Cubs Bullpen in Shambles

After Angel Guzman’s injury, the cubs’ bullpen is in shambles

Angel Guzman was the Chicago Cubs’ relief ace in 2009. He posted a sparkling 2.95 ERA and had a 1.97 WPA (Win Probability Added, which tallies the wins or losses against average provided by a player, based upon the play-by-play outcomes of each of their plate appearances and weighted for the relative importance of the situations in which they occurred) in a career-high 61 innings of big-league work.

Only 13 percent of balls in play against Guzman were line drives, versus a league average of 18 percent. Of the rest, he induced 23 percent more ground balls than fly balls. The team needed stability and command from its bullpen, and last season, Guzman alone provided it.

Guzman’s talent, however, has a painful caveat: he simply cannot seem to stay healthy. That flaw demonstrated itself plainly last week, when an MRI of Guzman’s shoulder showed a severe tear of the lower front ligament there. Worse even than his season, the injury threatens Guzman’s career.

It also puts the Cubs in a tough spot. The team sorely needed another good season from Guzman in an expanded set-up role, and now finds itself scrambling for bullpen depth. With left-handed starting pitcher Ted Lilly out for at least the regular season’s first few weeks, at least two of Sean Marshall, Tom Gorzelanny and Jeff Samardzija will be pressed into starting duty during April, and possibly even early May. Even thereafter, one of the trio will win the full-time starting job.

That leaves two—for the sake of argument, say Marshall and Samardzija—men to fill secondary relief positions. Carlos Marmol, deserving or not, is the teams’ anointed closer. John Grabow, although also undeserving of his pedigree, is the team;s left-handed set-up man. Finally, rookie Esmailin Caridad is the leader in the clubhouse for the right-handed set-up job.

There remain, then, only two spots in which the Cubs could comfortably carry pitchers. Mike Parisi will need to get a long look at one of those jobs, because the Cubs (who acquired him via the Rule 5 Draft) must return him to the St. Louis Cardinals if he does not make the Major League roster out of camp. Carlos Silva will get the first shot at the other role, simply because GM Jim Hendry finds eating the $25 million still owed Silva an unappealing idea.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, neither of those men are especially talented pitchers. Silva’s struggles over the last two seasons are well-documented, and Parisi looks like a fringe Major Leaguer at best. So both are likely headed out of town, and Silva’s contract will become a deadweight loss for Chicago. The Cubs will then need to head back to the drawing board, and decide all over again who deserves the final spots on their pitching staff.

This time, the emphasis should be on developing and extending younger, higher-upside players. Chicago acquired erstwhile Oakland reliever Jeff Gray during the off-season, but Gray has battled a strained groin this spring and may miss his shot to join the team out of camp. The team also has a stable of solid pitchers under the age of 26, including right-handers Andrew Cashner, Jeff Stevens, David Patton, Blake Parker, Justin Berg and Thomas Diamond; and southpaws John Gaub, Jeff Kennard and James Russell. All will get a chance to wow the Cubs’ coaches and executives during the balance of Spring Training.

The key to the Cubs’ pen, though, will be Lou Piniella’s willingness or unwillingness to be creative with his usage patterns. Baseball Prospectus, The Hardball Times and top-flight analyst Tom Tango have each independently found that relievers could likely withstand half again the workload most receive in the modern era. With that in mind, Piniella and pitching coach Larry Rothschild should look for ways to get more innings from fewer arms.

Marmol threw 74 innings last season, but if he proves that he can harness his awful control, the team should aim for something much closer to his 2008 total of 87 1/3 frames. Grabow is the bullpen equivalent of a workhorse, with 148 2/3 innings over the past two seasons, and should be a lock for about 75 again this season. The starting rotation ought to account for some 900 innings, bringing the team total to about 1,065. That leaves roughly 350 innings to be split among the five other pitchers on the staff.

Caridad and Samardzija have been starters all the way up the Minor-League chain, and Marshall has both started and relieved extensively during the past three seasons. If Marshall and Samardzija each start a pair of games, they can easily reach 75 innings apiece. Caridad, properly used, could account for many more. Any time a pitcher leaves with a lead after six innings, Piniella and Rothschild should bring in Caridad to throw the two bridge frames to get to Marmol in the ninth. Caridad is the perfect pitcher to push toward the first 100-inning relief season in recent memory.

That leaves just 100 innings to be accounted for. The team could carry twelve pitchers, splitting the remaining work between two fringe-level pitchers. Given the depth of their projected Minor League staff, however, they would be wiser to simply keep an active shuttle going between Triple-A Iowa and Chicago.

Gaub, Stevens, Berg and Russell could throw 25 innings each, with the team carrying only one at a time. That would give them an extra bat off the bench, and allow them to carry defense-first options (like Sam Fuld in the outfield and Andres Blanco on the infield) without losing significant amounts of offense or pinch-hitting options. If the team were to actually try it, that strategy could turn the negative of Guzman’s loss into a positive, and make the Cubs a legitimate contender for the National League Central crown in 2010.

Matt Trueblood