Dodgers' bullpen is a problem that needs to be addressed

The Dodger bullpen is a problem. That's not a secret, and it doesn't take a ton of analysis to figure out.

The Dodgers' starting rotation has a 3.26 ERA, fourth-best in baseball. The Dodgers' relief pitchers have a 3.74 ERA, 18th-best in baseball. You could get into fancier stats -- perhaps more appropriate to the question, or that would help break it down as to why it's so. But all that's going to lead you right back to the same place -- the bullpen isn't getting the job done.

The influence of a bullpen on the team's win-loss record explains a good portion of why the Dodgers have been so disappointing in the first third of the season. The bullpen's win-loss record is 4-14. While the win-loss stat is generally a terrible evaluator for relievers, it certainly tells a story here. No other team is doing worse in bullpen games.

The question, as always, is what are you gonna do about it?  Four things can happen, hopefully all in the positive direction.  Injuries heal, prospects get a chance, new blood finds its way in the organization, volatile reliever performance pendulum swings the other way.

One thing that's going to happen is the Dodgers will two quality major league pitchers back from Tommy John surgery soon. One is Chad Billingsley and the other is Scott Elbert. A lot of people forget about him, but he's a lefty who had some major league success in 2011 and 2012. Dr. Neal ElAttrache attached Elbert's elbow ligament in a June 2013 surgery. So he's maybe a month-and-a-half behind Bills (April 2013), although, everyone heals at his own pace.

Elbert, in case he's faded from your memory, is a hard-throwing lefty who gets a lot of strikeouts. He had a 2.43 ERA in 2011 and a 2.20 ERA in 2012. Hey now! But he's not really that good. Earned run average for relievers is an awkward measure of ability -- especially for guys who pitch a lot of partial innings like Elbert. A reasonable expectation might be that he has the talent to put up a ~3.70 ERA going forward. He's probably a solid contributor, but not a shutdown guy.

Meanwhile, what will become of Mr. Billingsley upon his return? If everyone is still healthy, that's six legitimate above-average major league starters. He might begin his path back to the rotation in the bullpen. Sooner rather than later, they'll probably have to convert either Bills or Dan Haren or Josh Beckett to the bullpen. That certainly ought to help in terms of quality bullpen arms. But all three of those guys are pitching for a contract. Haren's contract has a team option that turns into a player option if he throws 180 innings (plus he has incentives he can reach for this year if he stays a starter). So, none are going to be real happy about that kind of move. This gets right back to Don Mattingly's comments about too much focus on individuals, but it is what it is. You'd like to keep all six so when something does happen, you're not relying on Paul Maholm and AAA guys. Someone will go on the disabled list eventually, and there will be starts for all these guys. But in the meantime, there'll be some additional agitation.

What about prospects? The Dodgers have some legit options in the minor leagues. Chris Reed, Yimi Garcia, Colt Hynes, Zach Lee, Matt Magill, Jose Dominguez, Paco Rodriguez. Any of these guys has a good chance of being better than several of the bodies in our bullpen right now. But to get any of them in would require cutting ties with Maholm or Chris Perez. Perez was one of the worst pitchers in baseball last year. The Dodgers took a chance on him and he's one of the worst pitchers in baseball this year. Mahom has more walks than strikeouts. How much more does management need to see of these guys?

What about getting some new blood from outside the organization? A lot of relievers available for nothing but money who were snapped up lately: Todd Coffey, Carlos Marmol, Kevin Gregg and Luis Ayala. Ned Colletti didn't bite on any of them. Well, there's a few more: Octavio Dotel, Brandon Lyon, Ryan Madson, Christian Martinez and Heath Bell.

Also, Cuban defector Raciel Iglesias is supposedly ready to be in the big leagues right now, but he has not been cleared by the U.S. government to work in America yet. A college pitcher from the draft could get promoted right away in principle, but that seems exceedingly unlikely. Many relievers are probably available in trade -- Jose Veras, Jim Johnson, Grant Balfour -- a lot of teams are having the same problem as the Dodgers. Proven closer is a laughable concept. Cross your fingers and hope we don't overpay in trade. It seems almost inevitable.

Until some of the actions above start to kick in, the Dodgers are left with the same scary crew out there. The overuse issue has been reduced with Clayton Kershaw back from the DL. But the bullpen was actually worse in May (89 innings, 4.16 ERA) than April (95 innings, 3.78 ERA).

So, we just have to hope for things to work themselves out. The well-known volatility of relievers goes both ways. In 16 innings so far in June, the bullpen has a 1.15 ERA and the walk rate is back to respectable (good, even). On the season, the Dodgers' relievers are striking out 24 percent of batters they face (fourth in the league), but walking 11 percent (which is terrible, 25th in the league). They are trending in the right direction each month though, so if the bullpen's control is under control, that's one less frustration to deal with. The feeling of a reliever coming into a close game and proceeding to walk a couple guys en route to blowing the game is one of the lousiest fan experiences.

	K%	BB%	K-BB%
April	26%	12%	14%
May	22%	11%	10%
June	35%	7%	28%
MLB	22%	9%	13%

Photo credit: File photo

Looking at the Dodgers' numerous bullpen options for 2014

The Dodgers have a LOT of guys who are viable bullpen options, not even counting starting pitchers who are biding time. It's likely all these guys see action at some point during the year, but what should the pecking order should be?

I looked at the peripheral stats for all the guys and projected how I think they'll do this year. The rigorous approach led to some surprises and insights. Here's my list of candidates, and projections for these players, with Dodger Stadium as their home park, in 2014.

Pitcher	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	ERA
Kenley Jansen	12.6	2.5	0.7	2.10
Brian Wilson	8.9	3.9	0.3	2.77
Jose Dominguez	8.5	4.3	0.4	3.15
Paco Rodriguez (L)	10.2	4.5	0.7	3.29
Jamey Wright	7.0	3.5	0.6	3.53
Yimi Garcia	8.6	3.3	1.1	3.64
Javy Guerra	7.5	4.0	0.7	3.76
Chris Perez	8.4	3.4	1.1	3.89
J.P. Howell (L)	7.6	3.8	0.9	3.91
Scott Elbert (L)	9.0	4.3	1.0	3.96
Brandon League	5.4	2.7	1.0	4.08
Seth Rosin	6.5	3.6	1.1	4.15
Onelki Garcia (L)	7.9	5.4	0.9	4.17
Chris Withrow	9.1	5.2	1.2	4.79

Kenley Jansen, of course, is a beast, and I feel good about Brian Wilson ($10 million looks like an overpay in light of later "closer" signings this winter, but whatever). Rodriguez ought to bounce back from a poor close to the season. That's three good guys, which goes a long way to having a solid bullpen. Relievers are volatile, but you can be pretty sure about the A-listers here at least.

Chris Perez and Brandon League are what they are -- and it could go a lot worse than what you see here.

Some guys I thought were pretty good actually just got lucky last year, or temporarily elevated themselves (I'll believe it's permanent if they do it again), and I'm not sure I see them carrying their performance level through to 2014. I'm speaking specifically about J.P. Howell and Chris Withrow.

A lot of people are down on Withrow, and I couldn't see why. I remember him getting a lot of outs last year. He did better in the majors than he ever did in the minors in terms of strikeouts and walks. He also had a completely unsustainable .205 batting average on balls in play (BABIP). Howell also had a crazy-low BABIP (.241) and a HR rate 1/3 of his career average.

On the other hand, I think there's a few guys who I weren't thinking of that highly who could surprise this year.

Jose Dominguez , Yimi Garica and Javy Guerra look ready to make the jump to solid big-league contributors. Dominguez is going to get the strikeouts with that 100 MPH fastball, and I think he'll continue to limit the number of home runs he allows. His control isn't great, but it'll play. Yimi Garcia has a great slider that's striking out everyone. Guerra has been up and down, but if you normalize his BABIP & HR/FB, he actually looked good last year in both the majors and Triple-A. Jamey Wright is an ageless marvel. Seth Rosin, I don't see what the Dodgers see.

Rodriguez and Howell have the two lefty spots pretty much locked up. Scott Elbert Onelki Garcia are both recovering from surgery. Elbert is a mid-year return, while Garcia hopefully is ready close to opening day.

As far as minor-league starters spending a little time in the bullpen, I see Zach Lee (4.22 ERA) and Stephen Fife (4.28) as not that great this year. Chris Reed (4.69) and Matt Magill (4.96) just do not look good to me. Ross Stripling (3.56) is the one guy I think could contribute in that role. The numbers in parentheses are how I project them as major league starters, so perhaps they'd do a bit better in the bullpen (on average, bullpen ERAs are about 0.3 lower despite having lower quality pitchers than starting rotations). However, maybe they'd have a hard time adjusting (Fife's season was basically ruined by the disruption last year).

Paul Maholm (3.83), Josh Beckett (3.80) and Chad Billingsley (3.55) all might or might not be asked to get in the bullpen business too, with Dan Haren (3.62) as an extreme outside shot. Most likely, they'd be at least toward the middle to upper-end of the pack if they had to do that.

A lot will go into the decision besides performance -- who has what kind of contract situation in terms of minor league options, Rule 5 status, etc. There's also who the Dodgers might want to showcase for a trade, or how Beckett's recovery is going, and so on. But opening day is just a point in time. People will get injured or be ineffective and others will get their chances.

Photo credit: Dustin Nosler, Feelin' Kinda Blue