Seattle Sports Insider

SSI's Bullpen - These 7 Guys

Posted by

3/23/11

Tom Wilhelmsen draws skepticism because he pitched in A ball last year. Usually that's important, but in this specific case it's less so:

7 games, 44 IP, and 37:15:1 ... only 1 homer vs 37 strikeouts
Wilhelmsen is an old guy, comparable to George Sherrill going from Indy to MLB inside 1 year
The Mariners judge his career-arc to be no issue

He's on the 40-man roster and I'd be inclined to go with him as the 12th reliever. But you can't accumulate a series of guys who are implod-able.

............

Wilhelmsen throws hard, and remember, relieving is much easier than starting. Anybody who can throw Strike One to every hitter, at 93 mph, with some semblance of location, is going to be all right for one inning.

Cut The Cards Factor = 3 to 10, equal chances of drawing any specific card.

Luke French is the lefty you want. More after his start tonight, but: the essence of sabermetrics is to value performance over visual impression.

French has been performing beautifully for almost a year. What do you have him in the org for, if he's going to exceed your wildest dreams and then you're going to kick him to the curb?

We don't want to overstate it too much, because if French goes down, he'll be back up. But this is an important principle: when you keep a guy around, and he hits his 99th Percentile, and then you reject him, it's a red flag that you are in a state of internal confusion.

Cut The Cards Factor = 9.

=== SSI Bullpen ===

Any similarities to MLB bullpens are strictly coincidental:

CL David Pauley, phased in for League over the next three-four weeks
SU League
SU Lueke
LHP French
MR Ray, possible transition to Aarsdma role
SW Wilhelmsen
MR Wright, for stoploss, lack of nerves and good lefty splits

It has only two non-roster guys, those being Ray and Wright. It has a Calm Guy, that being Wright, who gets phased out as soon as you're comfortable that the young pen (Leuke, Wilhelmsen etc) has settled in.

If you were super worried about having a LOOGY, and didn't care for French / Wilhelmsen / Lueke for that role, you would sub in Royce Ring for somebody -- for Wright if you don't buy into "chemistry," for Wilhelmsen if you do.

Don't stress over it. It'll change after the first couple road trips.

=== Dr's R/X ===

Deal a coupla nice 'spects for a legit short man. The 2011 season is worth something, as evidenced by the decisions on Michael Pineda and Jack Cust.

Or don't.

BABVA,

Dr D

Comments

Why French is in AAA

I think French is in AAA because he is the 6th starter and the chance that the M's don't need a 6th starter by June 1st is 7.896% :) If Bedard is healthy, Pineda is dealing, and neither Vargas or Fister have turned into pumpkins by June 1st, then you can convert French into a lefty reliever. Or at least that is my guess what is going on here.
I do, however, share your worries. The M's bullpen hasn't been this devoid of talent since before Pat Gillick took the reigns. Jamey Wright aspires to be Bob Wells *shudder*.

League looked impressive tonight

His command has been frazzing in and out on him this spring...might just be rust...but League was throwing like 60% sinkers tonight and got some seriousl hilarious swings on them. I don't know why he doesn't throw that pitch more often.
I am not a French fan...he looked miserable tonight...but I do still think he's the best LOOGY we have right now.
The Rockies have a ridiculous amount of bullpen depth...can we trade, say, Mike Saunders for one of those extra arms?

Eventually: Pryor and Moran

Both have potential to be killer bullpen specialists.
Injuries to Aardsma and Kelley obviously set the team back. They sent Cortes to winter ball to groom him as a closer, and he regressed. Oops. The Bavasi projects of Fields and Varvaro crashed out. I sensed they had high hopes for Delcarmen, but he busted, too.
But the next generation, led by Pryor and Moran, is way more promising -- just not here yet.

an interesting point re: French

presuming that the M's consider him the best of the rest, maybe he needs to go to AAA to stay stretched out. Hadn't really thought of that.
:cpoints:

Agreed on 3-for-3 amigo

They couldn't touch his splitter with a paddle.
And funny, I was thinking the same thing: what would they want for Betancourt... would be tempted up to and including Liddi, Poythress etc...

Relief arms we should have

...eventually, as you say. Pryor makes me nervous with his motion, but I've seen uglier from pen arms. His stuff is brutal, and we didn't pay him that money to coddle him. He's gonna get pushed.
I like Burgoon and Bischoff as well as two arms that could have a lot of helium on their rise through the minors. The Goon had a bit of an arm issue last year that delayed him but came back from it strong. Both could be in AA by the end of this year. Doesn't mean they will be, but relievers can move quickly if they show dominance.
Bischoff was either utterly dominant or occasionally very hittable. His outings were either zeros and Ks or he'd get lit up. I'm curious to see him against better breaking ball pitchers. Both guys were closers in college.
Boyce was a college closer as well for his first couple years (after elbow surgery). He started the last two, though, and likes starting better. He's done both for us, and done both well so far, but it's low minors. A 5th year senior should beat up on Pulaski. He's got some work to do still, but is an arm more in the Ryan Franklin mold.
Kesler is a fat, short RH reliever with previous arm surgery. Low 90s heat and improving breaking stuff let him wipe the floor with the NWL. That's sort of like destroying your local play-in tourney for the World Series of Poker when compared to what he'll need to do to be successful in the bigs, but it's still nice to see.
Moran is just untouchable, no matter the park so far. AA will be his big test, but I expect him to ace it and make it to AAA or even the big-leagues this year.
There are some pen arms that are gonna make a move this year, even without any starter-to-relief conversions that could make guys like Wilhelmsen into fast movers as well. We have some older returning players too, though sadly no Varvaro. I was pulling for that kid.
Our pen looks like it's gonna be white-knuckle to start the year. I'm not especially stoked about 4 or 5 of the potential members.
But help IS on the way.
~G