Cole boosted a strong rotation, but the no-roles bullpen is a loser
HOUSTON — A.J. Hinch is not the first Astros manager to decide he didn’t need a designated closer. Some 23 years ago, Terry Collins unveiled his No Roles Bullpen, which was largely a product of Todd Jones being less automatic than the manager wanted as a saver.
Jones could throw hard and accurately. Most of the time. But most isn’t enough if you’re a closer. A starter can be good 60% of the time, but a closer is expected to save 85% and stay composed 100%. There were too many times when Jones was flappable.
Especially at Coors Field. “I just can’t pitch here,” he fumed after another disastrous mile-high venture. Honest to a fault, Jones could not be oblivious like Houston’s great closers, the cheerful/stoic Dave Smith and the self-effacing Billy Wagner, endlessly joking about how bad his curveball was.
In 1994, too late for Smith and a bit too early for Wagner, Collins had to juggle his bullpen, like Hinch is doing in the wake of the ongoing Ken Giles train wreck. I’ve never seen anyone throwing 98 mph who’s as hittable as Giles.
Unless it was Brad Lidge, who wanted to save the game that would put the Astros into their first World Series, in 2005. But a pitch from Lidge to Albert Pujols was returned over the Minute Maid train tracks.
It was one of the most devastating blows ever. It took Lidge three years to recover, psychologically. The Astros were swept in the ’05 Series by the White Sox, with Lidge yielding two game-winning homers. After a dreary 2006-7, Lidge was gone from Houston, though he did rebound nicely in Philadelphia, closing out the ‘08 World Series.
I can’t help wondering if Giles is the new Lidge. The postseason meltdown (0-2, 11.74 ERA) turns out to be no fluke. This season Giles is a horror on the mound (5.23 ERA) and can be more alarming when he leaves it.
Last week, after delivering a 450-foot game-winner to the Yankees’ Gary Sanchez, Giles punched himself hard in the chest and in the jaw as he approached the dugout. Then he picked up a bat and smashed it on the concrete floor.
Hinch said, in his understated way, “In an ideal world you handle it a little more calmly and without the violence.”
Hinch has lost confidence in Giles, who has lost confidence in himself. So it will be closer by committee until Chris Devenski, Brad Peacock. Hector Rondon or Somebody establishes himself as a No. 1. So far none has been consistent.
The Astros lead the majors in ERA at 2.66 but rank 25th in saves with six – only three by Giles. Their bullpen is worse than most realize. Entering Tuesday night’s game in Oakland, their starters were 17-8, relievers 5-7, on a team that ranks third in the majors in scoring runs.
The bullpen is the one section of the roster that the otherwise brilliant general manager Jeff Luhnow persistently neglects.
The Astros won the 2017 World Series with clutch relief from three of their usual starters: Peacock, Lance McCullers and Charlie Morton. The regular bullpen – Giles, Devenski, Will Harris — repeatedly flopped in late postseason innings.
So instead of bolstering his bullpen in the offseason, Luhnow traded for big-name starter Gerrit Cole. Although Cole is pitching better than ever (3-1, 1.40 ERA), the team struggles to survive late. Houston has dropped behind the LA Angels in the American League West.
As brilliant as Cole is (77 strikeouts in 50 innings), the Astros needed a closer and a lefthanded reliever more than they needed another ace starter to go with Cy Young winners Justin Verlander and Dallas Keuchel and curveball masters McCullers and Morton.
McCullers could be right when he gushes, “We may have the nastiest stuff by a five-man group ever assembled.”
He has the spin rates, FanGraphs, sabermetrics and radar to back him up, but so what? There’s nothing that dampens the morale of a baseball team like a bullpen blowing leads and shifting wins to losses.
That’s the part of managing that always troubled Terry Collins the most. When his relief pitchers asked him what their roles were, Collins said, “Your role is to get people out.”
He liked having flexibility of matchups and staying with a hot hand. If a middle reliever was rolling in the seventh inning, let him go to the eighth. Who needs a setup man?
“Some middle relievers liked it,” Collins said, “because they got a chance to show what they could do under late-game pressure.
“But I got the impression most of my players really didn’t like the uncertainty. So I went back to the roles.”
Relievers wanted to be labeled as closer, setup, middle reliever or long relief/spot-starter. Astros batters didn’t like worrying about who would be coming in from the ‘pen. It wasn’t their business, but they couldn’t help worrying.
In 1995 Collins returned Jones to the back end of the bullpen and kept him there even as his ERA kept rising. Jones ballooned from 2.72 in 1994 to 3.07 in ’95 to 4.40 in 1996.
Then Jones went on to Detroit and Wagner took over as Houston’s closer. Wagner, whose fastball sometimes touched 100, held the role until 2004. Then he had a falling-out with owner Drayton McLane, which led to the emergence of Lidge, whom Giles is trying not to emulate.
As for Collins, he could not survive the Jones debacle in ’96 but managed the New York Mets to the 2015 World Series, in a season in which Jeurys Familia saved 43 games.
As for Jeff Luhnow, he may end up regretting that in Gerrit Cole he got exactly what he wanted, but not what he needed.