The Atlanta Braves Bullpen: A Disaster Waiting To Happen

Much was made of manager Brian Snitker‘s management of the Braves bullpen in their recent 14-10 come-from-ahead loss to the Chicago Cubs: “Why was Luke Jackson being used?” “Why wasn’t José Ramírez taken out sooner?” “Why was Peter Moylan brought in against a lefty?”

The simplest answer is, he didn’t have a lot of choice due to overuse of the bullpen.

The number one reason for the overuse of the bullpen has been the inability of the starting pitchers to go deep into games.  So far this season, the average length of a start by each starting pitcher is as follows:

• Anibal Sanchez – 5.5 IP
• Brandon McCarthy – 5.4 IP
• Sean Newcomb – 5.2 IP
• Mike Foltynewicz – 5.1 IP
• Julio Teheran – 4.7 IP

Due to these short outings, the Braves bullpen is absorbing, on average, 4.0 innings per game.  Even though there have been several off-days already this season, the bullpen is being thoroughly overworked so far in 2018.  These are the current number of appearances and innings these relievers are on pace for this season:

• Sam Freeman – 116 games, 85 innings
• A.J. Minter – 81 games, 81 innings
• Arodys Vizcaino – 81 games, 77 innings
• Shane Carle – 69 games, 123.1 innings
• Dan Winkler – 81 games, 92.2 innings
• Peter Moylan – 81 games, 46.1 innings
• José Ramírez – 69 games, 61.2 innings

There’s no way the current bullpen can hold up this kind of workload for any length of time.  There are several possible solutions to this dilemma:

1. Getting more innings from the starting pitchers is paramount.  Increasing their average outing to 6.0 IP per start can reduce the current bullpen workload by 25%, minimizing the number of roster moves necessary to get the bullpen through the long season.
2. Find more dependable arms in the bullpen.  Brian Snitker has shown a propensity for leaning heavily on his most dependable relievers and it seems he has greater trust in more arms than in the past.  However, this bullpen could use another dependable long reliever since Shane Carle is working himself into more high-leverage situations.
3. Rotate arms.  The Los Angeles Dodgers, an organization which Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos was employed by in 2017, made creative use of the newly adjusted 10-day disabled list and options to keep a steady stream of arms moving between the big club, AAA and the disabled list.  This enabled the Dodgers to use 29 pitchers in 2017, ten of which started at least one game with only one starting more than 28 games.  The Braves now have seven pitchers at AAA and two at AA that are already on the 40-man roster so some or these players could be used in this manner.

In the end, the Braves need to proactively find a solution to this situation before injuries and ineffectiveness due to overuse force them to do so.