June 7th vs Orioles

[Aaron]

313A323E3B3A216462152C343D3A3A7B363A550 wrote: I was told the Pirates bullpen was good.


Goes to show you how bad other bullpens are pitching.






Goes to show you can't read stats. There's nothing suggesting the Pirates have a good bullpen. Here is where they rank in the NL:



ERA - 7th

FIP - 7th

xFIP - 10th

WHIP - 9th

LOB% - 7th

Blown Saves - 6th.



AT BEST, they are average. But when you consider how absurdly top heavy the bullpen is, meaning there are only two good relievers, it cannot be considered anything but bad.

[dogknot17@yahoo.co]

4E6E7D60610F0 wrote: I was told the Pirates bullpen was good.


Goes to show you how bad other bullpens are pitching.






Goes to show you can't read stats. There's nothing suggesting the Pirates have a good bullpen.  Here is where they rank in the NL:



ERA - 7th

FIP - 7th

xFIP - 10th

WHIP - 9th

LOB% - 7th

Blown Saves - 6th.



AT BEST, they are average. But when you consider how absurdly top heavy the bullpen is, meaning there are only two good relievers, it cannot be considered anything but bad. 




Now. Those rankings jumped the last two games. Giving up 11 hits and 11 runs in the last 8.2 innings will certainly hurt any stat ranking.

[Aaron]

5259515D5859420701764F575E5959185559360 wrote: I was told the Pirates bullpen was good.


Goes to show you how bad other bullpens are pitching.






Goes to show you can't read stats. There's nothing suggesting the Pirates have a good bullpen.  Here is where they rank in the NL:



ERA - 7th

FIP - 7th

xFIP - 10th

WHIP - 9th

LOB% - 7th

Blown Saves - 6th.



AT BEST, they are average. But when you consider how absurdly top heavy the bullpen is, meaning there are only two good relievers, it cannot be considered anything but bad. 




Now.  Those rankings jumped the last two games.  Giving up 11 hits and 11 runs in the last 8.2 innings will certainly hurt any stat ranking.


No, not just now. This is a bad bullpen. It was a bad bullpen since it's inception and continues to be a bad bullpen through 2 months. The stats may finally be clearly bearing that out, but it's always been a bad bullpen. Any objective analysis since day 1 supports that.

[SammyKhalifa]

objective?



A quick survey "Season Preview" types of articles in non-Pirate sites seem to reveal that most outsiders viewed the 'pen going in as bit top-heavy but basically average. You could argue that average isn't good enough for this team, but it's still different than "bad."

[Ecbucs]

596B67677341626B66636C6B0A0 wrote: objective?



A quick survey "Season Preview" types of articles in non-Pirate sites seem to reveal that most outsiders viewed the 'pen going in as bit top-heavy but basically average.  You could argue that average isn't good enough for this team, but it's still different than "bad."


yeah, preseason it looked like the Bucs had an average bullpen that could be good if players came through. Unfortunately only Rivero and Nicasio are performing well and everyone else (except for Barbaro -had not expectations of him) is performing worse.



Still it seems to me that there should have been signs of this in spring training that management could have picked up on.

[SammyKhalifa]

7C5A5B4C5A4A390 wrote: objective?



A quick survey "Season Preview" types of articles in non-Pirate sites seem to reveal that most outsiders viewed the 'pen going in as bit top-heavy but basically average.  You could argue that average isn't good enough for this team, but it's still different than "bad."


yeah, preseason it looked like the Bucs had an average bullpen that could be good if players came through.  Unfortunately only Rivero and Nicasio are performing well and everyone else (except for Barbaro -had not expectations of him) is performing worse. 



Still it seems to me that there should have been signs of this in spring training that management could have picked up on.






And with the apparent . . . err, let's say "challenges" . . . in the rotation coming into the season, it would have been wise to get a really deep pen.

[Bobster21]

Entering the season, they couldn't have expected Watson to be this bad or Rivero to be this good. There should have been concerns about Watson since he allowed base runners in 16 of his 25 appearances last year after being named closer and had a 5.06 ERA in September. But dragging their feet on replacing Watson as closer has cost multiple games now. That should have been addressed weeks ago.



The opening day pen had Bastardo. He was expected to be adequate but was a disaster. Hudson was expected to be steady but has generally been very bad. Nicasio has been better than expected. LeBlanc and Williams were kept IMHO because Hurdle and NH anticipated the bullpen having to cover more innings than usual with Glasnow and Kuhl in the rotation. I can't say I expected this to be a very strong pen. But it should have been at least average. Failures by Bastardo, Hudson and of course Watson have hurt.

[dogknot17@yahoo.co]

Bastardo, Hudson, and Watson haven't performed. They are and were the veterans being relied on. Nicasio and Rivero have been pretty good as expected.



I thought entering the season those five would be solid with Bastardo being the biggest question mark.

[Bobster21]

68636B676263783D3B4C756D646363226F630C0 wrote: Bastardo, Hudson, and Watson haven't performed.  They are and were the veterans being relied on.  Nicasio and Rivero have been pretty good as expected. 



I thought entering the season those five would be solid with Bastardo being the biggest question mark. 
Great minds think alike. And even at the same minute!

[SammyKhalifa]

Yeah, I think they expected Hudson to play a large role in middle-late innings. That hasn't worked out so far. Forget Watson for a second, things might look even more different if Hudson were working right.