Position Battle: The Bullpen

Perkins cannot get lefties out.  

 

Last season lefties hit .379/.419/.431 off him.

 

He made every lefty hit like Ted Williams pretty much.

 

Even in 2014 they hit .284/.324/.448 off him.   Lately his splits are much better against RHBs  (likely because of the slider not being sharp against LHBs and the FB losing a couple ticks)

It takes a pretty large sample for slash stats to be meaningful and reliable. I don't see how such a definitive statement can be made based on that data. What are his career numbers? Three years of lefty v lefty splits as a reliever might be enough to look at strike out rates and walk rates. Nothing more.

The reality is that a left handed closer is only going to see the best left handed hitters at the end of the game. Other will be pulled for a pinch hitter. His sample too small to be reliable is likely to be skewed with a much greater ratio of the better left handed batters.

It might be true that Perkins can not get left handed hitters out. One season slash stats of what is certain to be fewer than 100 plate appearances skewed by game situation can not possibly support that statement.

This group has been very critical of signing players to block the youngsters from coming up and now a lot of them are saying we should be signing 2-3 relievers to 3 year contracts(and this will not block the youngsters?).  This bullpen will be OK until the youngsters come up and then should be very good.  I think you are going to see more teams playing small ball early and trying to get a lead by the 6th to turn it over to the pen.  These go in cycles.

I also feel that Twins starters will go deeper into games and that in turn should reduce the stress on the back end.  I also feel that Pressly will help in the back end, and may replace Fien in that role.  That is what spring training is for.

Put me in the tiny minority here, but I am not worried about the bullpen...at all.

They return a nice late inning combo, and more good arms than can fit in the rotation.

Trust the youth, and this will be a team strength I believe.

This group has been very critical of signing players to block the youngsters from coming up and now a lot of them are saying we should be signing 2-3 relievers to 3 year contracts(and this will not block the youngsters?). This bullpen will be OK until the youngsters come up and then should be very good. I think you are going to see more teams playing small ball early and trying to get a lead by the 6th to turn it over to the pen. These go in cycles.

I also feel that Twins starters will go deeper into games and that in turn should reduce the stress on the back end. I also feel that Pressly will help in the back end, and may replace Fien in that role. That is what spring training is for.

I have been active on many threads about the pen, I don't think anywhere close to the majority had said we should sign 2-3 relievers to 2-3 year deals.

From what I have seen, most wanted one good reliever in the back of the pen.

We were 23rd in most metrics last year. Glen has been worse the last three years in the second half and he is the only one with a contract in 2017. Seems logical to me and I don't think we run the risks of blocking anyone.

With this group of candidates, only a handful of realistic outcomes are needed for the bullpen to be better than last year's. 1. Perkins stays healthy all year and pitches almost as well as he did in the first half of last year. 2. Jepsen stays on the team all year and pitches like he did last year. 3. May stays in the bullpen all year and pitches like he did last year. 4. A couple of pitchers arise out of the large cast of candidates and pitch better than Stauffer, Boyer, Duensing, Cotts, etc. 5. Fien pitches better than he did last year. (This one perhaps is more iffy than the others, but it may also be less important, especially if the first four items happen.)

Perkins has worn out in the second half of the last two seasons. At his age and with all the energy he puts into his pitches, I wouldn't bet on him having a healthy and productive year as the primary closer. On the other hand, if the Twins manage to split the closer duties between Perk and Jepsen, they might make it through the season with two closers. 

This is the year to find out whether the Twins are ready, willing, and able to make a transition to a core of harder throwing RP. In reality it's the last year to tweak the roster, before they either get serious about contending, or this turns into a middle of the pack roster. Baseball fortunes seem to run in 5 year cycles, ours starts this year. Will they truly move on from PTC, or will they stick with the security blanket of BABIP. There are only two avenues of change in an orginisation, change the philosophy, or change the management. Since managers who don't follow the company line, don't last long, philosophy comes from above, and "above" remains in place. The Twins now have the pieces to completely rebuild their BP in a new direction. but it will require some cringe inducing moments, and the acceptance that this isn't 2007 anymore.

Perkins and splits.

Do we realize that it takes around 600 plate appearance or more for pitcher slash stats to become reliable? It would take most of Perkin's career to get there. Perkins lefty v lefty split would also be highly skewed by the quality of left handed hitter he would face at the end of the game. Only the better lefties would not be removed for a pinch hitter.

Strike rates stabilize early. Walk rates stabilize around 170 plate appearance without a split. It would take Perkins three years to get past that level at lefty v lefty. If we go back three years, his strike out rate v lefties is 24.4% (26.6 overall) and walk rate is 4.6 (3.5 overall). That difference might be explained by the difference in quality of left handed hitter he is facing at the end of the game. It might that last year's numbers were randomly skewed badly to the left handed side. It can happen. In a small sample a mediocre hitter can hit .350 in September. Not meaningful. Just random.

If the Twins assess that Perkins can't get out lefties, I sure hope they do it based on their trained eye. The data is not near enough sample to support that statement.

someone typed "perkins is good at getting LHB out".....then there were stats shown that is not true.......so, if we can't go by performance, because of not enough innings, why should I think the is good at getting lefties out? What evidence do you offer that he is good at it?

I don't have evidence either way. How could I from my couch, computer or seat at the game? You absolutely can not use slash stats. They require a very large sample. Strike out rates, ground ball rates, fly ball rates and eventually walk rates can be examined but not in a single year of the lefty v lefty reliever split. A team would have to go to the pitch level data. They then should normalize for quality of batter faced from each side.

It could be true that Perkins can't get out lefties. That determination might come from video study, pitch level data beyond our access and the trained eye of a major league staff.

I need to try to keep from being drawn in to these conversations. Understanding the impact of sample in a data set isn't trivial and we are bombarded on broadcasts with meaningless data in small samples. Spring training numbers are coming soon. It is going to be difficult to stay out of these types of conversations.

This can be checked fairly easily at B-Ref.

 

Glen Perkins, LHB faced by year

 

2015:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/batter_vs_pitcher.cgi?pitcher=perkigl01#gotresults&pitcher=perkigl01&min_year_game=2015&max_year_game=2015&post=1&opp_id=&bats=L&opponent_status=&c1criteria=&c1gtlt=eq&c1val=0&c2criteria=&c2gtlt=eq&c2val=0&orderby=PA&orderby_dir=desc&orderby_second=Name&orderby_dir_second=asc&ajax=1&submitter=1

 

2014:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/batter_vs_pitcher.cgi?pitcher=perkigl01#gotresults&pitcher=perkigl01&min_year_game=2014&max_year_game=2014&post=1&opp_id=&bats=L&opponent_status=&c1criteria=&c1gtlt=eq&c1val=0&c2criteria=&c2gtlt=eq&c2val=0&orderby=PA&orderby_dir=desc&orderby_second=Name&orderby_dir_second=asc&ajax=1&submitter=1

 

2013:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/batter_vs_pitcher.cgi?pitcher=perkigl01#gotresults&pitcher=perkigl01&min_year_game=2013&max_year_game=2013&post=1&opp_id=&bats=L&opponent_status=&c1criteria=&c1gtlt=eq&c1val=0&c2criteria=&c2gtlt=eq&c2val=0&orderby=PA&orderby_dir=desc&orderby_second=Name&orderby_dir_second=asc&ajax=1&submitter=1

 

Maybe someone with a more keen eye than mine can glean more from that, but I don't see a ton of differences -- Perkins got to face Adam Dunn in 2013-2014, but he also got to face Pedro Alvarez in 2015.  He was better in 2015 vs Alex Gordon than in 2014, etc.  I don't see anything that jumps out as an explanation for 6-7 fewer strikeouts and 8-9 more hits from his 2013 levels.

 

I won't say his 2014 or 2015 represents his true talent level versus lefties, but given the sum total of our quantitative and qualitative observations about him, I also wouldn't count on him being a weapon versus lefties as suggested in the post that inspired this conversation.

I was drawn in by the statement "Perkins can't get lefties out"

That is very definitive and damning statement. If the statement had been "I wouldn't count on him being a weapon versus lefties" it would have been much easier to ignore the use of the sample to support the statement.

Evidence that Perkins can't get out lefties will come when opposing teams routinely bring a left handed pinch hitter off the bench to replace a right handed batter.

By the time the youngsters come up, the current good bullpen pitchers (Jepsen and Fien in particular, May too if he was needed to start) may be gone, and Perkins not far behind.  Thus, the youngsters might just be offsetting those losses and maintaining an "OK" bullpen, rather than improving it towards "very good."

There is nothing that says Jepsen won't be resigned, May won't continue in the pen, and Perkins still has a contract for several years. The pen will be at least average this year and move up in 2017. The strength of the farm system is power arms in the pen.

All I've heard this winter is how bad it is to sign FA relievers, not sure why we'd do that for Jepsen. If they wanted a 30 something FA reliever beyond 2016, seems like the smart thing would have been to sign one this winter, let him overlap with Jepsen in 2016 while the kids work their way up, and let a youngster replace Jepsen in 2017.

This is entirely logical.  But it seems like through the years the Twins value their own relievers over the markets.  Which is kind of ironic given the performance the last few.   

We would rather roll over guys like Duensing, Fein, Burton, etc. year to year.  So I would not at all be shocked if Jepsen was extended to a deal that mirrors the one's we deemed excessive this offseason, i.e. more than one year and $4M a year.

"Terry Ryan recently spoke about a number of in-house options that intrigue him as lefty options in the bullpen, calling out Taylor Rogers and J.T. Chargois by name"

I hope everything works out when the Twins try to convert J.T. Chargois to a lefty.

He has been pretty good as an RHP his entire career.