Oakland Athletics Bullpen: Is There a Problem?
By Tony Frye
Less than two weeks into the 2015 season, the Oakland Athletics have lost a handful of devastating losses that they probably should have won. With a Pythagorean win record of 8-3 it stands to reason that something has gone terribly wrong in three of the team’s 11 games to cause them to start the year at 5-6.
The Oakland Athletics have always prided themselves on one of the most solid bullpens in the league if not all of baseball and, on paper, this year should be no different but the numbers don’t lie and in 33.1 innings their bullpen have given up 12 earned runs, seven of which were home runs.
Dan Otero, who finished 2014 with one earned run for every 15.8 batters faced is starting 2015 with a 1:6.3 ratio. He’s also allowing a hit for every 2.7 batters and also has a 5% home run rate which is up from his 1% home run rate of 2014.
Evan Scribner has faced more batters than anyone in the bullpen and is only 20 batters away from matching his 2014 total with Oakland. While on the mound, he has given up a run for every 13.5 batters which is down from his 2014 average of 1:7.8 and he strikes out nearly 30% of the batters he has faced which is up from his 2014 average of 23%.
Eric O’Flaherty, who has appeared in five games so far this year, has an earned run for every 7.66 batters and but he strikes out 30% as well. He has yet to walk anyone and batters are hitting .304 off of him with one home run. What can we say about him? You’re either going back to the bench or getting a hit but there are no gifts.
Overall the bullpen has given up 7 home runs, or, one for every 4.76 innings. In contrast, the starting rotation is averaging 1:13.24. The bullpen is averaging 1.74 HR/9 while the rotation is averaging 0.8 HR/9 with twice as many innings pitched.
Is it time to worry about the season in the hands of this bullpen? Well, remember how I said there were three wins difference between the team’s actual wins and their Pythagorean wins? Well, the bullpen has three losses already on their record. While it may not be time to worry about the bullpen, there is room for serious concern. With players still finding their roles and with Sean Doolittle expected to return soon, things may settle down and the bullpen may begin preserving leads or maintaining close games, as is their sole purpose. Bob Melvin, though, should be cautious with each of these pitchers and keep them all on a very short leash until a consistency is developed.
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The Oakland Athletics cannot compete in this division by losing one run games and two of the three bullpen losses were lost by one run. Those are the games that require a tight, consistent bullpen that can come in and finish the game quickly and efficiently. In the first 11 games of 2014, the A’s lost four and half of those were bullpen losses (Jim Johnson losses to be exact) so you can make the argument that we’re in the identical situation this year but, at this time last year, people started panicking and we were booing our closer off the field. It’s not so bad that we are booing but it is definitely worth a closer look and a little refinement.