ANGRY MIKE
THINK TANK INITIATIVES
Charles Darwin defined evolution as “descent with modification”.
Mets strategy this off-season must focus on deploying a “strategic evolution” of how their 26-man roster is constructed going forward, and the modification of which players are deemed as being high-value assets is essential to achieving Cohen’s primary goal of building a sustainable winner.
Phase 1 of the “strategic evolution” is the immediate and swift reallocation of misappropriated funds currently allocated to reserve players and low-upside veteran starters.
Phase 2, recalibration of “core franchise philosophies” mandating the identification of high-leverage relievers as the most important component of a team’s pitching staff as being indisputable.
Recent “USA TODAY” article highlighted “relievers accounted for 51.5% of the innings pitched during 2024 postseason, and starters only averaged 4.25 innings per start”.
“In 2023 postseason, it was 48.1% with starters averaging 4.6 innings.”
“In 2022 postseason, it was 45.2% with starters averaging 5 innings.”
Bullpens constructed with multiple weak links are costing teams playoff berths. Overpaying veteran starters is doing more harm than good, and its becoming more evident, its better to spend that money on an extra elite reliever and utilize a young prospect for the back-of-the-rotation spot.
Phil Blackburn: $5 million salary
Frankie Montas: $17 million salary
Ryne Stanek: $5 million salary
Clay Holmes: $17 million salary
These players are, in my opinion, obsolete because, salaries don’t match production, limited upside, and they can be replaced by younger high upside talent that are under team control.
“Tactical redundancy for combat troops refers to the deliberate incorporation of overlapping capabilities, systems, or resources within military units to ensure operational effectiveness despite equipment failure, personnel loss, or enemy disruption.”
Tactical redundancy perfectly encapsulates the mentality MLB franchises need to have when constructing their bullpens for the season. Franchises need to 2 identifiable groups elite relievers capable of being deployed to limit the number of blown saves caused when key relievers are unavailable from pitching on consecutive days.
Majority of blown saves Mets have seen are caused by their “Tier-2” group of relievers, being deployed when Edwin Diaz and others were unavailable. Having a bullpen that limits the number of blown saves in a season offers a far greater impact, compared to having expensive veterans filling reserve roles for position players.
Standard operating procedure is to have your best relievers available when your top starters are on the hill, because they offer the best chance to win. Squandering wins during these games is expensive and hard to compensate for by less-talented starters.
Isn’t it arguably more important to have elite relievers available when back-of-the-rotation starters are pitching against quality opponents? Your best starters can deliver a quality start against any team, that’s why they’re so well paid. However, squandering wins you were expected to lose are potentially equally as devastating, and they limit the margin of error you have when your best starters are pitching.
Wins from your backend starters allow you to account for “variable change” when your best starters are pitching, for example when they struggle or when they pitch well but the offense fails to score runs. That’s why teams need prioritize limiting the number of blown saves, it’s easier for elite relievers to record 3 outs, then it is to score extra runs.
How many wins do expensive bench players really account for in a single season? Teams that roster those extra elite relievers, how many blown saves could be potentially prevented? At least 10 blown saves at the very least!
The timing is perfect for the Mets to invest in the “AVENGERS’ Bullpen Initiative” over the next few seasons, for key reasons that are rarely available to capitalize on and potentially take multiple years to develop:
1. Mets have a plethora of high upside starters graduating very close together, who are all MLB-ready right, allowing them to re-allocate tens of millions from the rotation to the bullpen. Whatever they think they are getting from players like Montas or Griffin Canning can theoretically be duplicated by top prospects like Brandon Sproat or Nolan McLean.
2. Mets have a huge surplus of young impact bats who are also graduating on the same timeline as their young pitching prospects. The best way for them to capitalize on their surplus of young position players, is to fill as many starting positions and reserve roles as possible, and then reallocate all the savings into having elite relievers for every spot in the bullpen.
Starlin Marte: $20+ million
Jesse Winker: $7.5 million
Tyrone Taylor: $3 million
Jose Siri: $2 million
Tens of millions of dollars allocated for reserve players represents is antiquated and unsustainable. It is viciously counter-productive when you take into account these players rarely are the difference between winning and losing. Whereas having a stable full of elite relievers whose role have the greatest impact on whether a team wins or loses, is often the difference between playing in October or watching it from home. One extra elite reliever, like Helsley can prevent 5-10 blown saves by themselves, imagine if you had 2? “AVENGERS’ Bullpen Initiative” will begin to be implemented during the regular season, as it’s often seen deployed for postseason runs.
The “AVENGERS Bullpen Initiative”.
⁃ Prevent the misallocation of payroll, reallocating funds to players who have the greatest potential impact for securing wins and preventing losses.
⁃ Tactical redundancy can be achieved by elite relievers efficiently and offers the greatest potential impact.
⁃ Eliminate scenarios where elite relievers are unavailable when top starters are pitching, preventing massive financial waste.
⁃ Maximizing the number wins ascertained from back-end starters by always having elite relievers available to close games.
Major League Baseball has always been an “arms race”, but only recently are teams discovering the “arms” in question of having the greatest potential impact in this new era, have indisputably become high-leverage relievers.
17 comments:
Rock on, Mike. Good stuff.
*busting his ass
RVH here after a long sabbatical. Welcome Angry Mike! We his analysis is so spot on - many of the conventional frameworks just don’t apply any longer. 5-6 inning “starters” are the new reality - in playoffs & during the season. This plan really does require teams to consistently produce pitching & positional player pipeline so they have options to swap out over the season. These mid year trades for marginal rentals should be available in the farm
Also, since 6-8 of the players will eat up over 50% of the total team salary spend, & some of that cost will be sunk over time as current players age (another 1-3 positions) applying this strategy to the bullpen & the bench does let the Mets get more leverage from their financial strength.
It all comes down to player development & relative health.
Glad to see the Mets are adopting this approach with the trade deadline. Now it’s time to make a few more moves sometime this month (bring up your arms & cut some dead wood) & make the final run for the playoffs.
Thanks for the great article.
Welcome back son
Crazy how much baseball has changed even in the last decade. Bullpens win championships, who would've thunk it? In 2019, the Nats' bullpen was awful, but they just rode their starters to a title.
Now, just six years later, that model simply wouldn't work in today's game. At least the Mets, imo, won the "arms race" for best bullpen in the NL.
Now we get excited about 5 inning starters like Tong
Wonder why Tong gets pulled after five?
Late post: more musings…. I’m thinking the league should expand rosters to 28 (14/14). Go with six starters - the last a swing man; 5-6 quality established relievers with 2-3 rotational multi inning BP arms; need 10 total starters in pipeline.
Add another position player (to develop “bubble” prospects & work them into rotation.
This would help improve the fan experience, quality of the game, health for players & reward teams that can develop talent (& use it).
With the short pitching stints & all the situational matching, this would add pieces to be used & partially mitigate the “one & done” bullpen moves that happen all week, every week.
Thoughts?
Mike your the bomb keep it up! Great stuff but my issue is why hasn't DS very expensive FO figured this out yet? They need you Mike.
RVH, agreed. I’ve made that case in the past. 28 is a fair #.
Great thoughts in this article, and pointing to the relievers as the key component is right on. It will be very difficult to achieve the tactical redundancy you desire because relievers are like meteors. They burn bright for awhile, but quickly wear down and lose effectiveness. Ryne Stanek is a very good example - he was so good with Houston and initially with the Mets, but after over-work he is now in your "overpaid" category even though he is still pumping out high 90's fastballs. I think that the approach has to be cultivating the relievers through the development system rather than canning the bench depth to buy yesterday's stars. Look forward to continuing this debate in future articles.
Thank you very much Tom!
Thank you very much RVH!
They are going to be very conservative with his IP & pitch counts to finish the season. They expect another velocity bump this winter so they are managing his workload.
Thank you very much Gary! If the Mets ever hired me, they’d need to build me a studio apartment for an office. I’d be like a mad scientist and never leave lol.
Thank you Paul! I think you’re right about RP volatility, hence why the norm will continue to be allocating nominal resources hoping to catch lightning in a bottle.
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