Miguel Batista & the Bullpen Tea Leaves

What can he do that Ryan Theriot cannot? Furthermore, what can he do that Daniel Descalso cannot?

He’s just another in a long line of crappy middle infielders that TLR likes who’s last names end with “o”: Cairo, Gallego….etc.

:=8(

he can’t even bother to look up the definition of the “Strawman argument” and if he did, he would have to then admit that he keeps making stuff up to argue against.

i just have to make that clear.

I’d say Miller, Motte, and usually Franklin. I don’t see why Batista, Augenstein, Boggs, Tallet, and Salas when he gets here can’t go 6+ outs. There are pitchers available to cover when innings are needed, the problem is usage.

I took it as PJ saying that you don’t need to “designate” a long man. With a couple of excpetions, any of the bullpen guys can go 2-3 innings, and thus they are ALL longmen.

And if they’re all longmen, or at least capable of being it, they you don’t need to waste a roster spot on one guy who pitches 2-3 innings.

I believe he is disagreeing with you that our bullpen is full of “one inning guys” as well. And I agree with him on that point too.

that you and prophetjohn are the same person arguing with two login IDs. So, in fact, one is the strawman for the other, meanwhile accusing the other of using the strawman device.

I thought he was an outfielder not a pitcher.

i would probably not read all that

it’s just that you have a difficult time identifying a straw man. i’ll break down what you identify as your point and describe what i disagree with so that we can be clear

You need to carry at least one guy in your bullpen that can pitch 2-3 innings at a stretch

i agree and i think that salas and tallet could both go 2 and boggs could go 3+

ESPECIALLY when you have a rotation composed of guys who may have trouble getting out of the 6th inning on a regular basis.

i further agree. however, i’m not willing to jump to the conclusion that the cards are a team that will “have trouble getting out of the 6th inning on a regular basis.”

If you don’t, you end up in situations where you’re bullpen is short and one inning guys get stretched to 4 and 5 outs to make up the shortfall, eventually burning out the entire bullpen because of the lack of carrying one low leverage guy

this is probably accurate. but again, it looks like we’ve got the guys to avoid this happening, except in extreme circumstances. certainly no reason to have batista and augenstein over salas and sanchez

This "long reliever" does not necessarily need to be used ONLY in these situations.

i’m inclined to argue with the idea of coining one guy the long reliever, but if we can agree that the long reliever is one of the guys capable of going 2-3 innings, i definitely agree

The difference, however, is that since the role of this person is not the 8th inning or the middle innings in high leverage situations, you do not need to worry about upsetting your entire bullpen roster just by using him in those situations

so you’re not having him out there exclusively to pitch in mop up duty, but still it looks like this is where things go awry. why can’t the guy capable of going multiple innings also be a good pitcher who is trusted with high leverage situations? a pitcher who pitches only in mop up and low leverage situations is the definition of the brad thompson role. if he’s going to have some one inning outings on occasion, there’s no reason to shield him from high leverage situations unless he just sucks. and this is where we fundamentally disagree.

the only things to be taken away from that is that you either

a) want to have a good pitcher like boggs be the long reliever. but on the days when he’s not having long relief outings, you want keep him in low leverage situations just to maintain well-defined roles in the bullpen.

or

b) keep a guy on the roster who isn’t the best available pitcher just because he can throw more innings than his competitors

i disagree with either of those conclusions. yes if every pitcher was like motte and only reasonably capable of pitching one inning, you might need a long man around out of sheer necessity. that’s not the case with the cardinals. you also don’t want your bullpen ace, likely your closer, holding the role. still not an issue for the cardinals.

all things considered, i can’t think of a reasonable scenario for a contending cardinals team to need a designated long reliever which you define as “the 4th middle reliever and the guy to go to when more than one inning is needed” when the bullpen can be constructed in a way that there is at least one guy able to go multiple innings and everyone is capable of pitching when the game is on the line

So we can just go out and get the next right handed reliever off of the assembly line whenever we use one up? Then why were people so pissed off when we traded Chris Perez? Why all the pithy towards Miguel Batista.

They have value, especially the good ones. Burning up options is a small worry, but it’s the constant shuttling that really doesn’t make any sense, because it doesn’t have to be that way.

This is also making the assumption that it makes us a better team….which I’m not sure is the case at all.

i’m legitimately curious- i’m not trying to destroy your argument or something, i just think the people we have that can fill the role are so much worse than our “1 inning guys”, (who i think you’re giving a little less credit to than you should) that it doesn’t matter.

I think that Boggs could fill the role of Augenstein/Batista and still be a middle leverage guy for the 6/7/8 innings. The problem, however, is that I also think that he’s BETTER as a middle inning reliever than Salas, Sanchez, and Samuel are right now. So the choice, really, is to promote those guys over Boggs to pitch the middle innings, while Boggs throws middle innings occasionally but is also the potential long man if one is needed, OR you keep Augenstein/Batista as the long man, have them pitch a little less in the middle innings, but Boggs keeps his role as high leverage middle inning reliever. In other words: You keep Boggs as your #3 guy and Augenstein as your number 7 or do you move your #3 guy to #7 and move every guy up a slot? I think bringing up Sanchez and Salas is better for our bullpen than either Batista or Augenstein, but that’s DOESN’T mean that I don’t think we need someone who can pitch a 2-3 inning stretch like a traditional long man might. Someone is going to end up with that role, I’d just as soon it be an actual role rather than a pseudo one.

I think the fallacy in PJ’s thinking is that if you have 7 one inning studs that they’re all EQUALLY STUDLY, but that’s not the case — you’re still going to have your favorite guy for the 9th, the 8th, and you’re going to have matchup LOOGY’s and ROOGY’s as well. And my point is that you upset the apple cart when 4+ of those 7 guys are forced to throw on one day. Now everyone is out of their initial role and there’s a big scramble the next few games to get the least tired/most effective pitchers to take those innings even if those inning aren’t their normal role.

1. You can’t just miracle a guy from Memphis to San Francisco or LA. It’s possible that if you needed a call up for the very next day that he might not be able to make it there in time to pitch OR he might have pitched for Memphis the night before and is unavailable.
2. You’re taking everyone out of their pre-defined roles, which will cause stress, like it or not.
3. Constantly shuffling guys in and out of the clubhouse and up and down between AAA and MLB is not conducive to getting their best overall performance. The managers will use them differently, the players playing with them don’t know what to expect, etc.

Why is that we think that smallest margin of error is so important statistically, but refuse to admit that stress, unfamiliarity, and other human activity can also cause huge swings in performance?

I would say that LINEUP and POSITION PLAYER usage are WAY different.

I don’t think a lot of managers in the AL would change how they use their relievers if they had to work around the pitcher’s spot, but the way they use the bench would change considerably.

doesn’t then mean that you don’t have that guy at all!

He posted a 2.92 FIP and 2.38 ERA with a .313 BABIPA.

then why do teams carry 7 relievers? If one inning guys should always be able to pitch back to back days all the time, then why not carry just 4? That’s all you should need.

But, again, this isn’t reality, it’s just what you would like to think is reality.

There is a need for a 2-3 inning guy in most bullpen situations, and I think it depends on who is in your rotation that determines that need. In the Cardinals 2011 situation, we have a need for someone like this.