What Went Wrong -2018 Bullpen

It’s amazing how poor our bullpen has been after the overhaul this past winter, which seemingly injected new blood into the pen.

Let’s start with last year:

Lost in 2018
Oh – 59 innings – 4.10 ERA, 4.43 FIP, FA
Nicasio – 11 innings – 1.64 ERA, 2.89 FIP, FA
Duke – 18 innings – 3.93 ERA, 5.29 FIP, FA
Broxton – 15 innings – 6.89 ERA, 4.77 FIP, FA
Socolovich – 18 innings – 8.68 ERA, 5.28 FIP, FA
Siegrist – 34 innings – 4.98 ERA, 4.39 FIP, FA

Sherriff – 14 innings – 3.14 ERA, 3.93 FIP, Injured
Rosenthal – 47 innings – 3.40 ERA, 2.15 FIP, Injured

Lucas – 7 innings – 3.68 ERA, 6.84 FIP, Traded
Alcantara – 8 innings – 4.32 ERA, 6.04 FIP, Traded

What’s amazing is the sheer level of turnover here. We jettisoned an entire bullpen’s worth of key players.

Players that we kept:
Cecil – 67 innings – 3.88 ERA, 3.26 FIP
Bowman – 58 innings – 3.99 ERA, 3.65 FIP
Lyons – 54 innings – 2.83 ERA, 2.86 FIP
Brebbia – 51 innings – 2.44, 4.13 FIP
Tuivailala – 42 innings – 2.56 ERA, 3.70 FIP
Gant – 17 innings – 4.67 ERA, 6.79 FIP

I look at that list and it really does look like a formidable base to build from. From the two lists, it seems like Mozeliak made the right call in who to bring back and who can seek other pastures.

Then this years numbers:
Cecil – 23 innings – 5.70 ERA, 5.35 FIP (WORSE)
Bowman – 23 innings – 6.26 ERA, 4.72 FIP (WORSE)
Lyons – 17 innings – 8.64 ERA, 5.02 FIP (WORSE)
Brebbia – 33 innings – 4.05, 2.98 FIP (WORSE)
Tuivailala – 31 innings – 3.69 ERA, 3.98 FIP (WORSE)

Every single one of them has had a worse season in 2018 than 2017.

Lets revisit the lost ex-Cardinals for 2018:
Oh – 47 innings – 2.68 ERA, 3.03 FIP (BETTER)
Nicasio – 39 innings – 5.77 ERA, 2.39 FIP (WORSE)
Duke – 37 innings – 3.62 ERA, 2.68 FIP (BETTER)
Lucas – 14 innings – 6.28 ERA, 4.21 FIP (WORSE)

So there’s a couple of guys that perhaps should have been kept. Of course, most of us (especially me) were clamoring to re-sign Nicasio, not Duke or Oh.

Mozeliak knew that we would need to supplement the five remaining holdovers at the very least. So he looked at the FA reliever market and targeted a couple guys.

FAs signed performance in 2017:
Holland – 57 innings – 3.61 ERA, 3.72 FIP
Gregerson – 61 innings – 4.57 ERA, 4.62 FIP
Norris – 62 innings – 4.21 ERA, 3.90 FIP

FAs signed performance in 2018:
Holland – 25 innings – 7.92 ERA, 4.56 FIP (WORSE)
Gregerson – 12 innings – 7.11 ERA, 4.74 FIP (WORSE)
Norris – 41 innings – 3.29 ERA, 3.09 FIP (BETTER)

How unfortunate…