Through four games, it feels like the Mets have gotten great starting pitching, while the bullpen has been a disaster. That’s been true of both entities in three of the four games. But when dealing with tiny sample sizes, one game can have a pretty big impact. The end result is that the starters’ ERA is just slightly better than National League average, while the relievers’ ERA is just slightly worse than league average.
Here’s how the starters have done so far:
Jacob deGrom – 6 IP, 0 ER
Marcus Stroman – 6 IP, 1 ER
David Peterson – 4 IP, 6 ER
Taijuan Walker – 6 IP, 2 ER
Total – 22 IP, 9 ER – 3.68 ERA
And here’s how the relievers have done, broken down by game rather than individual:
Game 1 – 2 IP, 2 ER (3 UER)
Game 2 – 3 IP, 2 ER (1 UER)
Game 3 – 4 IP, 2 ER (2 IR scored)
Game 4 – 3 IP, 0 ER
Total – 12 IP, 6 ER – 4.50 ERA
Currently, the league average for SP is a 3.75 ERA while for relievers it’s a 4.21 ERA. It used to be that relievers have had a better ERA on a league basis than starters over a full season. Here’s how things have played out in the Mets360 era:
2010 – SP 4.05, RP 3.97
2011 – SP 3.94, RP 3.59
2012 – SP 4.04, RP 3.77
2013 – SP 3.86, RP 3.50
2014 – SP 3.73, RP 3.53
2015 – SP 4.05, RP 3.66
2016 – SP 4.26, RP 4.02
2017 – SP 4.44, RP 4.18
In eight straight seasons, relievers had a better ERA than starters – roughly a quarter of a run better. But things flipped on their head beginning in 2018:
2018 – SP 4.00, RP 4.08
2019 – SP 4.33, RP 4.48
2020 – SP 4.41, RP 4.58
If it was just 2020, we would dismiss it as a 60-game fluke. But since it follows the same thing that happened the previous two seasons, that’s not so easy to do. Why have we seen starters produce better ERAs and relievers worse ones since 2018? It’s most likely a realization that starters lose effectiveness the third time through the order and managers looking to remove back-end starters before they face too many batters a third time. In 2010, NL starters threw 15,330.1 innings. In 2019 that total dropped to 13,032.2 innings.
With more than 2,000 additional innings to cover, bullpens have increased in size. And the additional pitchers have contributed to a decrease in quality.
Now, instead of looking at things through a league basis, let’s just focus on the Mets. Here are the breakdowns of starters and relievers for the club since 2010:
| Year | SP IP | SP ER | SP ERA | RP IP | RP ER | RP ERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 972 | 410 | 3.80 | 481 | 192 | 3.59 |
| 2011 | 974 | 446 | 4.12 | 474 | 228 | 4.33 |
| 2012 | 975.1 | 415 | 3.83 | 458.2 | 237 | 4.65 |
| 2013 | 969.2 | 397 | 3.68 | 507 | 224 | 3.98 |
| 2014 | 985 | 401 | 3.66 | 478.2 | 167 | 3.14 |
| 2015 | 1002.2 | 383 | 3.44 | 460 | 178 | 3.48 |
| 2016 | 922 | 370 | 3.61 | 525 | 205 | 3.51 |
| 2017 | 865.2 | 494 | 5.14 | 569 | 305 | 4.82 |
| 2018 | 914.1 | 360 | 3.54 | 546.1 | 301 | 4.96 |
| 2019 | 941.1 | 402 | 3.84 | 519.2 | 288 | 4.99 |
| 2020 | 278.1 | 166 | 5.37 | 235 | 120 | 4.60 |
| Totals | 9,800.1 | 4244 | 3.90 | 5,254.1 | 2445 | 4.19 |
There’s a ton of interesting information here. Let’s start at the top. For the Mets, 2010 was a pretty normal year, as their relievers had a better ERA than their starters. But from 2011-2013, the relievers were significantly worse than the starters. What on earth happened here? Longtime readers of the blog know the answer. That’s the start of the Sandy Alderson/Terry Collins regime and the hyper-focus on getting lefty relievers the best matchups possible.
What happened in 2014, then? First, it was the breakout year for Jeurys Familia, who threw 77.1 IP at a 2.21 ERA. Scott Rice’s usage was cut from 73 games to 32 and Robert Carson was replaced by Josh Edgin and Dana Eveland. The following year, their designated LOOGY was hurt early on and most of the year was performed without a lefty specialist, until late in the year and the Eric O’Flaherty debacle.
By 2018, the Mets were in step with the rest of the league, as their starters were better than their relievers. But this was due less to restricting innings by their starters – both 2018 and 2019 had starters throwing more innings than 2017 – and more due to just the general lousiness of their relievers. And of course, last year was when the primary starters were MIA and their replacements were both horrible and unlucky.
What does it all mean going forward?
If the first week of MLB action is a guide, then the trend from 2018 where relievers are worse than the starters is going to continue. From the Mets’ POV, everyone feels like their starters are significantly better than their relievers. So, if we know that generally the relievers are less effective than the starters and on the Mets in particular the divide is even bigger – what’s the rational thing to do?
In a vacuum, you would look for reasons to keep starters in the game longer. That may not be possible in all situations with all pitchers. But there are absolutely cases where this should be done. Let’s say Stroman puts down the side in order in the top of the sixth, finishes the inning at 92 pitches with the game tied, 2-2, and is slated to lead off the bottom of the sixth. It should be a slam dunk to let him bat and keep him in the game.
You can probably come up with a dozen other scenarios where the Mets in the past have opted to remove their starter when he still has gas in the tank. Until the Mets have a better bullpen, this ultra-conservative approach to handling starters has got to stop. Perhaps if the Mets were as considerate to their relievers as they are to their starters, then their results wouldn’t be so bad.
The Mets have this view that one day off automatically refreshes every reliever in every situation. Without a doubt, sometimes this is true. Equally certain is that sometimes it does not. It shouldn’t be considered standard operating procedure for relievers to have pitched three times in the past four games and be counted on to go again in the fifth game. And if you’re not so eager to remove your starter from the game, then this doesn’t have to happen so often.
We know the trend is for starters to pitch fewer innings. The question, as always, is whether conventional wisdom and deployment fits the talent on your particular club. Until Seth Lugo returns and someone else steps up to provide reliable innings out of the pen, the answer is that the Mets are better off depending on their starters in situations where you could either keep with the starter or go to the pen.
No one’s asking for a starter to go 140 pitches or to consistently go 120 or more in a game. But the team shouldn’t be terrified of having a pitcher take the mound for a new inning if he’s performing well and has a pitch count in the 90s. And the bullpen will be better off for it, too.
Completely agree with allowing starters to go longer, throw more pitches. I’m of the mind that throwing more pitches builds strength and stamina, allows more pitches in the next game as well. These guys are trained to throw every fifth day, and being overprotective is making them weaker, physically as well as mentally.
What’s more, I would think great competitors like deGrom and Stroman would rather stay in the game that extra inning, have more of a say on the outcome of the game. Lets be the team that bucks the trend, let’s starting pitchers go a full 7 innings routinely, uses bullpen sparingly.
What boggles me is that a struggling pitcher often times get a bigger leash than a cruising pitcher.
Starter in the 4th inning trying to get thru 5. Pitch count around 95 pitches. 2 more outs to complete 5 innings. Manager will let him go up to pitch 105 before taking him out.
Then other times you have a pitcher who completed 7 innings but with only 90 pitches. However, manager goes to the bullpen in the 8th instead of letting the SP continue.
A more subtle strategy, especially for the long-term success of the pitching staff, is to teach the value of soft-contact versus the strikeout outcome. Too many pitchers throw ball in the middle of the plate when ahead in the count (most recently Matz and Syndergaard) with strike-three as the goal. Stop focusing on the strikeout and instead, induce the defensive hitters to hit pitcher’s pitch… good enough to swing at but hard to square up.
The benefit of this strategy is to keep pitch-counts down, allow pitchers to compete the seventh and beyond, and therefore limit more vulnerable BP innings. If it saves 100 innings on the bullpen, that’s the whole point! Just imagine the Mets’ starters getting three more outs per start this season… should be the goal.
Just to state the obvious: “The art of pitching to make balls look like strikes and make strikes look like balls” (G. Maddux). Notice he did not say to throw the ball past the hitter at every opportunity.
Nice work Brian. This year, starters are going to be babied abut more due to the shortage of innings pitched last year and the attempt to stretch them through this entire year.
Nolan Ryan has always said that you build up arm strength by throwing more. However, the increasing injuries have teams protecting their pitchers more. So, which one is it?
In 2019 the starting pitching was very good and they averaged 5.8 innings per start. The relievers average 3.2 innings per game. That measly 0.2 is the difference in using ideally three reliever instead of four in a game. The starting pitcher in 2021 is comparable to 2019 so Rojas needs to push the starters just 0.2 inning per start on average. Before he takes out a starter he should ponder if the relief pitcher will be better in that particular situation. I oversimplified this but it is a “starting” point for the problem.
Brian,
Great work as usual. So, Jake and the manager heard you. He went 8 innings, and was promptly rewarded with zero runs and a loss.
Your analysis is excellent, raising the appetite for even more info. I would be interesting to see two further breakdowns – 1. Starter ERA each time through rotation…this seems to be a big influencer for the decision makers. 2. ERA by inning, along with the percentage of that inning handled by starters vs relievers. Maybe the 16 member analytics staff has the staffing to handle this breakdown.
But, regardless of all the data (and I am an advocate of the info), the game needs to be managed based on how it unfolds…I think most if not all of us agree on that, and at times it looks like that is not the case.
I think we would all be happy if 8 IP was the new expectation for deGrom. But, you could make a case that this was a situation where they could have let Jake bat in the 8th and pitch the 9th because his pitch count was in the 90s. If the first batter had gotten on base, would they have asked Jake to bunt so he could remain in the game?
The two things you asked for can be found in the splits section of Baseball-Reference. Coming into today, JDG had a lifetime 2.18 ERA in the sixth inning, a span of 148.1 innings. It’s next to impossible to have ERA for times through the order, because those usually occur in different innings. But B-R has OPS allowed and Jake’s goes from .544 to .601 to .659 to .856 from 1st to 4th PA in the game for hitters.
Brian,
Thanks. Very interesting stuff…these decisions can make or break a season in a tight division.