The Call-Up That Could Save The Tigers' Season
By: Will Burchfield
@burchie_kid
Leading up to the second half of the season, we're taking a look at what must happen for the Tigers to make the playoffs – qualification has always been their most immediate goal, and anything less would be a definitive failure. They're lagging in the race to October – 6.5 games behind in the division and four back in the wild card – but time remains for them to make up the ground. Yesterday we broke down the alarming vulnerability of Justin Verlander and Jordan Zimmerman. Today, we'll turn our attention to the bullpen.
Entering the 2016 season, the backend of the Tigers' bullpen looked markedly different than it did in 2015. After a year in which the team's various relievers had racked up 25 blown saves – the third most in the majors – that was decidedly a good thing. GM Al Avila brought in Francisco Rodriguez to stabilize the closer's role and signed Justin Wilson and Mark Lowe to fortify the cast of set-up men. In theory, the Tigers' bullpen was better.
In reality, it's – gulp – gotten worse.
There are various ways to measure that regression, but earned run average paints the clearest picture. In 2015, the Tigers' relievers posted a 4.38 ERA; through 89 games this season, that number has jumped to 4.53. But the crux of the problem is different.
Last year's bullpen debility was concentrated in the ninth inning. The Tigers had a carousel of closers, none of whom proved worthy of the job. As a result, blown saves accounted for a disproportionate share of the bullpen's struggles. That's not to say the relievers were infallible elsewhere – oh, hardly – but the ninth inning was a particular disaster.
K-Rod has completely remedied that issue this season, contributing near-perfect numbers as the closer. And yet the Tigers' bullpen has deteriorated as a whole. It's as if the team remodeled its kitchen while setting fire to the rest of its house.
Unless they can find a way to douse the flames, their season will go up in smoke.
The Tigers rely on their middle-relief pitchers at a league-average rate. Their starters last about 5.2 innings per start, which would be manageable with a reliable cast of bridge relievers. Too often, though, Brad Ausmus calls on his bullpen in the game's middle innings and watches things fall apart.
Seventeen times this season, the bullpen has either surrendered a lead or permitted the go-ahead run in the fifth inning or later. In 13 of those instances, the Tigers went on to lose. The relievers struggle to strand inherited runners and regularly pitch themselves into trouble when given a clean slate. And aside from the ongoing fiasco that is Mark Lowe, there's no telling who's going to implode on any given night.
That's what makes things so difficult for Ausmus. Sometimes Shane Greene looks like the solution to the bullpen's problems; other times, he becomes part of the problem itself. Some games Justin Wilson resembles the nasty lefty his stuff says he can be; other games, he can't get lefties out. The tune is the same for Kyle Ryan, Alex Wilson and Bruce Rondon. They're all solid, Major-League level pitchers with solid, Major-League level numbers.
In other words, not one of them is fit to be a setup man.
If the ninth inning was the Tigers' nightmare in 2015, this year it's the eighth. As a team, their ERA in the 8th inning is a ghastly 5.46, 28th in the league. That's not entirely due to the bullpen, it should be noted, and there's a certain level of randomness in play here as well. But it's too extreme an aberration to ignore.
How extreme? In the ninth inning, the Tigers' ERA improves to 3.64, an inning-to-inning difference of almost two full runs. At the risk of oversimplifying things, the explanation seems obvious. K-Rod, the team's best reliever, has pitched almost exclusively in the ninth. The erratic quintuplet of Greene, Ryan, Rondon and Alex and Justin Wilson has manned the eighth. And the numbers bear that out.
For the Tigers to make a push in the second half of the season, they need to find another reliable late-inning reliever. Ausmus is loath to using K-Rod before the ninth inning because it runs counter to conventional baseball wisdom, thus limiting the impact of his best arm in the bullpen. (Tie game in the eighth? Hmmm, let's try Justin Wilson tonight. Up by three in the ninth? Bring in K-Rod! Why so many managers still think like this is incomprehensible.) Avila will likely scan the trade market, but proven relievers cost a lot this time of year and the Tigers aren't in a position to forfeit more young assets.
If only they had a flame-throwing, strikeout-inducing, all-but-unhittable relief pitcher in the minors.
Oh, they do?
What's he doing down there?
Despite his sparkling statistics in both Single-A and Double-A this season, the Tigers don't seem eager to call up Joe Jimenez. They're wary of exposing him to big-league hitting too soon, suggesting his secondary pitches still need work. (At this point, he can more or less throw a fastball through a brick wall.) But the Tigers, an aging team with fading aspirations, can't afford to wait. The time to promote Jimenez is now.
Look at the boost Michael Fulmer has provided the Tigers' rotation. Look at the power Steven Moya has thrust into their lineup. Now it's the bullpen that needs a shot in the arm.
Jimenez is prepared to deliver it.
All he needs is, well, a shot.