All components of the team have contributed to a bad start to the season….but the bullpen is the most perplexing
“The two most important things in life are good friends and a strong bullpen.” —Bob Lemon
“Baseball hasn’t forgotten me. I go to a lot of old-timers games and I haven’t lost a thing. I sit in the bullpen and let people throw things at me. Just like old times.” —Bob Uecker
We expected the middle relief to be a problem for the Astros. On the other hand, coming into this season, we thought the three high leverage relievers—Bryan Abreu, Ryan Pressly, and Josh Hader—would be among the best in the game. The middle relief hasn’t been great, but maybe not as bad as we expected. However, the three high leverage relievers have gotten bad results, probably costing the Astros several games. I won’t tell you the gruesome details because you probably watched it.
So, let’s talk about the high leverage relievers. We can start by noting that this is a very small sample size this season. Abreu, Hader, and Pressly have pitched 11, 9.2, and 8.2 innings respectively. Saying “small sample” doesn’t change what happened, but it does tell us to be skeptical about expecting this same performance in the future
The ERAs for all three pitchers are terrible. Abreu, Hader, and Pressly have ERAs of 4.91, 8.31, and 8.38, respectively. But another reminder—ERA is one of the poorest predictors of future performance. x-ERA can tell you a little about whether the pitcher was unlucky. And Hader’s x-ERA of 3.35 suggests that he has experienced bad BABIP luck. Pressly’s and Abreu’s x-ERA (4.55 and 4.58) are not ideal, but still considerably lower than their actual ERA.
Next, I turn to their Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) and the advanced metric, SIERA, both of which are considered superior as forward looking statistics. If you just looked at these two stats, knowing nothing about what actually happened, you might guess that the back end of the Astros’ bullpen was as good as expected. Well, except for Bryan Abreu, who is still a bit elevated on these stats. Abreu’s walk rate is too high as this point.
(FIP, SIERA, x-FIP)
Hader 2.79, 2.29, 2.43
Pressly 3.32, 3.02, 2.92
Abreu 6.75, 4.94, 4.55
When the FIP/SIERA is so much better than the ERA, this sometimes leads to concern about the defense behind the pitchers. And I have noticed (particularly in Pressly’s case) some lapses in defense during the late innings.
How is their Stuff? Isn’t “stuff” the key for relief pitchers? We turn to Stuff+ which measures the physical characteristics of the pitches (movement, velocity, and location in the count). Don’t look here to find a problem with the back end of the bullpen. The Stuff+ for all three relievers has been excellent for this early beginning to 2024. According to Stuff+, Pressly has been the Astros’ best pitcher (more than 1 inning) with Stuff+ of 133. Abreu is the Astros second best pitcher with Stuff+ of 124. Hader hasn’t been a slouch either, with Stuff+ of 115.
And it’s not like they have been terrible on location; when Location+ is added into the summary Pitch+, all three relievers are still well above average. Pressly is even 5% above average in locating his pitches. Perhaps an indicator of Hader’s poor result is that his Location+ is 98 or 2% below average. He may have gotten too much of the plate at times, but this isn’t a red flag. Hader’s current Location+ is actually higher than it was last year (95).
Given Pressly’s age and some apparent decline during 2023, we can look at his statcast page, but it’s still somewhat perplexing or at least contradictory.
- Pressly’s run values on his pitches are terrible, which is reflective of his high ERA. Pressly is also allowing elevated exit velocities on almost all his pitches. However, he has thrown a lot of groundballs (53.6%) which should mitigate the high exit velocity. Except when it doesn’t; the defenders have to get to those ground balls and convert them into outs, and sometimes it doesn’t happen. His 32% rate of Flare/Burner batted balls may indicate some bad luck.
- On the other hand, Pressly’s first pitch strike%, whiff%, chase%, and edge% all remain fairly high.
- The spin and movement characteristics of his pitches appear fairly similar to previous years. His fastball velocity is almost 1 mph less than 2023 and almost 2 mph less than 2022. This may just reflect the pattern of velocity you would expect early in the year. Moreover, the Stuff+ ranking of his fastball (111) is quite good, which leads me to believe the decline in velocity hasn’t been a major problem. Pressly’s spin rate on his curveball has been the highest in baseball. (Stuff+ ranks Pressly’s curve ball at a high level, 140.)
- Pressly has only thrown his sinker 7 times, but Statcast would indicate the results were disastrous (1.0 SLG). But for the most part, the “x-” stats (like x-SLG and xwOBA) are less than actual stats for each pitch.
Sometimes there aren’t answers for the bullpen issues. There is enough random variation that we have to say, “things just happen.” My overall impression is that we have to keep using our high leverage relievers like they should be used, and we should anticipate much better results in the future. (Easy for me to say, but….no guarantees.) Also, it will probably help if the team can get more leads in the late innings and therefore use the three high leverage relievers more frequently. My guess is that they have gotten out of synch at times as they try to brush off rust.
Fangraphs Playoff Odds
As poorly as the Astros have played, I take a peek at the current playoff odds with some degree of trepidation. But the AL West division has been doing the Astros some favors so far, with no team taking command of the division. The Astros continue to be favored to appear in the playoffs (53% playoff odds). The Astros and Mariners are neck-and-neck in the odds of winning the division (Mariners 36% and Astros 35%), with the Rangers ten points behind them. However, the Astros’ projected wins has declined from preseason 90 wins to 84 wins.