Rethinking the Market

I think Billy was reacting particularly to the A's Big Three days, esp. the post-Foulke era, when our starters were strong but our pen was blowing it.

I also know there is a study or two that correlates playoff success with closer strength, e.g. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2... though http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/ar... doesn't think bullpen strength is important.

The first reference argues that outfield defense, closer performance, and pitcher K rate determine playoff success, and Billy did address the first two in the a last couple of years.

I wrote this diary in which I wondered whether Beane was planning to go with a 4-man rotation.

I was, of course, totally wrong, but I think some of the factors I discussed there are still in play:  starters are incredibly expensive; getting 40 starts instead of 35 out of someone like Haren (or, knock on wood, Harden) means more wins; and since the 5th-starter pretty much takes the whole postseason off, a limited-budget team is handicapping themselves in the playoffs by investing money in a guy who isn't even supposed to play at all.

What you're describing, Blez, is a less drastic version of that -- use of 5-man, but don't invest much in #5 (or maybe even #4) and invest in a deep bullpen (which is crucial in the postseason) to carry you through the regular season.

It's all well and good to objectively say that we have a strong bullpen and that we don't really need that strong of a rotation because of it...

But having a strong bullpen does not excuse the GM from doing all he can (within reason, and not at the expense of the team's strengths) to continually work to address the weaknesses.

At this point, it's no secret that the most glaring weakness is the back of the rotation. Beane needs to address this, either by accepting that, "Hey, we're not expecting much from the back-end, so I'm going to throw Windsor back there to get some seasoning," or by packaging a reliever and/or relief prospect to acquire a decent back end guy.

All the great relievers in the world are not going to be able to help us if Blanton and Kennedy continue to get pounded.

Good points, Blez. The A's will win more than their share of the games they are tied after 5 innings. Put Duke and Gaudin in the rotation and that's no longer the case. So let's hope the back 3 starters can keep us at least even for at least 5 innings...

That is all.

of this theory will be how Baltimore fares this year.  They built up their pen big time and didn't spend on starting pitching, so it looks like they're following Billy  in their thinking.  I personally think it can help them be competitive, but we'll have to see if it is enough to make much of a difference.

I'd agree that MLB-quality relief strength is too mainstream to be undervalued, directly. Tell Speier, Baez, Bradford, or Walker's agents that middle relievers are undervalued.
But I still think Blez is absolutely right - relief strength is indirectly undervalued, as teams continually choose to leave middle relievers with MLB potential unprotected (off their 40-mans.

-The Jays decided that a promising middle reliever (Gaudin) wasn't worthy of a 40-man roster spot, but that several overpriced FAs were (and so were a few prospects at other, more valued  positions). Other teams are making these mistakes, too.
-Jay Marshall will be a major league-quality reliever. He may not post an ERA better than 4. He may only face one lefty a game and then exit. His presence may force the A's to carry 12 pitchers. But he will be a major leaguer.
In Billy We Trust.
(There is no easier Rule V pick to keep on your roster for an entire year than a LOOGY - you don't stunt their development the way you would by mothballing a hitter, and you can pitch them exclusively in ideal situations where they can succeed (L vs. L)). Look at the success the Phillies had with Fabio Castro in '06.
-Spots 26-40 of a 40-man roster are filled primarily with pitchers - the most injury-prone position in baseball, and the one most in need of depth. Many of those pitchers at the end of the 40-man are potential middle relievers (your Dunns, DiNardo's and David Shafers - here's where your scouts come in to play and help you to find players that other teams think are crappy but may in fact be mediocre. It isn't sexy, but every little bit helps.

I would say that the other undervalued commodity is finding pitchers in other organizations who are being mis-used, or underused, and therefore they have a deflated market value. I'm almost certain that Beane targets these players.

Intentionally unrelated examples, all with the same theme stated above:
-Dan Haren was undervalued when he was acquired in part because he had been in the 'pen with the Cardinals. Would we have been able to acquire him in the Mulder deal if he had just posted a 200 inning, 4.00 era season? Hell no. But Walt Jocketty overvalued "proven experience", which Mulder had a lot of. Too much, evidently.
-Kennedy was lit up as a starter before arriving here, we found some previously unforeseen tremendous value in him as a reliever, and now we are trying to artifically re-inflate his value again (as a potential trade chip in his walk year?) by pushing him back to starter.
-Ziegler is undervalued because some teams don't appreciate the importance of giving teams a unique, submarine look. This guy could be Chad Bradford Lite someday, and we got him for pennies.
(I know that Ziegler/Shafer/Dunn/DiNardo - none of these guys, if we were to look at Vegas odds, are likely to stick in the show, and a few of you have told me to stop writing about Mr. Irrelevants. But if even ONE of them does...think of how valuable six years of cost control over a MLB-average reliever is. Again, it's worth several million per year on the open market, which is not something to shrug at when you have Oakland's budget).

Manipulating the usage of pitchers, and finding misused/underused pitchers in other organizations, is certainly a way to "rethink the market". And it's a strategy/philosophy that can only be applied to pitching; you can't really do this with hitters. Either a guy can hit or he can't. You can't manipulate/hide/accentuate a hitter's skill or success in quite as many ways as you can a pitcher's. Good hitters are good hitters. It's not very hard to notice if you have access to thebaseballcube.com and halfway decent scouts. (Note: It's very possible that the Pirates organization lacks both of these).

We seem to be taking it as a given that Kennedy will have success again this season if he is put back in the bullpen. But is there any evidence from this spring to back that up? He isn't having the problem of getting slammed on the second time through the lineup. He gets slammed on the first time through as well!

So I'm curious about why people think he'll be able to pitch as well in relief as he did last year. If you believe the results from spring training, then he's going to suck no matter what inning he pitches in. If you think that spring performance doesn't really predict much, then he might be just as good in the rotation as he was in relief (yeah, I know that he has poor performance as a starter throughout his career). I guess that I'm just trying to figure out what it is about Joe in particular that makes him much better as a reliever than as a starter.