Joey Bullpen and Chase Headley

Two quick hitters for you today:

Never change, Joey Bullpen:

I’ve covered this before, so I’m going to pass over the numbers that say it’s insane to use your best relief pitcher in a game where your team is either leading or trailing by 3 runs or more (that’s a game whose outcome will be the same with 99% of MLB pitchers, 99% of the time).  However, it is absolutely crucial to have him in games where you’re leading or trailing by 2 runs or less, as he gives you a significantly greater advantage than an average pitcher does in that case. 

So I’ll get right to some more information with the aforementioned as a back drop and frame of reference:

Yankees manager Joe Girardi recently said that the “extra wear and tear” of pitching for the Cubs in the World Series last season may be a reason Chapman is struggling this season.  “…sometimes it does catch up to you…”, Joey Bullpen explained.

In fairness, even with missing last April, Chapman did log a career high in innings last year when the regular season and post season were combined.

But whether or not he’s fatigued as a result is an irrelevant question.  The question is, if you believe that to be the case, how do you handle it ongoing?

I’ll tell you how I would NOT handle it, if I believed he were struggling as a residual side effect of over use:

I would not use him in meaningless games.  I know, I’m a crazy person, right?

In 42% of Chapman’s appearances THIS season, Chapman has been used in games where one team led the other by 3 runs or more. 

Essentially, in almost half of his appearances, Chapman - the $86 million dollar man - has been used in mop up duty.

This includes his first 3 appearances of the season in April where he was called on to “close out” games with 5-0, 7-3, and 8-4 leads.

This includes, when after being used against the first place Red Sox on July 14^th, and 15^th he was called on to protect a three run lead on the 16th.  They had another game against Boston later that night, for which he was unavailable.

Maybe it isn’t how Joe Maddon used him.  Just a thought.

I was wrong:

Chase Headley is, in fact, as bad as everyone has told me he is.  Among 19 Major League 3^rd baseman (or, 3^rd “basemens” as Paul O’Neill says) who have qualified for the batting title and have played 80% of their games at 3^rd base:

Headley is 11^th in OBP, 17^th in SLG, 18^th in OPS+, 18^th in WAR, and 18^th in dWAR.

I’m not going to try to do Brian Cashamn’s job for him, but I will say the prognosis is bad if you’re looking to upgrade.  Todd Frazier, Nick Castellanos and Yunel Escobar aren’t much better – definitely not worth giving up a breathing body for.

Thanks to NJ.com and Baseball Reference.