The best thing about the World Series is that the Mets will be playing in it for the first time since 2000. That’s enough to make any Mets fan happy. What makes it even better for me is that the Mets got there by essentially abandoning one of the front office’s core beliefs: That the success of the bullpen depends on the utilization of multiple lefty relievers.
Without a doubt, the Mets tried to utilize multiple lefties in the pen this year. Shoot, on the Opening Day roster, there were three of them! There was Jerry Blevins, Sean Gilmartin and Alex Torres. Blevins was very effective then got hurt in a freak accident and re-injured in an even freakier way. Gilmartin survived the whole season but generally was not used as a lefty specialist. Torres was used as a specialist and cut because he had the unmitigated gall to perform better against righties than lefties.
The Mets also used Jack Leathersich, who was decent in his brief time, and Dario Alvarez, who was not. But the one they really tried with was the one who shall not be named. That guy stunk from the moment he arrived but they continued to use him, hoping he would experience some success so they could justify using him in the postseason. But it never happened.
The nameless one finished with these numbers: 16 games, 8.2 IP, 13.50 ERA, 2.077 WHIP and a (-0.48) WPA.
Instead, the Mets went out and got real relievers and ended up with real success. The de facto lefty specialist is now Jon Niese and he’s pitched just twice in the nine playoff games so far. The Mets are scheming for ways to bring in their best reliever instead of their lefty reliever. Jeurys Familia has pitched in eight of the nine games and the Mets are 7-2 in the postseason.
It’s a trend that we should hope continues in the World Series. While the Royals do feature multiple lefty batters in their lineup, they’re pretty good against lefthanders. Eric Hosmer had a .730 OPS this year against lefties, Alex Gordon had an .817 mark and Mike Moustakas checked in with an .823 OPS against southpaws. None of these guys is anything close to Ryan Howard (.418 OPS) against port siders.
Meanwhile, the Royals are a team known for their bullpen and they’re not swimming in lefties, either. In 11 playoff games, only 5.2 innings have come from lefties. Danny Duffy spent most of the season in the rotation but moved to the bullpen in late September and is working exclusively as a reliever in the postseason. The results have not been pretty, as he’s allowed 3 ER in 3.2 IP. Franklin Morales is the closest thing to a true LOOGY this World Series matchup has.
Morales had fewer IP (62.1) than games (67) this season but he faced more RHB (151) than LHB (107). Not quite the ratio that Blevins had this year, where 14 of the 15 batters he faced were lefties. In the playoffs, Morales did not pitch in the ALDS but in the ALCS he appeared in two games and pitched two innings. It’s important to note those two appearances were mop-up ones in the only two games they lost versus the Blue Jays.
There’s little doubt that Morales will be featured at some point this series, especially with all of the lefty batters the Mets typically use. Yet at the same time, Ned Yost won’t be awake at night, plotting ways to get Morales into the game. Instead he’ll be focusing on how to make sure that Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis take the mound, much like the Mets and Familia.
So, as the Mets get ready for their fifth World Series in franchise history, let’s take a second to remember those lefties used in vain by the Mets since the Sandy Alderson/Terry Collins regime began, under the mistaken belief that they were critical to team success. Let’s thank our lucky stars that we will not see any of the following:
Tim Byrdak
Mike O’Connor
Pat Misch
Danny Herrera
Justin Hampson
Robert Carson
Garrett Olson
Sean Henn
Scott Rice
Pedro Feliciano
John Lannan
The above list does not include Josh Edgin and Dana Eveland, who were actually good.
Most people view this World Series as historic because it’s the first ever Fall Classic to feature two expansion teams. Here’s hoping that we’ll also view it as historic because it made it crystal clear to an entire nation that you don’t need LOOGYs to have a successful, championship team.
You’ve been extremely tough on the LOOGY ever since I joined this site, and you are starting to convince me.
Pedro Feliciano was very solid during his second tenure with the Mets, but after returning from the Yankees he was simply a waste of space. Also, I thought that Tim Byrdak and Scott Rice were pretty solid in their first season with the team-however they quickly burned out.
Also, don’t even get me started on Robert Carson. The guy was never that good, and the Alderson regime tried to push him way too hard… It aggravates me even today.
In any event, I still view the value of retiring lefties in a bullpen arm. However, I now see that the pitcher shouldn’t have to only retire lefties, but righties as well.
I am looking forward to welcoming Josh Edgin and Jack Leathersich back, I liked them.
Agreed. I would like to have an effective situational lefthander, but Good Pitchers are more important that Left Handed Pitchers.
Hopefully after this I will never again feel the need to reference the 1994 Expos, who had the best winning percentage in baseball when the labor conflict shut down the season, and they with nary a lefty. They had something like 3 or 4 innings of lefthanded relief work all season.
Left/Righty splits are real, and I feel it’s beneficial to have a lefty in the pen to leverage those spits.
However, having a LOOGY taking up a spot in the BP just seems to not be a real good use of a roster spot. Having a lefty that is *not* simply a LOOGY but can be used to leverage those splits but otherwise is simply a reliever would be ideal.
While what you are preaching is the right attitude for the regular season, unfortunately, it’s not applicable in the postseason.
The postseason is exactly when you can utilize a lefty specialist. Unlike in the regular season, you don’t have to worry about depth in the postseason as you simply ride your best players to the end. So far in the postseason, 4 relievers have combined for 23 IP and 3 guys have combined for 1.2 IP. With having so many off days in the postseason and not having to worry about guys holding up over 6 months, you can not only hold 1 specialist in the bullpen, but you could probably hold as many as 3-4 on the roster and not have to worry about running out of pitchers.
You say this like it’s an irrefutable fact.
Yet the two teams that have advanced past two series each have succeeded without it.
When did i say you had to use LOOGYs to win?
The argument against LOOGYs in the regular season is that they don’t pull their weight and force a heavier workload on the other 6 guys around them.
In the postseason, the workload constraint is gone because
-they have numerous off-days. Even if you had to play every game of the postseason, that’s just 19 games over 27 days, and that doesn’t include the off day before the start of the postseason plus the fact that you don’t have to save anyone the last few games
-you don’t need a 5th starter. Those are the ones that don’t go deep in regular season and cause extra bullpen usage.
Thus, in theory, if you wanted to use the LOOGY strategy in the postseason, it wouldn’t be as disadvantageous as using it in the regular season and could actually work.
In the end though, the impact of LOOGYs is minimal at best, and would rarely be the deciding factor in who wins a series.
Hey, all I know is I wrote an article celebrating a return to normalcy in World Series bullpen deployments and then you started lecturing me about how it was appropriate to use LOOGYs.
now what i got out of this piece was your subliminal desire to have eric o’flaherty put on the mets post season roster. of course, i could be wrong.
i think i’ll go back and reread this one again….
And that’s part of the reason i’m not crazy about the postseason.
Nothing about the postseason exemplifies what real baseball is:
-There are too many off days
-You can get away with 3 starters
-Some starters are left in too long, and others are pulled too quickly
-You can use LOOGYs without consequence.
-You don’t need any sort of bench to win
-You’re effectively using a 20 man roster and you can change your roster after each round (i want to know the idiot who thought of that)
-And that leads too many 1 trick specialists being included on rosters
There is nothing “normal” about the postseason
…I’m not sure how I got on this tangent subject
In my view, a good LOOGY has a purpose. But i would never try to shoehorn one into a pen at the expense of a more capable pitcher. O’Flaherty was a waste of a roster spot. However, if we had the O’Flaherty of five years ago, that might be valuable. Poor guy just doesn’t have it anymore. I look forward to having an Edgin or Blevins on the team next year.
So, we made it to the World Series without having a LOOGY but we should definitely get one next year?
Josh Edgin has no trouble handling RHB. To utilize him in that small of a role is wasting an asset. You make LOOGYs out of guys who cannot do anything else.
I think you are conflating, at times, “lefty relievers” with LOOGYS, to the detriment of your argument.
Of course — obviously — it’s a positive for a team to have 1-2-3 quality lefty relievers. Too many players, and too many teams, have distinct splits that put them at a disadvantage against LHP.
Your issue is with the narrowly-defined, post-LaRussa use of the LOOGY. I have less of a problem with that than you do, but you make valuable points. The problem to me is when teams mindlessly cling to the need for any LOOGY at all, when they robotically “mix and match” in the face of deeper logic.
In my bullpen, there’s room for a top-quality LOOGY, and I’d say that he’d probably be the 8th or 9th most valuable arm in the pen. I’d also love a LHP who could do well against both sides of the plate, sort of what we hoped Torres might be (and had been).
You keep barking against this tree but it’s in the abstract. The important thing — and I think you do at times remember to make this point — is that every decision has to be made in the particular, the specific player. To rant against the LOOGY or lefties in general loses me, since there are clearly cases where it’s been an asset used to neutralize key batters in high-leverage situations. As weapons go, sure, I’ll take one.
I would vehemently argue there’s any conflating going on. From TFA:
“The above list does not include Josh Edgin and Dana Eveland, who were actually good.”
I agree whole heartedly that a LOOGY would be the 8th or 9th most valuable arm in the pen, since the pen only has 7 guys.
As to your last graph, the Mets might be approaching the point where a LOOGY makes theoretical sense. But you’ve got to have SP who regularly go deep in the game and you’ve got to have a shut-down closer. You can’t carry such a narrow role if your bullpen has to go 3 IP or more five times a week. But if you’re regularly getting 7+ innings from your starters, then it becomes doable. It’s a luxury item that has been completely miscast as a necessity. A sub-.500 team carrying a LOOGY is like a homeless man wearing $5,000 cuff links.