As much as the Phillies winning excites me, there has become a constant “Here we go again” feeling when the bullpen comes in. Considering the bullpen was expected to be a large strength this season, even before Seranthony Dominguez was called up, the results have been rather surprising. It’s not even the relievers in general, it’s the 9th inning specifically. A 4.80 ERA in the 9th over the full season, one of the worst marks in the majors and a step down from last season. In fact, it’s been 10.66(!) for the month of June alone. It’s bad, it won’t be bad forever, but it’s bad.



With the trade deadline coming up, it’s easy for fans to look at guys like Brad Hand and say “He’ll fix our problem”, but that’s just not necessary. The fix to these blown leads is not external, it’s internal. The talent is there in the bullpen, the run prevention just hasn’t been. The relievers have had strong seasons in the past, and even in the 9th inning this month they’ve had a combined xFIP of 4.18. Dominguez has solidified himself as one of the better relievers in the game already, and Neshek hasn’t been healthy all year. With those 2 alone, there shouldn’t be much worry among fans about the long term issues in the pen. Even Edubray Ramos and Victor Arano are dominating in his role so far. And then you look at those struggling: Neris has a 3.14 DRA and peripherals that match his solid seasons in the past, Luis Garcia with a career best 3.05 DRA, and Tommy Hunter with a 3.83 DRA. Yea, the Phillies sure have the talent, but there still needs to be some sort of fix, or reason as to why they are struggling.

So if the problem can be fixed without acquiring more arms, then what exactly is the problem. There are a few possibilities:



1. It’s just luck. The advanced stats seem to like the Phillies pen, and really it’s only been about 15 innings worth of poor results. Before June, the bullpen put up a 3.02 ERA in the 9th, are we sure we trust these past few weeks more than those 2 months? During June, in innings 7 through 9, Phillies pitchers have a strand rate of 62.7%, one of the lowest in the Majors. In the first 2 months of the season, it was at 78.1%, closer to league average. The percentage of fly balls given up that have gone out of the park has gone from 8.5% in April and May, to 17.9% in June, despite not allowing much more hard contact. It certainly makes sense that over time, there will be regression to the mean, and the Phillies bullpen will perform solidly as it did in April and May.



Counter-Argument: Do you mean to tell me that nearly every single reliever just happens to have bad luck at the same time? And it just happens to all come in the same inning, regardless of who is pitching? Dominguez, Arano, Morgan, Garcia, and Neris all see their numbers fall off a cliff from innings 6 through 8 to the 9th. There are too many instances of this for it to be all just chance.



2. The pressure of the 9th is getting to the relievers. If fans get a little uneasy even with comfortable leads in the 9th, why wouldn’t the players feel the same? Every time a runner scores against the bullpen at this point, the fans boo. It can definitely be hard on the players to deal with this sort of pressure, especially the younger ones. Outside of Neris and Arano (in the minor leagues), none of the relievers being thrown out into the 9th have spent an extended period of time being the true “closer”. In fact, the pitchers that have spent a majority of their professional baseball careers as starting pitchers (Dominguez, Hunter, Morgan) have the biggest drop offs in performance from the 8th to the 9th inning. The best thing Kapler can do to fix this is to pick a closer and stick to it, even if there are growing pains at the beginning.



Counter-Argument: This doesn’t take into account guys like Neris, who have had success in the 9th inning before, and research has shown that leverage ultimately doesn’t hurt a pitcher’s ability to pitch. And besides, a 1-run game in the 8th should have more pressure on the pitcher than a 5 run game in the 9th, but why does it feel the other way around in this case?



3. It’s not the pitchers, it’s the defense. Well great, here we go again with the defense talks, how is it all of a sudden that much worse in the 9th? On the season, the Phillies have allowed a BABIP of .300. In the 9th, that has jumped up all the way to .329. In the 9th inning in June, that has skyrocketed to a Major Leagues high .413. The batted ball profile from the 1st through 8th to the 9th doesn’t change all that much to think this is on the pitchers, this very well may just be on the defense. It’s not shifting, the BABIP actually jumps up when there is no shift in the 9th to .353, while down at .299 for the whole game. Looking a little bit further into it, more balls seem to be getting past the infield in the 9th compared to before. Over the full game, Phillies pitchers surrender a .256 BABIP on ground balls, while it jumps up to .293 in the 9th. You could argue that this goes along with the pressure point from above. Young guys like Kingery and Crawford will feel pressure in the 9th, especially when they are out of position. Although I do not have the statistics to back this up, I also believe that this may have to do with the noticeably high number of defensive substitutions during the game. Putting a player in after sitting for a couple of hours may not be the best strategy, even if it usually is meant to give you an upgrade.



Counter-Argument: The BABIP on ground balls in the 9th has actually gone down in June, and home runs given up by relievers has become a problem as well. It’s pretty hard to put all the blame on the inexperience of the left side of the infield, when only a small fraction of balls are hit that way. Even if it is substitutions, they usually are to put a better defender in the game over somebody like Hoskins, and you would think 12-year MLB veteran and long time bench player Gabe Kapler would know more about how defensive substitutions can affect the team than most of us.



All-in-all, it’s hard to pinpoint one exact reason as to why there has been a lack of success, chances are it has been a mixture of everything listed above. In my opinion, the Phillies front office does not need to make a major move on the trade market for a reliever (if we do though, come to me Kirby Yates). Instead, I think the Phillies need to have patience with what they have, and find stability in terms of who they want in the field and who they want on the mound in the 9th.

Statistics provided by Fangraphs.com, Baseballreference.com, and Baseballprospectus.com