The Futility Infielder

My girlfriend and I threw a rooftop housewarming party last night, so it was just as well that I missed the second game of the Yankees-Red Sox series. Partying with your friends while admiring the Manhattan skyline definitely beats watching the Yankee bullpen cough up five runs. Then again, coughing up five beers to the porcelain god would beat that sorry performance -- not that I had any problem keeping mine down, thanks.

Suffice it to say that there are a lot of frustrated fans pulling their hair out over these two teams' respective bullpens. Through last night's ballgame, both pens have the same bad ERA (5.29), though the Sox relievers have thrown nearly 50% more innings (146.1 to 100.1). More is definitely less here, and the Yanks can thank their starters for eating up the innings -- almost one more per game than the Sox (6.7 to 5.8).

Baseball Prospectus uses a method to rate relievers called Adjusted Runs Prevented, which is based on how many runs can be expected to score given the base/out situation when a reliever enters or departs. The BP numbers show the Yanks pen at -11.7 runs and the Sox at -19.8, about a full game worse. The worst offender on the Sox is the turncoat, Ramiro Mendoza, coming in at -7.9 runs (some would say he's still working for George Steinbrenner), while the worst Yank is Juan Acevedo at -7.8.

The two pens are constructed very differently, however. The Yanks adhere to a traditional hierarchy, with closer Mariano Rivera at the top of the food chain, a couple of servicable setup men, and several guys who apparently bathe in kerosene. The Sox, as you've read a thousand times, eschew the traditional notion of the closer, though confusion exists between Grady Little's and Theo Epstein's offices as to just what the hell that means. "Closer by committee" is the only-partially-correct shorthand; the Sox strategy is to *try* to deploy their best relievers in their highest-leverage situations. Their main problem is identifying just who their best relievers are, with the smart-assed answer being "None of the Above."

The AL East may well be decided on the relative strength of these two bullpens, not only in their performance but also in the front-office trade-deadline machinations which will bolster these sorry squadrons.

I've got plenty more to say about two pens, particularly the Yanks one (though some of it's unprintable), but I've got a full night of viewing ahead, with Roger Clemens gunning for 299 in Fenway (where he hasn't won since April 14, 2001) and a screening of Bad News Bears. Does it get any better?