Comments on: Pittsburgh Pirates 2012 Season Preview: Bullpen

By: steve-O K

steve-O K — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:22:00 +0000

Good write up. This is a tough call, but i’d go with Hughes. He did well early in the season last year. Moskos can come up just about any time after the season starts as we know how injuries happen with this club. I’d stick with the extra utility player and give days of to multiple positions and keep them fresh as the weather warms. This team is way to stacked, depth wise to conserve the arms of the bullpen so use them when they are needed and call guys up at any time when arms get fatigued.

By: ecbucs

ecbucs — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:56:00 +0000

I don’t really understand this post. Other teams had their versions of Tim Wood and Ascanio too. I’m really hoping the Bucs have a great bullpen but it is all relative to what other teams are doing. Maybe this year the Bucs won’t need to use the Tim Woods as often as the past and everyone else will perform well.

The Bucs need to get overall pitching into top 8 (measured by runs allowed) and offense needs to get into top 10 (as far as runs scored) for the team to be decent. Even those numbers are not likely to produce a serious contender.

By: Edmund

Edmund — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:12:00 +0000

Why is emphasis placed upon ST performance for relief pitchers, but dismissed as relatively meaningless for hitters trying to make the club? Or does that only apply to Matt Hague?

By: Tim Williams

Tim Williams — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:38:00 +0000

The thing about doing those overall comparisons and looking at the overall numbers is that you don’t really focus on the core of the bullpen. The overall numbers include stats from Aaron Thompson, Jose Ascanio, Tim Wood, and other guys who didn’t play well, but weren’t really key players in the bullpen throughout the year.

I think if you look at the pitchers, and look at the skills, you can see the argument for the bullpen being strong. They’ve got a lot of hard throwers with good out pitches. They had a lot of guys who posted very strong strikeout rates.

When I look at the strength of bullpen pitchers, I’m not as concerned with the ERA. I care more about the stuff the pitcher has, and his K/9, BB/9, and HR/9 ratios. Those are the ratios that tell you whether a pitcher will be good for the long run. The targets I look for are a 6.0 K/9, a 2.0 K/BB, and a 1.0 HR/9. Anything in that area or better makes a strong reliever. Last year Hanrahan, Veras, Resop, Grilli, Leroux, and Hughes hit all three of those marks.

By: Bob

Bob — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:32:00 +0000

Moskos should be there, need 2 LHP any ways.

By: ecbucs

ecbucs — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:30:00 +0000

was last year’s bullpen really strong or just better than previous Bucco bullpens.

If it was strong its stats would be better than stats of the other bullpens in the NL. I believe it was Smizik who ran numbers to show the Bucco bullpen was not better than most NL bullpens last year.
Nice getting little blurbs on bullpen candidates. Grilli impressed me last year – I thught he was over the hill but he did a good job.