Bryan Price takes sabermetric approach to bullpen
By Bryan Holmes
Cincinnati Reds manager Bryan Price used a unique sabermetric approach to his bullpen in 7-1 victory over Pirates Monday night.
Bryan Price did something on Monday night that would make most traditional baseball minds cringe. At the same time, he made many sabermetric and analytical minds jump for joy.
In the top of the third inning, Price’s Cincinnati Reds were leading the Pittsburgh Pirates by a 4-0 count. Pittsburgh was threatening, loading the bases with no outs in the third inning. Then Price shocked everyone, pulling Brandon Finnegan for relief pitcher Michael Lorenzen.
To understand the logic behind this move it is important to understand one statistic: the Leverage Index (LI).
The LI is a measure of how important a situation is. To find the leverage index of a specific situation you would take the current base-out state, inning, score, and potential changes in win expectancy. From there you would multiply those changes by the proportion of the potential change occurring. After you got your number there, you would then divide by the average potential shift in win expectancy.
The LI is important because it allows us to place a quantitative value on something that we can tell using our own intuition. For instance, people can usually tell you what the turning points in games or matches are. Being able to quantify these high-level situations allows us then to assess how specific players perform in situations in which are high in intensity and importance (i.e. which players have the clutch gene).
Using this knowledge and the law of large numbers, which states that as the number of experiments in our sample (or in this case game situations) increases the actual ratio of outcomes will converge on the theoretical mean, we can make one basic assumption. Bringing in your most impactful player in the highest leverage situation in a game is going to be the most effective thing to do to win baseball games.
Relating this back to Price, the Reds bullpen, outside of one performance from Robert Stephenson against the St. Louis Cardinals, has been outstanding this season. In particular, Lorenzen has been lights out so far. So, in a high-leverage situation when Price had the intuition that Finnegan did not have his good stuff, he turned to his top option out of the bullpen in an unconventional way six outs into the game.
Using an integrated approach of analytics and intuition, Price was able to save a game in which many Reds fans will tell you they lose a year ago.
Further, Lorenzen’s role in the bullpen so far has ranged from setup man to middle reliever in the first week of the season. Not only did this work out perfectly for Price with Lorenzen but he pulled the right strings for the rest of the night as the Reds bullpen combined to face the minimum for the remainder of the game.
Price got a lot of criticism coming into the season for deciding to put Bronson Arroyo into the starting rotation instead of prospect Cody Reed. Price asked Reed to come out of the bullpen for the Reds. A place in which the Reds have had major struggles in over the past couple years. Even though Reed is in the bullpen, he still has his eyes set on the starting rotation. The same goes for many of the guys in the Reds bullpen like Michael Lorenzen and Raisel Iglesias.
Price’s strategy to use his prospects at the major league level instead of using them starting in the minor leagues is interesting. In one sense, they are getting to face better hitters. However, they are not able to stretch their arms out and get the amount of innings needed as starting pitchers. Alternatively, with all of the arm issues that have been plaguing pitchers over the past decade it could be a good thing to limit innings on young arms.
To these aspiring starters, Price is sending one message: You’re a pitcher first. Your role on this team is to pitch the ball and my role is to decide when you pitch. Price made this message evidently clear last night in his postgame press conference when he said, “Don’t worry about saves, holds, etc…just help us shake hands after the game.”
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If you have followed the Reds or been part of the organization for the past couple years, it has not been fun. It has been a time of frustration and losing. Except for a few players on this roster, almost all these guys have no clue what it is like to be on a winning baseball team. Price is instilling a culture in Cincinnati that promotes winning above everything.
In no way is Cincinnati expecting to make the playoffs this season but if Price and company keep this mindset for a full 162-game season, they will be a fun team to follow.