A little while back I took a look at how Buddy Black was using the bullpen. Let’s see of anything has changed. Forget what inning they are “slotted” in or what situation they seem to pitch in. We’ll use leverage index to tell us exactly that. Here’s each pitcher with their LI (leverage index) and their LI on June 13th (when I made that last post):
Hoffman: 2.33 (2.39)
Linebrink: 1.66 (1.58)
Bell: 1.42 (1.35)
Meredith: 1.37 (1.43)
Hampson: .87 (.80)
Cameron: .65 (.82)
Brocail: .57 (.66)
The entire bullpen LI is 1.26. Here’s a little part of what I said last time …”With that in mind, we might start to see a switch between Bell and Meredith….So, wrapping that up, I’d like to see Bell used in even more critical spots, but I’m not even close to ready to give up on Meredith yet.” That has basically played out as Meredith and Bell have switched rolls by LI. There’s going to be some randomness in there, in terms of when the guy’s get in, but you have to think Black is starting to favor Bell over Meredith at this point.
This Kevin Cameron thing is interesting. Black has shown no faith in him both by innings pitched (just 27.3) and LI (an extremely mop-up-man’s-like low .65). That being said, he’s delivered while in there, at least at first glance. A .33 ERA really stands out, doesn’t it? Clearly, though, Cameron has had a nice dose of luck to go with his fine performance. Here are some unsustainable numbers:
.221 BABiP
97.1% LOB% (strand rate)
0% hr/fb%
Cameron’s FIP is 3.49.
As the sample increases, those things simply aren’t going to hold up. For some perspective, Trevor Hoffman’s career BABiP is .277 and his LOB% is 77.4%. Relievers are hard to predict largely due to the fact that they don’t throw many innings in a given season. It takes 3-4 years for a reliever to hit the 200 inning mark, whereas it takes a starter a year. Imagine breaking a starters campaign up into 4 segments and trying to predict the next segment based on the last one. It gets tough. And that’s why relievers’ numbers (especially over 27 innings) can be so deceptive. Black is using his experience as a pitcher and coach or his keen eye for statistics to see through the Kevin Cameron 27 innings mirage. He should be given a lot of credit for that.
