These stats explain how the Astros have mismanaged the bullpen

Enyel De Los Santos has likely pitched his last pitch with the Houston Astros. That isn't unusual or a slight to anyone necessarily. Middle relief is a fungible occupation and the Astros have played the roulette game well over the years. They have always had strong end of the game relievers, but the key is finding those two or three guys to handle the middle innings. They usually get them off the scrap heap and find a way to make them usable. De Los Santos has been that guy for a couple of seasons now.

We are going to look at a very simple Player A and B test to show how what managers do can have a dramatic impact on player performance and therefore team performance. De Los Santos will be one of the two players, but we will compare him with a second pitcher at the outset to look at how difficult it is to look at relief performance on face value.

Player A: 3-3, 71.1 INN, 4.79 ERA, 3.42 xERA, 4.11 FIP, 8.45 K/9, 2.52 BB/9, 1.39 HR/9
Player B: 2-3, 44.2 INN, 3.43 ERA, 4.21 xERA, 3.66 FIP, 8.26 K/9, 4.23 BB./9, 0.40 HR/9

Now, for the unsophisticated fan it would look like Player B is the far superior pitcher. This is especially true when you see that many of his runs were given up over the last four appearances. So, for much of the season he looked vastly superior. However, the xERA and FIP looks a lot closer and Player A did surrender two fewer walks per nine innings. Player B surrendered almost one fewer home run per nine innings.

I could see an argument for either one, but the numbers above are not all that there is. We also have the question of usage. I would personally choose Player B for this season and Player A over a multi-season scenario. Relievers are fungible because there is so much variance in batted ball luck. Player A is de los Santos and Player B is Nate Pearson. That has been a popular debate online for much of the year since Pearson was let go.

However, this is where I get back on my soapbox about the use of relievers. They aren't necessarily apples to oranges. DLS pitched an inning and a third or more in 21 of his 66 games. He surrendered 38 earned runs on the season. Twelve of those 38 runs were surrendered in games where he pitched 1.1 inning or more. That doesn't even count games where he finished an inning but was not able to record more than three outs.

This is where these layers start to look like a union. Those 12 earned runs came over the course of 34 innings. That's a 3.18 ERA in those innings. My assumption has been that the pitchers have pitched worse in multiple inning relief outings. That means he pitched 37 innings in his other games. According to the math he gave up 26 earned runs in those 37 innings. That means he had a 6.27 ERA in games where he was asked to get three outs or less.

In another piece, I looked at A.J. Blubaugh's outings and he had the exact opposite effect. He was great in single inning outings and less so in multiple inning outings. So, if the two saw their roles flipped then the Astros would have been much more successful. Again, this is a look at usage and we can look at Pearson the same way.

Pearson has pitched 40 games in those 44 innings. Five of his games came with more than one inning and two of those came as a Royal even though 24 of his 40 games came as a Royal. Only one of his 17 earned runs came in games where he pitched more than one inning. So, again the narrative doesn't necessarily match the numbers. We should note that eight of those runs have come in the last four outings.

Nate Pearson: 40 outings, 31 scorrless, 77.5 percent scoreless
Enyel de los Santos: 66 outings, 42 scoreless, 63.6 percent scoreless

Looking at percentages of scoreless outings is another way of judging effectiveness. Relievers see their numbers skewed when they see a handful of really bad outings. Again, Pearson ends up looking better. it is an interesting debate and it always gets complicated when you see inefficiencies in use. So, was Pearson really better this season or was De Los Santos simply not used correctly? I suppose Jim Crane gets to decide.

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