You may remember a post from a few weeks back, ”The Royals Are No Blueprint for Success,” where I shared (and agreed with) an assertion that the franchise’s ”three months of winning isn’t a blueprint for other teams to rush out and follow.”
Well, Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post points to one area, the bullpen, where Kansas City’s competitors might want to take note:
Bullpen performance is exceedingly hard to predict, not just on a year-in, year-out basis, but sometimes on a month-to-month basis. Consider that the last four World Series champions ended October with a different closer than began the year. St. Louis went from Fernando Salas to Jason Motte in 2011, San Francisco from Brian Wilson to Sergio Romo in 2012, Boston from Joel Hanrahan to Andrew Bailey to Koji Uehara in 2013, San Francisco from Romo to Santiago Casilla this year.
The follow-up point: As important as locking down games over the final few innings has become, there is scant evidence that paying top dollar for those performances is wise. And the follow-up to the follow-up: As much time as teams will spend trying to figure out their end-of-the-game formula this offseason, formulas often deviate midstream, and the best-laid plans — often expensive plans — are often replaced.
The Royals, of course, are the hot example. But think about what went in to creating a bullpen that allowed Kansas City to go 72–1 when leading after seven innings: Happenstance. Davis came up as a starter with Tampa Bay and made 23 starts in 2013 with Kansas City — posting a 5.67 ERA and allowing opposing hitters a stunning .320 average in those starts. But he had something that is valuable in a back-end role: Power.
“Any time you take a pitcher that has some power as a starter, and then you put him in the pen, more than likely the velocity and the stuff is going up,” Royals pitching coach Dave Eiland said.
The message for other teams: If you’ve got a power arm lying around, and you think he can’t cut it as a starter, have him pitch the eighth. It’s not that simple, of course, and the whole formula can be in flux over the course of a season. Herrera didn’t really settle into his seventh-inning role until late June.
To be sure, by the start of the 2012 season Rays skipper Joe Maddon and pitching coach Joe Hickey had already moved Davis, a mediocre starter, to reliever duty, believing that his gas could be better harnessed in shorter bursts. The flamethrower spent that entire season in the bullpen and posted impressive numbers: 11.13 K/9, 3 K/BB, 2.43 ERA, and 3.24 xFIP.
When Kansas City acquired Davis that offseason, however, manager Ned Yost and Eiland stuck him back in the rotation and he regressed: 7.68 K/9, 1.98 K/BB, 5.67 ERA, and 4.17 xFIP. For 2014, the Royals set things right and Davis set the world on fire: 13.63 K/9, 4.74 K/BB, 1.00 ERA, 1.93 xFIP. (On a related note, the Royals picked up Davis’s option for 2015 on Monday.)
More here.