2006 in Review- the Bullpen

Now that 2006 is over, I'll be looking at one or two Pirates and their 2006 season each day. I'll look at what we expected, what we got, and what that might mean for the future. I may or may not assign a meaningless grade to their performance. Today: the bullpen

I'm running out of things to review. The bullpen can be done two ways, both as a whole and individually. Before this season started, everyone raved about how great our bullpen would be. They were terribly in the early going, but by the end of the season they had evolved into the strength everyone thought they would be. This must've made DL incredibly happy, as per his genius plan to make us a winning baseball team. Let's take it individually from here.

Mike Gonzalez- He had some control trouble early in the year and 31 walks in 54 innings is high, but 64 Ks and only 42 hits in those innings helps balance that number some. His ERA was low and he converted all of the save chances he was presented with, but ERA isn't a particularly good indicator of anything for a reliever and the save is one of the most flawed stats around. Still, I'm not complaining about Gonzo here. This year he validated the thought that we kept Jose Mesa around one year too long.

Salomon Torres- After his outing on June 24th, Sully clocked in with a 4.88 ERA in in 48 innings pitched. He'd been mostly terrible to that point and I was talking about how he was done and how we'd wasted money signing him. Jim Tracy was saying he just needed to pitch more. Somehow, Tracy was right. Over Torres' next 35 and 1/3 innings, Torres only allowed 8 earned runs. He filled in ably for Gonzo after he went down. He tied the Pirate record for appearences. I was wrong.

Matt Capps- Quite a year for a guy that started 2005 in single A. He logged over 80 innings out of the pen, was mostly effective, and had a 4.5/1 K/BB ratio. He had a 9-1 record which, while mostly indicates luck for relievers, is impressive. I've seen some concern over the amount he pitched this year, but he was a starter in the low minors and throws mostly a straight fastball, so I don't see any reason why he can't be used like he was this year. He's got "future closer" written all over him.

John Grabow- Grabow continued following a pretty defined arc of improvement on his career stats. Like Torres, he rebounded from an ugly first half to a very good second half. He was a fine LOOGY this year and I don't see any reason why that won't continue.

Damaso Marte- His surface numbers aren't so bad, but unlike Matt Capps his record (1-7) is more or less a direct reflection on Marte. Wilbur Miller describes that better than I could on his Marte profile. He was very effective against lefties, but not so vs. righties at all. The problem came in that he pitched more against righties than lefties. He's the reason why I don't understand the need for three lefties in the pen. The Bucs have an option on Marte for this year and it seems unlikely that they will pick it up.

No one else really pitched enough for full consideration this year. I'll pick the rest of them up in my odds n' ends piece tomorrow.

Stats from Yahoo! Sports.