Breaking Down Braves New Pen

A year after converting only 57% of their save opportunities (NL worst) with a carousel of 18 relievers, the Braves have a revamped bullpen. Although some of the blown saves were surely the result of bad luck, it should be noted that isolating stats solely based on the bullpen and hitters faced yields a strikeout rate of only 6.73 K/9IP (14th out of the 16 NL teams) and a K/BB rate of 1.54 (15th in the NL)…not good.

Considering those stats and a starting rotation consisting of John Smoltz (39 years old), Tim Hudson (recurring oblique issues), Mike Hampton (coming back from Tommy John surgery and now having to deal with a strained/torn oblique), Chuck James, and Kyle Davies (both of whom are unproven), the Braves desperately needed to address this issue. Below is a breakdown of the improvements made.

Bob Wickman – The Braves actually acquired Wickman during last season in exchange of minor league catcher Max Ramirez, a good move considering that they already had catchers Brian McCann, Brayan Pena, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Wickman, who was resigned this offseason, will start the year as a closer, which is good since he is not the best pitcher in this bullpen. Bringing even a league average pitcher in to throw one inning, while already having the lead, will result in converting the save more times than not. I’m certainly not the first person to make this point, but it seems to get lost too often when bullpens are discussed. Don’t you want your best pitcher coming during the 7th inning with runners in scoring position and your starter laboring?

Having said that, Wickman should do a fine job in this role. Opposing hitters have slugged only .371 against him over the course of this career (with his one hiccup coming in 2004 when the league slugged .462). Additionally, he keeps the ball on the ground, owning a career GB/FB ratio of 2.31 (although it’s been slightly lower in the past few seasons), and has kept his HR allowed to single digits every year since 1996. You would like to see a higher strikeout rate, but barring a drastic increase in walks (which is unlikely), Wickman shouldn’t have many issues.

Mike Gonzalez – Acquired from the Pirates in the LaRoche deal, left-handed Gonzalez has dominant stuff. In each of his three seasons (ignoring the 8 innings he threw in 2003) he has racked up more than 10 strikeouts per 9IP and never allowed the league to slug even .290 against him. Gonzalez has shown slight groundball tendencies (1.2 GB/FB for his career) and has remarkable HR/9IP rate of only .52. Certainly more that a lefty specialist, he will be one of the guys that counted on to bridge the gap to Wickman in the 9th.

Rafael Soriano – Atlanta obtained Soriano from Seattle for left-handed starter Horacio Ramirez. A quick aside here: Ramirez’s rookie season of 2003 is the perfect example of why W-L records should not be taken into consideration. In that year, Ramirez went 12-4 in 29 starts. In his 12 wins, the Braves scored an average of 9.17 runs. This isn’t from the offense exploding for 20 runs in one game to skew the mean, either, as Atlanta scored 8 or more runs in 8 of those twelve victories. The bottom line on Ramirez is that he has never averaged even 5 K/9IP in a season and barley walks less than that…he’s not a very good pitcher.

Back to Soriano. The big question mark with him is his health. He missed two years due to Tommy John surgery and has had a recurring sore shoulder/neck (which has actually flared up this spring, reportedly from exercising in a pool). I’m choosing to ignore the line drive he took off his head late last year, as that was a freak accident and has nothing to do with durability. That aside, Soriano should average about a strikeout per inning this year and about 3 strikeouts for every walk. As long as he can control his flyball tendencies (he has a .60 GB/FB ratio), Soriano should be very effective for Atlanta.

The rest of the bullpen will be filled with a yet to be determined group chosen from Chad Paronto, Oscar Villareal, Lance Cormier (although he will more than likely be in the rotation until Hampton comes back sometime in April or May, maybe longer, as Hampton will probably contact Kerry Wood for more creative ways to become injured), Tyler Yates, Blaine Boyer, Macay McBride (lefty specialist), and Peter Moylan. While none of these will particularly strike fear in the heart of NL hitters, they should be adequate in filling the roles needed to supplement the three additions mentioned above.