WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. -- Yu Darvish had thrown seven dominant innings Thursday night in Philadelphia, requiring just 92 pitches, and Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon took him out with a more than reasonable expectation that his bullpen would protect a five-run lead and get the last six outs.
It didn't happen that way, of course. After an error and three more pitching changes, six hits and only four outs, Bryce Harper blasted a walk-off grand slam, giving the Phillies a 7-5 win over the Cubs.
The move that Maddon made has become something of conventional wisdom. It used to be that managers would feel comfortable leaving an overpowering pitcher on the mound for 120 pitches, but that line of demarcation drifted downward to 110 pitches, then 100. Now managers start to look to pull the parachute on a starter if he hits 85 to 90 pitches, once he begins to pass through the opposing lineup a third time.
Because the numbers have suggested that, generally, it's better to use a fresh reliever instead of a starter nearing 100 pitches, teams generally are using their bullpen for more outs and expecting less of their starters.
But the numbers are changing, and bullpen performance is worsening. According to league-wide numbers dug out by Paul Hembekides, starters (4.52) and relievers (4.52) own the exact same ERA. The last time league-wide bullpen ERA was not lower than that of starters was 1969. The gap between starters and relievers is shrinking quickly -- nearly half a run over the past four seasons.
League-wide save percentage is tracking at 64 percent. That would be the second-lowest mark in a season since saves were implemented in 1969 (the lowest was 62 percent in 1974). Relievers are allowing inherited runners to score 32 percent of the time, the highest rate since 2008.
Why is this happening? Part of the reason is probably the 2019 baseball and the explosion of home runs. Part of it is that hitters have adapted and are doing more damage against high velocity, and their production is much more pronounced against relievers. The lack of secondary offerings in bullpens around the league is clearly catching up.
Through Friday, relievers had already allowed 34 more home runs on pitches thrown 95 mph or higher this season (358) than they did in all of 2018 (324).
But some evaluators also believe that the increased use of bullpens has meant more innings for taxed relievers. Most starting pitchers are throwing between four and six innings, leaving anywhere from nine to 15 outs for the relievers. Sometimes the relievers aren't getting all those outs, which is why position players are being deployed to finish games at a record rate. The sport has an epidemic of reliever injuries and ineffective bullpens.
Only five teams have bullpen ERAs below 4.00: the Indians, Rays, Cardinals, Astros and Giants. Six teams have ERAs over 5.00, including two clubs with an ERA over 6.00. Contending teams all over the majors have been desperate for bullpen solutions, including the Cubs, who expect to get Craig Kimbrel back from the injured list Sunday in advance of the Little League Classic, while the Braves and Nationals made a flurry of reliever trades before the deadline that haven't really worked out as planned.
Ten or 20 years ago, lineups worked to push the pitch count of the starting pitcher because they wanted to get him out of the game sooner and get to what was perceived to be the soft underbelly of opposing staffs: the relievers who were the opposition's ninth-, 10th-, 11th- or 12th-best pitchers.
Now front offices and managers are arranging their daily pitching plans so that they rely on those arms -- and it's proving to be a less effective strategy.
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The July 31 trade deadline is cemented, with teams no longer allowed to make August deals. But clubs have found a way to make smaller, less consequential moves, through what could be called arranged waiver claims, with the conversations going along these lines:
Team 1: We're looking for an outfielder, and remember that you were willing to talk about Player X before the trade deadline. Are you still open to the idea of moving him?
Team 2: Yeah, we're not going to keep Player X into the winter, and we'd like to give the at-bats to somebody else in the organization. We could save a little money if somebody claimed Player X for the last six weeks of the season. If we put him on waivers, would you be interested in something like that?
Team 1: Ready and willing.
Unless some really smart front offices find ways to add layers to this, it isn't really a loophole for teams to make moves equivalent to what they've done before the July 31 deadline was hardened. Teams don't have the power to pull players back from waivers, a bit of leverage they were able to employ in the past, and there can't be any player-for-player exchange; the only possible compensation in these moves is for a potential seller to unload some salary. Most of the moves made so far this month have involved fringy veterans.
Billy Hamilton, designated for assignment by the Kansas City Royals on Friday, is a classic example, near the end of what has been a disappointing season for the 28-year-old. Hamilton signed a one-year, $4.25 million deal with the Royals for 2019 -- and a 2020 club option for $7.5 million -- and he's had one of the worst offensive showings of his seven seasons in the majors, batting .211 with a .275 on-base percentage and .544 OPS. But he is still a dangerous baserunner, with 18 steals in 23 attempts, as well as a good defender, ranking fourth among all center fielders in defensive runs saved. He'd be a good niche player for a contender, entering close games in the late innings as a pinch runner or to protect leads. You could imagine Dodgers manager Dave Roberts -- who knows something about the impact of speed in the postseason, after serving in a pinch runner role for the historic 2004 Red Sox -- calling on Hamilton to run for Max Muncy or Justin Turner in the eighth inning of a tie game in October. The Royals did this with Terrance Gore and Jarrod Dyson in the postseason in 2014 and 2015.
For the Dodgers, claiming Hamilton at this stage of the season would cost $1 million -- a bargain if he helped win one or two meaningful games in the postseason.
During the long regular season, carrying a player like Hamilton on a roster could be problematic, given his lack of offensive production. But if Hamilton changes teams in the last week of August through a waiver claim, the club that acquires him would only have to wait a week or so before the September roster expansion. And in the postseason, the many scheduled days off reduces the need to carry a fourth and fifth starting pitcher or an eighth reliever, and gives more flexibility to carry a specialist ... like a speedy outfielder.
• When Chris Sale went through the draft in 2010, some teams steered away from him for fear of his unusual pitching mechanics, believing that his delivery made him a prime candidate for some kind of elbow injury and Tommy John surgery. After nearly a decade of dominance that included the final, finishing slider of the 2018 World Series, Sale has an elbow injury that will require a second opinion from Dr. James Andrews. The Red Sox are not outlining their range of concerns, but if the lefty requires an elbow reconstruction, he would be out for the rest of what is likely a lost season -- Boston's chances for reaching the postseason are down to 6%, per FanGraphs -- and just about all of 2020, the first year of Sale's five-year, $145 million extension.
But Sale's situation is just one piece of a larger problem for the Red Sox. David Price has also been having some physical issues, and Boston hasn't gotten much in the way of early returns from Nathan Eovaldi after signing him to a four-year, $67.5 million contract. The Red Sox are on the hook to pay Sale, Price and Eovaldi $79 million annually for the next three seasons, and nobody in the front office can predict with any level of confidence how much production the team will get for those deals. Rick Porcello will be a free agent this fall, and Mookie Betts will get a huge salary bump through arbitration this winter, so the Red Sox have to find rotation solutions without having a lot of payroll flexibility -- unless they make unexpected moves, such as trading Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr.
• The umpires clearly have a heightened awareness of the Yankees' strike zone complaints, in the aftermath of Aaron Boone's savage rant in July, and this probably contributed to the three ejections in Saturday's game. But outfielder Brett Gardner needs to end his passive-aggressive practice of slamming the barrel of a bat against the ceiling of the dugout. He may be right in what he told reporters after his ejection, that he never uttered a word of protest in the direction of the umpires, but anyone watching knows his actions with the bat are his way of demonstratively complaining about strike calls. Now that he knows the umpires won't accept it, he needs to stop doing it so he can remain in games.
Gardner has been a leader in his time with the Yankees in the way he plays and in how he treats teammates. And whether he's right or wrong about why his ejections are happening, part of being a leader is to make an adjustment and make sure he stays on the field.