Via the Elias Sports Bureau &133; In blowing a 5-1 lead Wednesday night, the Mets became only the third National League team since 1900 to lose six home games in which they'd led by at least four runs. To find a team that lost seven such games, you have to go all the way back to 1894.
Needless to say, it's not been an easy time for Mets fans. Say, here's one now!
Slate's Josh Levin:
Rooting for an otherwise-decent baseball team with a horrendous bullpen is like cheering on a soccer team that uses an armless goalie to defend against penalty kicks. Sure, you might get a few thrills along the way, but eventually you come to realize that the game was lost before it began. Or perhaps a better analogy is a basketball team that can't make free throws. In both cases, you're carried through the first two-thirds of the game by the excitement of building up a lead and spend the last one-third chewing the fingernail off your foam finger. Phase 1: We're going to win. Go team! Phase 2: Please. Please. Please. Not again. Why? Why? Phase 3: Come on, you're supposed to be a professional athlete! This is unbelievable. Phase 4: Deep, choking sobs.
Of course, as a fan one's first instinct is to blame someone for one's pain (those choking sobs are rough on the throat) …
… As a Mets fan, it's tempting to blame someone -- say, general manager Omar Minaya -- for this debacle. But the reality is that the chewed-up bubblegum strategy often works and that it would've been impossible to predict in spring training that every single Mets reliever would either underperform, get hurt, or both. When a bullpen can't do anything right, the best strategy is also the most frustrating one: wait till next year.
For a case study in the unpredictability of major league bullpens, consider the Tampa Bay Rays. To go along with the best record in the American League, the Miracle Rays have the circuit's second-best bullpen ERA at 3.46. In 2007, the Rays finished with 66 wins and a bullpen ERA of 6.16, the worst in the majors since at least the 1950s. This season's dramatic turnaround isn't the result of a philosophical change on the part of Tampa's front office. In both seasons, the Rays threw together a collection of low-paid, hard-throwing retreads and never-weres. The 2007 group -- led by Al Reyes, Brian Stokes, Shawn Camp, Gary Glover, Grant Balfour, and Dan Wheeler (a midseason acquisition) -- was historically awful. The 2008 group -- led by Troy Percival, Trever Miller, Jason Hammel, J.P. Howell (a converted starter who had a 7.59 ERA in 2007), Glover, Balfour, and Wheeler -- has been stupendous …
The lesson isn't that relief pitching's a crap shoot … It's that relief pitching's more of a crap shoot than just about anything else in baseball. As Levin points out, last year the Indians had one of the better bullpens in the majors, even
with Joe Borowski. This year,
without Joe Borowski, they've got one of the worst (ERA-wise, at least).
Last year, the Padres' front office got a great deal of credit for building a fantastic bullpen, mostly with other teams' castoffs. After the season, there was a
nice story in the Union-Tribune about San Diego's relievers, with some sensible quotes from GM Kevin Towers. My favorite:
"I kind of realized through the years how important of a role the bullpen plays," Towers said. "Especially being a middle-market club, it was hard for us to be real aggressive after the top free agents. So we just decided that for us, there's no excuse for not being able to put together a good bullpen. We should have the wherewithal financially to be able to acquire good arms. That should be a strong point, kind of a focus of our club each and every year. We can't say we can't afford to do it."
I absolutely agree with Towers' sentiment, and I commend his process. The product, though? After posting the second-best ERA in the NL in both 2005 and 2006, and the best in 2007, this year the Padres' relievers are No. 14 in the league. Sometimes a bad bullpen suggests bad management. Sometimes a bad bullpen suggests a bunch of bad bounces. The Mets should address the situation this winter. But they should resist the temptation to overreact when there are other, bigger issues; issues that won't work themselves out naturally.
Rob Neyer
