of you who are not familiar with GPA, it is a simple measure of offence, and the scale is similar to that for batting average: less than .200 is very poor,.200-.240 is below average;.240-.280 is average; .280-.320 is good; above .320 is excellent. Obviously, for pitchers, you want to see lower numbers.
The chart for the next Game Report will look like this before the season:
April 4-April 14
(entrance inning/batters faced/opp. GPA)
date Batista Speier Frasor League Schoen Chulk Walker Ap 4 Ap 5 Ap 6 Ap 7 Ap 8 Ap 9 Ap 10 Ap 11 Ap 12 Ap 13 Ap 14
Let's suppose the relief pattern for the Tampa series April 4-6 goes like this. In the first game, Halladay goes 6 innings (shutout, of course). Frasor mows them down in order in the 7th. Speier gives up a single and nothing more in the 8th. Batista gives up a solo homer and nothing more in the ninth. On April 5, Towers starts and leaves with one out in the sixth. Brandon League finishes the sixth and throws the seventh, walking two while allowing no hits. Schoeneweis faces the first 2 batters of the eighth and retires them, and Speier faces and retires the last batter of the eighth. The Jays blow the game open in the ninth, and Chulk comes on and gives up a walk, and two doubles in the bottom half. On April 6, Chacin starts and is pulled with 2 outs in the 5th. Pete Walker pitches the remainder of the game, giving up 5 hits, including a homer, and 2 walks, and gets the win!
At the end of the 3 game series, our chart will look like this:
April 4-April 14
(entrance inning/batters faced/opp. GPA)
date Batista Speier Frasor League Schoen Chulk Walker
Ap 4 9.0/4/ 8.0/4/ 7.0/3/
.362 .175 .000
Ap 5 8.2/1/ 6.1/7/ 8.0/2/ 9.0/6/
.000 .129 .000 .425
Ap 6 5.2/20/
.269
Ap 7
Ap 8
Ap 9
Ap 10
Ap 11
Ap 12
Ap 13
Ap 14
We will ignore intentional walks in the GPA calculation.
That will cover the objective measures. For the subjective, I NEED YOU. Yes, you. I will set up with each Game Report a new thread for comments about bullpen usage and performance. I do not watch or even listen to every game (SHAME!), and there is much that doesn't show up in a boxscore or game log:
-did a reliever warm up on several days without coming into a game, or in several innings before coming in?
-what platoon advantages were gained or lost, bearing in mind who was left on the opponent's bench when a particular change was made
-how the reliever looked on the mound, and
-anything else that captures your fancy. The first thread will be up on Monday afternoon for your posting pleasure.
Of course, it won't all be hard slogging in my Game Reports. We'll have a few comments about defence, and an update on the Gleeman/Green bet.
Links of the Day:
Youthful Jays article by Shi Davidi
Jay preview from Syracuse with an interesting Sawkiw tidbit
TBG's Christopher James gives his take on the Jay outfield
Play ball.
