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It is crazy
One run game and he brings in Thompson who had not pitched for 10 days. Rusty, big suprise. The he brings in a struggling Gallegos who had pitched 2 of the last three days. Suprise he got scorched.
Next he brings in Pallante who had not pitched for for 6 days. Route complete
Early in the season Ollie had some success with Romero and Kitteredge in the 7th and 8th innings but Romero had not pitched in 4 days and Kitteredge 5 days.Instead of keeping those guys tuned up he has been using Gallegos, Libratore and the rookie Fernandez almost every game. Gallegos has the highet number of outings of the relievers and an ERA of 5.40 and 1.44 WHIP.
Fernandez has 4 excellent outings and 2 not so good. He has been used in high pressure situatiions but Ollie is eventually going to get burned using a rookie that way.
Libratore has shown improvement but he went 8 days with no action. and had pitched 2 of the last three days. His supposed to share long relief with Thompson but has been used all over the place.
Helsley blew a save in March but had 7 straight saves in April as a 9th inning guy. But in the extra inning loss to Milwaukee he doesn’t use Helsley in the 9th. Puts him in the 10th and he gives up an unearned run on a ground ball that got throught the infield.
Ollie clearly has no plan to keep his best relievers and his long relievers sharp.
Ollie has no clue about the importance of roles. Tony L. was a genius there. Establish roles are extremely important. When other players are used in what another feels is his role that sends a lack of confidence message. Which leads to uncertainty, possible over exertion and injury. A good manager establishes roles for every player on the roster, gets the player to accept the role and is flexible enough to be ready to change roles depending on performance.
Using Fernandez in a high pressure role in his major league debut was idiocy. Got away with it but still idiocy. His proper use of the rookie is to start using him in middle innings and gradually move him to high pressure based on his performance. He has neglected keeping Thompson, Romero and Kitteredge sharp while giving a lot of innings to Gallegos, Pallante, Libratore and Fernandes. Those latter four have FIP of 5.87, 4.83, 3.62 and 2.60. Meanwhile there is Helsley-2.50, Romeron-2.19, and Kitteredge-1.51
If you wonder why the team is underperforming IMHO a lot of it is Ollie’s failure to have clear roles for many of the players, his obsession with platooning and benching player who are going good so early in the season. Winn has been outstanding but has been out of the starting lineup twice. And the second time hurriedly put back in middle of the game.
There could be some extenuing circumstancdes due to minor injuries for Ollie’s actions but there are just too many examples.
Sooner, I do not think Marmol is stupid, nor unfamiliar with managing a pitching staff. There is no way he would come up with anything as ridiculous if left to his own devices. His job depends upon making use of the analytics spew that comes cascading downstairs. It is that process that just doesn’t work. Either the spew itself is worthless or it is just not actionable in brick and mortar baseball. Certain people don’t think the wonks are in charge, but a guy like Marmol who has been in field management for years would not come up with the nonsense we see if he was not being pushed.
“Ollie has no clue about the importance of roles. Tony L. was a genius there. Established roles are extremely important. When other players are used in what another feels is his role, that sends a lack of confidence message. Which leads to uncertainty, possible over-exertion, and injury. A good manager establishes roles for every player on the roster, gets the player to accept the role, and is flexible enough to be ready to change roles depending on performance.”
Yup. Well said.
You’ve summed up Marmol’s sub-mediocre tenure quite eloquently, Sooner. When it comes to the bullpen he doesn’t understand roles, or, just as importantly, the difference between rested & rusted — as you cited in detail.Thanks, Sooner, for articulating the frustrations of so many Redbird fans.
What we are seeing from Marmol is no different from last season. If he were coming up with all that bungling on his own, why would he have been extended? The answer is he wouldn’t have been. He is doing the job that he is supposed to do putting the spew into action. If he were replaced, it would be with another minion, and would make no difference.
Maybe Mo wants a manager who does what he says. Most of the Cardinal field staff has little championship background as field staff.
Bullpen usage is the least of our worries right now. We could have eight Bruce Sutter’s out there and it wouldn’t matter because you have to actually be able to score to win.
Here we are going into May in last place…
Someone explain to me why we don’t have a new Manager? Is last place the new norm?
Are the Cardinals the new Cubs?It’s not all on Ollie. Mo hasn’t provided him with a good enough pen. We are getting mostly 4-6 inning starts, which seems like the new normal, and there are 3 reliable guys in the pen. Maybe 3.5 guys. That doesn’t work. Gallegos is clearly unable to be effective, King, Robertson, Rule 5 guy. Thompson and Pallante did nothing but get blown up.
Other than Helsley, who was drafted 9 years ago and will turn 30 shortly, its all guys Mo has brought in. When they need a guy, they’ve got Robertson and KIng. If, god forbid, they get past that and have to go with a guy developed in house the best they have is Leahy, a 17th rounder who literally has not posted a respectable ERA since A level ball before the pandemic. What has player development been doing for the last 5-10 years? They cannot even manage to supply middle relief. I am not an Ollie fan, but his decisions as to use of the pen is not the problem.
bling said:
…there are 3 reliable guys in the pen. Maybe 3.5 guys. That doesn’t work. Gallegos is clearly unable to be effective, King, Robertson, Rule 5 guy…
Not so. It seems you haven’t done your homework.
“Rule 5 guy” has been very good. 17 K against 5 BB in 12 1/3 innings. 2.92 ERA and 1.054 WHIP are just fine. I think you should learn his name, Ryan Fernandez.
In his limited time up, Robertson hasn’t allowed a run. 4:1 K/BB ratio. What more are you expecting from him?
King has a 3.86 ERA in his few innings. Hardly a debacle.
If O’Brien and Middleton can come off the IL soon, that should give Marmol even more to work with.
True that they all came from the outside, but how about also giving the organization some credit for seemingly doing a decent job filling the obvious gap?
how about also giving the organization some credit
I have no reason to carry water for a last place team.
In his limited time up, Robertson hasn’t allowed a run. 4:1 K/BB ratio. What more are you expecting from him?
Yesterday, for example, he came in with RISP. He had one job, he failed, the runs were charged to somebody else. But “he hasn’t allowed a run”. Jeesh, Brian, come on.
Fernandez has faced 50 batters in his DEBUT season to date.
Slash line allowed:
.182 / .280 / .295 / .575He’s currently the #5 pen guy for me.
bling said:
I have no reason to carry water for a last place team.
I feel sad when any positive comment, however small but factual, is waved off as being water carrying. How miserable that must be.
Taking an objective view, the bullpen ERA is 3.87 (15th in MLB) so far this year compared to 4.47 (ranked 23rd) last year. That is significant improvement. The new guys have contributed to that. Could it be better? Of course. Is it a major problem? Certainly, it’s not at the top of the list.
Bling said:
In his limited time up, Robertson hasn’t allowed a run. 4:1 K/BB ratio. What more are you expecting from him?
Yesterday, for example, he came in with RISP. He had one job, he failed, the runs were charged to somebody else. But “he hasn’t allowed a run”. Jeesh, Brian, come on.
Alert: Small sample size of one data point. I think that was the first time this season Robertson inherited runners and yes, both scored. I am neither saying he is great nor I am a declaring him a failure based on one day.
Alert: Small sample size of one data point. I think that was the first time this season Robertson inherited runners and yes, both scored.
He has only pitched in two games (4 innings).
So nothing can be said about his performance to date, based on it being a small sample size.
But I agree with Bling, for relievers we need to look at an adjusted ERA which factors in their inherited runners scoring. Too bad with all the fancy analytics we can’t come up with such a useful stat.
I think Ollie could do a better job when he doesn’t have his big three available. He was too quick on the hook with Leahy last night. But Gallegos has been a disaster and that is a tough one since he has been decent in past years, albeit inconsistent.
Still puzzled by Ollies bullpen moves. Yesterday in game 2 he goes with Gallegos late and down one. Gallegos has done well for us in the past but is probably the most ineffective bullpen guy we had. Got burned again and we go into the ninth down 5 instead of 1.
Also if Libratore is our long relief guy why has he been used late and on succesive days. He is probably unavailable for long relief until at least Friday or later. Romero, Kittersdge and Helsley work fine for 7,8 and 9. Why keep messing around. And I do understand you can’t use that trio every day–but Gallegos.
Gallegos is getting to the point of maybe being released. They won’t do that, but he has been that bad and should only be used in blowouts, never in a game where we are up or down 3 or less.
I’ve seen some shoddy work from Gallegos over time, but I can’t recall ever seeing him worse than he was in yesterday’s 11-6 loss. A few more similar appearances may very well spell the death knell on his career as a Cardinal.
In his limited time up, Robertson hasn’t allowed a run. 4:1 K/BB ratio.
I should have said, ‘in his limited time up’, he had one job and he failed. That apparently gets around the small sample issue.
What more are you expecting from him?
I am expecting him to not let inherited runners score. His sole reason for existing. I assume you are expecting something else?
Anyway, Leahy bombed even worse, so its him that’s gone and Robertson will get anotherr chance.
That was the B-team bullpen game Sooner. The previous 2 games made the holds/save relievers unavailable so Gallegos and others were the choices that game.
I have Libby as #4 currently. Keep the innings coming.
Anyway, Leahy bombed even worse, so its him that’s gone and Robertson will get anotherr chance.
Bling, I’m not sure your definition of bombed is the same as mine. Leahy came on in one inning and inherited runners and kept them from scoring by getting the 2 outs needed. Then the next inning gets started with a weak ground ball to Crawford where he can’t quite throw out the runner. Good process, bad result. Then he gets another ground out. Then he gives up a double to Torkelson that goes off Burly’s glove. A faster outfielder gets that. But this is the second time in the inning that the defense really allows the hit. Still, it was solidly hit so ok, bad on Leahy. Then he strikes out Roger’s but the ump doesn’t call it a strike. Then he gets the ground out from Rogers. That should be 4 outs now that he’s gotten that inning or at least 3. Then he gives up the homer to Perez on a pitch in the middle of the plate. Ok, bad process there for the rookie. Finally, he gets a fly out to end it. It goes in the books as 1 2/3 innnings and 3 runs. But it easily could have been zero runs with better defense. This is what happened again and again to our pitchers last year, but so far has mostly not been the case this year.
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