Ed Wade, previously with the Phillies, is known to be a master at assembling a strong bullpen. Wade, presently GM for the Astros, has attempted to do the same in Houston. As soon as he took on the job, Houston Astros relievers like Brad Lidge and Chad Qualls were shipped out, and guys like Valverde, Brocail, LaTroy Hawkins and others came in.
Wade’s philosophy is pretty cut and dry. A bullpen is critical to a team’s success, but you never know who may fizzle out or go down to injury, so it’s important that your bullpen is deep and diverse. While this comes at an extra cost, it usually shields the team from adversity. Looking at this season, though, it seems like the payroll in Houston for the bullpen is quite high.
The Houston Astros team is paying an exorbitant $18,400,000 to its relievers in 2009. Whether this seems like a lot or not, the following stat will put it into perspective. The Dodgers pay $7,200,000 this season and the Cardinals pay $6,200,000. The $11-12 million difference could easily land the team an elite starting pitcher, or two very skilled ones at that
To be fair, I don’t think Wade planned it to work out this way. His idea last winter was to trade Valverde after he had already re-signed Brocail and Hawkins, probably believing the two would compete for the closer job in spring training. When the economy collapsed and no market seemed to exist for Valverde, last year’s NL save leader, Wade decided it was smarter to keep him and bite the bullet financially. That decision had a trickle effect that cost the Astros Wolf and Ty Wigginton. I’m not arguing here that Wade made the wrong decision, only that those were the cards he chose to play.
You would think with an $18 million dollar bullpen, they would pitch like gangbusters, but that hasn’t exactly been the case. Through Wednesday, the Astros’ relief corps has a 4.28 ERA. They are ninth in saves and next-to-last in blown saves and save percentage (only Washington is worse). All the key members have spent at least part of the season on the disabled list. Part of the problem traces to Cecil Cooper, who seems to treat his bullpen pitchers like a drunk treats whiskey bottles. He goes to them early and often until they are all used up and, even then, he checks them periodically to see if he can coax one more drop from them.
Cooper has irresponsibly used many of the team’s relievers, most notably LaTroy Hawkins and Chris Sampson. During the first three months of the season, Cooper showed little regard for their potential fatigue, and this resulted in injuries on the part of both players last month.
From here, many critics are pointing out the extra money the Astros could have used toward a quality starter or hitter as opposed to all of these expensive relievers. It seems that the Astros’ bullpen experiment has failed in 2009, and the team will either need to choose to regroup by shuffling up its core of relievers, or to slim down the bullpen’s salaries, relying more on young pitchers and spending the extra proceeds on proven starters or hitters.
The Astros do have some talented young pitching in Bud Norris and Felipe Paulino, not to mention Wandy Rodriguez, whose contract expires after the season. Players like Hunter Pence and Michael Bourne have rising contracts, and Miguel Tejada will be an undertaking in its own class. With this all said, there seems to be no way the Astros can hold onto such an expensive bullpen without making sacrifices in other departments.
Then again, this is Ed Wade’s team and we know how much he loves bullpens.
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