Green Loses Grip on Bullpen Role

By Jack Flynn
Posted Wednesday, May 6, 2009

The worst pitcher in the Mets bullpen has an 8.76 ERA and a 2.108 WHIP so far in 2009. Opposing batters are hitting .346/.443/.538 against him, basically turning each hitter into the equivalent of Jackie Robinson in 1949. (You’ve heard of Jackie Robinson, haven’t you? The front room of Fred Wilpon’s new home sports quite a shrine to the man.)

This pitcher seems to have been dropped to the bottom of the depth chart, destined now to pitch only in games where he can be kept from doing too much damage to the team or to his own psyche.

And you thought Oliver Perez got off to a bad start this season?

Sean Green arrived to some fanfare as part of the Mets’ haul in the monster three-team deal that landed JJ Putz from the Seattle Mariners last winter. He has not lived up to expectations, having already lost two games in addition to the unsightly numbers mentioned above. Green seems to have been passed by Bobby Parnell in the Mets’ bullpen hierarchy, and perhaps not a moment too soon.

The low point of Green’s season was during last Sunday’s debacle in which he walked home the winning run in the Mets’ 6-5 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies. More and more, it seems that the uncharacteristically brilliant start to Green’s 2008 season with the Mariners may have been nothing more than an aberration.

Since July 23 of last year, Green has been relentlessly tuned up by major league hitters – more in line with the numbers he’s put up throughout his career. He’s given up 53 hits and walked 24 batters in a 37 1/3-inning stretch across two campaigns, good for an 8.92 ERA and a 2.063 WHIP.

Those are not the numbers of a major league reliever.

Green’s struggles this season illustrate the dangers of assigning bullpen roles to relievers too early in the season. The modern seven-man bullpen is a crowded one, and it can be difficult to get each member regular work. To combat that, today’s managers often make the mistake of assigning specific roles to as many relievers as possible, instead of simply letting his most effective relievers pitch in the most important situations.

Managers have closers who pitch the ninth inning with a lead, set-up men who pitch the eighth inning with a lead and long men who pitch two to three innings in games where the starter fails to make it through the fifth inning. How, then, are they supposed to effectively manage the workload of the other four relievers?

Cue the advent of the so-called “seventh-inning reliever” – generally one lefty and one righty specialist who the manager uses to match up against the first few hitters scheduled to bat that inning. If one reliever can’t make it through the inning unscathed – and that is often the case – then the other comes in to maintain the platoon advantage and to hopefully pick up the final outs.

Instead of assigning neat little roles to every reliever at his disposal, the modern manager would be better served by simply deciding who his best relievers are and using them in the highest leverage situations.

I’m not advocating a true bullpen-by-committee, where no reliever has a set role and anyone can be called upon to get the final three outs of the game. I’ve made my peace with the closer’s role in today’s game, although I still think that modern closers aren’t used optimally.

I am saying that managers shouldn’t be so quick to assign set roles to his other six relievers, especially before they’ve had a chance to prove that they have earned that role. It doesn’t matter what it says on the back of the baseball card – reliever usage is so volatile year-to-year that veteran middle relievers simply cannot be counted on to live up to past performance.

It would also help if modern managers realized that the most important out of a baseball game sometimes comes with the bases loaded and two outs in the sixth inning of a two-run game – and would use their best available reliever to get that final out.

An optimal bullpen would have a closer and six relievers consistently jockeying for the right to be the set-up man. Better yet, those relievers should be jockeying to get the ball whenever the most important out of the game needs to be recorded – regardless of what inning it is.

Jerry Manuel didn’t have to set the roles of his relievers so rigidly coming out of Spring Training. Because Putz had been a closer in Seattle, he deserved the first shot to pitch in the eighth inning or to get that one big out this year. The other five relievers who broke camp – Green, Parnell, Feliciano, Stokes and Darren O’Day – should’ve been used in a variety of roles early on to see who could be relied upon in the most important situations.

Almost immediately after the trade with Seattle was completed, Green seemed to be anointed one of the Mets’ seventh-inning relievers. He and Pedro Feliciano were already given the role – a pair of “set-up” set-up men, if you will. Sunday’s meltdown may have been the last straw – it’s hard to imagine that Green will be given the ball with any margin for error any time soon.