Face it, the Colorado Rockies bullpen has had to log a lot of innings this year. Part of it is because of starters getting injured. Another part of it is because, even when starters haven’t been injured, the starters haven’t been all that effective either. Actually, if you are a Rockies fan, you’ve probably already faced it by now since, after all, someone from the bullpen has been out on the mound pretty darn often by now. In addition, you probably didn’t like what you saw and turned up your collective noses because, gawsh, it stinks and looking at the clouds was better than seeing who was the next sacrificial lamb to job to the mound from the bullpen.

I don’t blame you in the slightest either.

However, the smell (or stink, as you will) is actually a little more subtle than that. It turns out that the Rockies bullpen could have been pretty good if it had been handled all that well.

But first, let’s define the stink compared to the rest of the league. I am going to throw away stats that don’t matter for relievers like ERA and Wins and Losses and the like. If Mr. So-And-So comes in with the bases loaded and gives up a game-tying bases-clearing three-run triple, then gets a groundball to first base to end the inning and promptly leaves the game, his ERA is still 0.00 and he isn’t a factor in the loss. In other words, he looks like a stud unless you decide to count blown holds (or maybe blown saves). But nah, I’m not going to look at blown holds or saves either, just batters faced (BF) and pitching performance ratios over 9 innings to normalize for the number of Rockies innings faced compared to other teams. I’ve also made the table clickable so feel free to sort stuff back and forth if curiosity catches you. The stats are through 6/26/14 and courtesy of Baseball Reference.

Overall Bullpen Performance - 2014 Team BF G BF/G IP OPS OBP SLG H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9 WHIP SO/BB ROCKIES 1122 80 14.0 260.1 0.761 0.330 0.431 9.2 1.2 3.2 7.1 1.371 2.2 HOU 1037 80 13.0 235 0.753 0.335 0.418 9.4 1.0 3.4 8.0 1.426 2.3 DET 924 75 12.3 210.1 0.751 0.337 0.414 9.6 1.0 3.1 8.5 1.412 2.7 TEX 1084 78 13.9 251 0.741 0.329 0.412 9.4 0.9 3.0 8.2 1.378 2.7 TOR 1091 81 13.5 249.1 0.741 0.340 0.401 8.8 0.8 3.9 7.9 1.412 2.0 LAA 955 77 12.4 220 0.731 0.333 0.398 8.1 1.1 4.3 9.3 1.382 2.2 MIA 1103 79 14.0 250.1 0.730 0.339 0.391 8.9 0.8 4.1 9.4 1.446 2.3 CIN 878 78 11.3 199 0.718 0.331 0.387 8.2 0.9 4.6 9.2 1.422 2.0 ARI 1082 81 13.4 252.1 0.717 0.322 0.395 8.4 0.9 3.4 9.4 1.312 2.8 BAL 1061 77 13.8 249.2 0.712 0.327 0.385 8.7 0.8 3.2 6.8 1.314 2.2 MIL 991 81 12.2 235.2 0.710 0.314 0.395 8.7 1.0 2.9 8.9 1.290 3.0 NYY 1038 77 13.5 239.1 0.709 0.317 0.392 8.3 1.0 3.5 10.6 1.308 3.0 NYM 1075 79 13.6 251.1 0.702 0.326 0.376 8.0 0.8 4.2 8.7 1.353 2.1 CLE 1113 78 14.3 261 0.692 0.314 0.378 7.8 0.9 3.9 8.8 1.299 2.3 CHW 1090 80 13.6 250 0.692 0.343 0.350 8.0 0.6 4.9 6.9 1.436 1.4 LAD 1035 81 12.8 241 0.685 0.331 0.355 8.0 0.7 4.2 9.3 1.349 2.2 PIT 1070 79 13.5 253.2 0.676 0.316 0.360 8.1 0.8 3.3 7.8 1.261 2.4 PHI 940 78 12.1 222.2 0.672 0.308 0.365 7.4 1.0 3.8 9.3 1.244 2.4 MIN 1039 77 13.5 247.2 0.671 0.302 0.369 8.1 0.7 3.1 6.8 1.240 2.2 KCR 910 78 11.7 214 0.670 0.322 0.348 8.2 0.6 3.6 8.6 1.318 2.4 TBR 1101 80 13.8 260 0.670 0.305 0.365 7.5 1.0 3.6 8.4 1.231 2.4 BOS 989 79 12.5 237.1 0.669 0.305 0.363 8.1 0.8 3.0 8.8 1.239 2.9 ATL 922 78 11.8 214 0.656 0.321 0.335 8.3 0.5 3.7 9.6 1.327 2.6 STL 935 80 11.7 224.1 0.635 0.302 0.333 7.8 0.5 2.9 8.5 1.190 2.9 SEA 922 79 11.7 222 0.622 0.302 0.320 7.3 0.6 3.4 9.0 1.194 2.6 WSN 986 78 12.6 241.1 0.607 0.297 0.310 7.3 0.4 3.2 8.3 1.164 2.6 OAK 1000 78 12.8 245.1 0.605 0.283 0.322 7.4 0.7 2.6 7.7 1.109 2.9 CHC 994 77 12.9 237.1 0.605 0.296 0.309 6.9 0.7 3.8 8.3 1.184 2.2 SFG 920 80 11.5 233.2 0.596 0.275 0.321 7.0 0.6 2.4 7.0 1.044 2.9 SDP 1005 79 12.7 249 0.592 0.279 0.313 6.6 0.6 3.0 8.8 1.072 2.9

The Rockies bullpen has faced the most batters in the league, though part of that is because they’ve also played 80 games as of 6/26/14. If you want to talk bullpen burnout, the Cleveland Indians have actually leaned on their own bullpen more from a Batters Faced/Games Pitched (BF/G) ratio. However, as you might be able to tell from the H/9 and HR/9 ratios (and, of course, WHIP), Cleveland has fared much better than the Rockies. Interestingly, as bad as the Rockies bullpen overall might have looked, their WHIP ranks 22nd in the league… not something you would want to laminate and pin to your office cubicle, but it’s not like the sky is falling either. You do get some nice things in that the Rockies bullpen is the second best in the league in generating double plays with 32 and though their strikeout rate is also 4th worst in the league, their SO/BB rate is not horrible. The two bugaboos for the Rockies is a high H/9 rate, “bad” for fourth worst in the league, and a high HR/9 rate, which leads the league in Christmas cards sent by visiting players’ and their agents. Those hits and home runs add up as Colorado is the bullpen with the worst allowed OPT. I am Jack’s surprised face.

There’s a reason for that… Oh, you thought I was going to mention Coors Field? There’s your mention. Sure, it has “an effect”. Overall the Rockies pitching staff (starters and relievers included) have OPS allowed at home is .808 at home and .768 away in 2014… a slight difference. Since 2004, which I picked because 10 years seemed like a rounder number than 9 or 11 years, the OPS allowed difference had a similar gap (.798 at home and .759 away).

But that wasn’t the reason I was getting at. The reason is that the Rockies are the worst team in the majors, by far, at pitching on zero days rest. Take a gander, from an OPS perspective at all thirty teams where their bullpen pitcher throws on zero days rest in 2014.

Zero Days Rest By Team - 2014 Team BF G OPS IP H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO9 WHIP SO/W ROCKIES 233 55 0.970 47.2 13.3 1.9 4.2 7.6 1.930 1.8 DET 192 52 0.854 43.1 11.3 1.5 2.9 8.3 1.569 2.9 TBR 231 55 0.844 50.1 10.8 2.0 3.1 7.5 1.530 2.5 MIA 181 48 0.831 39.1 9.4 1.4 6.0 9.8 1.703 1.7 TEX 153 38 0.804 35.2 8.7 2.0 3.3 9.8 1.318 3.0 ARI 204 54 0.795 44 10.6 1.0 3.7 8.6 1.591 2.3 CHW 236 54 0.792 51 8.6 0.5 7.6 6.9 1.804 0.9 CIN 134 37 0.777 29.1 9.0 0.9 5.6 10.1 1.602 1.8 BAL 162 42 0.769 37.2 9.9 1.0 2.9 7.6 1.407 2.7 CHC 212 52 0.754 47.2 8.2 1.3 4.8 9.1 1.427 1.9 NYM 221 60 0.747 48.1 9.2 0.6 5.2 8.9 1.593 1.7 HOU 185 43 0.731 44.1 8.6 1.2 2.7 9.3 1.241 3.5 KCR 136 35 0.723 32.2 9.2 0.6 3.4 8.3 1.378 2.5 MIN 162 39 0.698 39.1 7.6 0.9 3.5 6.9 1.220 2.0 OAK 206 53 0.670 49 9.6 1.1 1.1 6.6 1.184 6.0 PIT 174 39 0.659 38.2 8.5 0.2 4.9 9.3 1.474 1.9 LAA 225 62 0.641 54 7.3 0.7 3.8 10.3 1.241 2.7 CLE 258 73 0.635 62.1 6.1 1.2 4.5 8.7 1.171 1.9 LAD 191 56 0.635 47 7.3 1.0 2.7 9.8 1.106 3.6 SEA 151 39 0.632 36.1 7.2 0.7 3.7 7.4 1.211 2.0 STL 226 60 0.619 52.1 7.6 0.5 4.1 9.1 1.299 2.2 NYY 191 45 0.619 47.2 7.1 0.6 3.1 10.2 1.112 3.4 ATL 255 72 0.610 61 7.1 0.4 3.5 9.0 1.180 2.5 MIL 280 68 0.593 70.2 7.2 0.5 2.2 9.4 1.033 4.4 TOR 161 35 0.584 39.2 6.7 0.7 2.8 7.3 1.034 2.7 SFG 179 50 0.548 46 7.0 0.6 2.0 7.2 1.000 3.7 PHI 212 55 0.546 54.1 4.8 1.0 3.5 8.8 0.920 2.5 BOS 171 48 0.542 44 5.5 0.8 2.7 9.4 0.909 3.5 WSN 134 35 0.520 33.2 6.2 0.3 3.3 9.9 1.040 3.1 SDP 184 52 0.480 49 5.7 0.2 1.7 9.0 0.816 5.4

On zero days rest, the Rockies relievers give up the highest OPS by far at 0.790. Contributing (detrimentally) to this are the Rockies relievers allowing the most hits per 9 innings in the league by far and have the second worst home run rate allowed. In addition, there is a slight spike in walk rate compared to the bullpen’s overall performance. Something else that is important to note is that it’s not like Rockies relievers are throwing on zero days rest a lot, compared to the rest of the league. With only 55 instances of relievers pitching on zero days rest, they are tied for 8th in the league.

However, with just one day of rest, compared to the rest of the league…

One Day Rest By Team - 2014 Team BF G OPS IP H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9 WHIP SO/BB LAA 221 54 0.897 46 10.0 1.6 5.9 9.2 1.761 1.6 ARI 285 71 0.790 66.1 8.3 1.5 3.5 9.0 1.312 2.5 NYY 214 53 0.785 45.2 10.6 1.2 3.8 11.0 1.577 3.0 DET 270 64 0.779 60.2 9.7 1.3 3.6 8.6 1.467 2.4 BAL 249 56 0.778 57.1 9.6 1.1 3.2 8.3 1.413 2.7 CHW 222 45 0.777 48.2 10.1 1.1 4.7 6.8 1.623 1.5 HOU 257 56 0.774 57.1 9.3 0.9 4.3 7.8 1.5 1.9 PHI 254 61 0.762 57.1 9.0 0.6 4.6 10.8 1.5 2.4 KCR 221 50 0.744 49 9.4 0.9 4.2 8.6 1.51 2.0 SEA 263 62 0.728 61.1 8.8 0.7 3.2 8.7 1.337 2.7 MIL 284 74 0.723 68 9.0 0.9 2.6 9.0 1.294 3.4 ROCKIES 305 77 0.721 75 8.4 1.2 2.2 5.9 1.173 2.7 MIN 270 60 0.718 65 9.0 0.7 2.5 5.8 1.277 2.3 BOS 333 79 0.713 79.2 9.1 0.8 2.4 8.8 1.268 3.7 NYM 371 82 0.680 87.1 7.6 0.9 4.4 8.3 1.34 1.9 TEX 291 62 0.675 67.2 9.2 0.7 2.7 7.7 1.315 2.9 OAK 274 57 0.675 63.1 8.3 0.9 3.9 7.5 1.342 2.0 CIN 247 58 0.669 57 7.6 0.6 4.9 9.3 1.386 1.9 STL 238 56 0.663 57.2 8.3 0.5 2.2 8.6 1.162 3.9 TOR 278 67 0.659 65.1 8.3 0.3 3.5 8.1 1.301 2.4 TBR 289 69 0.657 69.2 6.9 1.0 3.3 9.4 1.12 2.9 ATL 244 63 0.650 56.1 8.7 0.5 3.5 11.8 1.349 3.4 CLE 353 89 0.649 83.2 7.6 0.5 4.1 9.5 1.291 2.3 LAD 305 68 0.625 72.2 6.9 0.5 4.9 9.5 1.294 2.0 SDP 229 55 0.617 55.2 7.2 0.5 3.6 9.4 1.186 2.6 MIA 304 70 0.613 70.2 7.2 0.5 4.0 10.2 1.231 2.6 PIT 298 70 0.592 73 7.4 0.4 3.2 7.9 1.178 2.5 SFG 243 61 0.564 62.2 6.2 0.3 3.0 6.5 1.021 2.1 CHC 318 79 0.479 80 5.4 0.5 3.4 8.3 0.975 2.5 WSN 265 67 0.478 70.1 4.5 0.4 3.3 9.6 0.867 2.9

Yes, it appears that one day of rest is just enough for most of this crop of relievers. The Rockies drop to 11th worst, or in other words, the middle of the pack, with a .721 OPS allowed with that single day off. Even better, their BB/9 becomes the best in the league, their H/9 drops to the middle of the pack and even their HR/9 improves to 4th worst in the league. Overall, on one day of rest, the Rockies relievers’ WHIP is 6th best in the league.

Some of this is because of such a small sample size. Nonetheless, below is the table of performances based on each Rockies pitcher throwing on zero days rest.

Boone Logan stands out but let’s skip him since it’s just an inning and a third of work, albiet in three games. Rex Brothers has smelled like rotten eggs, adding fuel to the fire with allowing at least a walk and a hit and a half per inning. Adam Ottavino, as decent as he has been this season, hasn’t been decent, allowing nearly two hits per inning. Pretty much everyone’s ratios look horrid except for LaTroy Hawkins (who supposedly wasn’t going to throw on back-to-back days) and Matt Belisle.

The story changes significantly, as discussed earlier, with just one day of rest for members of the bullpen.

Rockies Relievers on One Day Rest - 2014 Player OPS G BF IP H HR BB SO WHIP Wilton Lopez 1.765 2 17 2.2 10 3 0 0 3.750 Chad Bettis 1.021 3 14 3 3 1 2 0 1.667 LaTroy Hawkins 1.000 7 30 7 10 2 0 2 1.429 Chris Martin 0.728 4 17 4 5 0 1 2 1.500 Adam Ottavino 0.690 15 56 14 13 2 3 14 1.143 Tommy Kahnle 0.670 8 34 8.2 7 1 3 2 1.154 Matt Belisle 0.642 14 53 13 13 0 2 6 1.154 Boone Logan 0.631 7 25 6.2 4 1 2 8 0.900 Franklin Morales 0.393 2 8 2 1 0 1 2 1.000 Rex Brothers 0.373 10 34 9.1 3 0 3 9 0.643 Nick Masset 0.243 5 17 4.2 1 0 1 4 0.429

Hawkins, eh, not that good, especially with home runs allowed. Bettis and Lopez are gone but their numbers still count (poorly). However, the rest of the bullpen looks pretty sweet. Ottavino becomes respectable and the frequently criticized Brothers becomes lights out to the point where even his walk rate drops significantly.

Let’s go there. Let’s look just at Rex Brothers and see how he does depending on his rest.



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Peering at the table above and with just one day rest and gosh, Brothers looks like an elite closer (albeit one who, in 2014, can’t pitch on back-to-back days). If he doesn’t get rest, though, he looks like me with a better strikeout pitch.

In fact, if you just look at the Rockies performance in general, the bullpen does significantly better for each day of rest given to the arm entering the game.



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Anyone at 6+ games rest is a reliever returning from the minors, so mentally toss out those numbers, though I include them since they are still a part of the bullpen. Anyway, after the mental tossing of six games of rest, it seems just one day is enough to make a difference. After two days of rest, the difference between that, three days of rest and four days of rest is virtually negligible. That trend even continues if we look back at data from 2012 through 2014.



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The nice thing about this kind of analysis is that it makes intuitive sense on the ideas that throwing without rest can be costly. I just didn’t expect the Rockies bullpen to do so much worse compared to the rest of the league.

So, maybe there is some kind of fatigue factor. It would be nice if it was possible to do splits to compare home and away performance as well as days of rest, but the (baseball-reference) technology, while cool, just isn’t that cool. It might also be an issue tied to these particular Rockies pitchers. The moral of the story is that the current crop of Rockies bullpen members stink primarily because they have been used so frequently with so little rest. Weiss needs to let some of them have a day off to smell the roses.