Call to The Pen

Last season, the Orioles shocked the Baseball world by turning the tables on the usual suspects in the AL East by winning 93 games, nabbing second place in the AL East, and one of the two wild card spots. The O's made the playoffs in 2013, making their way back to the post season for the first time in 1997. After making quick work of the Texas Rangers in the wild card play-in game, the Orioles ran into the Bronx Bombers in the ALDS. The Yankees outlasted the O's, beating them in a decisive game 5 to move on to the League Championship Series.

Since then, the AL East has undergone a make over. The Red Sox ridded themselves of big contracts like Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, as well as distractions like Josh Beckett. The Sox have since replaced that trio with a group of veterans like Shane Victorino, David Ross, Ryan Dempster, Jonny Gomes, Mike Napoli, and Stephen Drew. General Manager Ben Cherington prudently signed no players tied to draft pick compensation, and predominantly went after players considered "sure things" as opposed to big names and thus big risks.

Across the border, Blue Jays made the deal of the offseason, acquiring Jose Reyes, Emilio Bonifacio, Josh Johnson, and Mark Buehrle from the Miami Marlins in exchange for a bus load of prospects. After  years of prospect cultivation and development, the Blue Jays decided to use some young talent as currency in order to make a run at the playoffs. The Jays added the cherry on top of the sundae by making a second deal, this one for the reigning NL Cy Young award winner, knuckleballer R.A. Dickey. With this infusion of talent and experience, especially in the rotation, the Blue Jays are prime to make the playoffs for the first time since 1993.

The Rays, that scrappy young club from St. Petersburg, continued to rake in the young, talented, cheap, and team controlled players by trading veteran pitchers James Shields and Wade Davis to Kansas City. In Return the Rays received stud prospect Wil Myers along with pitcher Jake Odorizzi. While this deal didn't compare in size or impact to the dealings of the Blue Jays, the Rays secured one of the top MLB-ready talents in the minors without trading AL Cy Young award winner David Price, who's expensive arbitration years just kicked in. While this move might set the Rays back at first, with prospects like Chris Archer and youngsters like Jeremy Hellickson and Alex Cobb vying for places in the Rays rotation, Tampa looks to remain relevant in 2013 as well as the foreseeable future.

The Yankees offseason involved signing a number of older veteran players to short-term contracts, plugging holes, in order to stay under the luxury tax, but also not fall into the cellar of the AL East. The Yanks brought back Ichiro, Andy Pettitte, and Hiroki Kuroda, while adding veteran Kevin Youkilis to man the hot corner at 3rd. While these moves seem a bit desperate on the surface, the Yankees made shrewd moves that should keep them germane in the AL East in 2013. The only hole in the Yankees roster seems to be behind the plate, but the team has all spring training to figure out their backstop issues.

So, with every team in the AL East realistically eyeing the playoffs for the first time in years, what aspect might separate one from the rest of the pack? Last season, the Orioles used their brilliant bullpen to push them just past the Rays into the playoffs, and it seems as though the relief core may be the key to the east once again. In 2013, the O's bullpen put up a combined 6.4 fWAR, which ranked 3rd in the American League behind only the Royals and the Rays. Orioles relievers made quick work of the final innings of a game not by utilizing the strikeout, but instead by inducing more ground balls than any other AL East pen. In addition, the O's gave out few free passes, ranking second, behind only the Rangers, in BB/9.

Team	K/9	BB/9	LOB%	GB%	FIP	WAR
Rays	9.33	2.88	77.10%	46.40%	3.19	6.7
Orioles	7.49	2.87	78.50%	49.10%	3.68	6.4
Yankees	8.92	3.2	77.60%	44.90%	3.62	5.5
Red Sox	8.31	3.38	74.80%	45.10%	3.91	4.6
Blue Jays	8.58	3.51	74.10%	43.10%	4.21	2.5

The Orioles didn't have the best offense, nor stellar starting pitching, but Buck Showalter's bullpen kept the team in every game, making the Orioles a deadly foe in close games. Unfortunately for Baltimore, their incredible winning percentage in 1-run games and extra inning games came halted in the ALDS in which 4 out of the 5 games played ended with a margin of victory of just 1 run. Given that the Orioles bullpen became their key to success, and the growing parity in the AL East, what have Baltimore's rivals been up to?

David Robertson

The Yankees lost a key part of their 2012 bullpen, righty Raphael Soriano, but they were able to parlay his success into an additional draft pick by offering him a qualifying offer that he didn't accept. Instead, once Soriano signed with his new club, the Washington Nationals, the Yankees picked up a compensatory pick, which turns out to be the 32nd pick in this summers upcoming draft. The Yankees willingly parted with their 2012 bullpen anchor given Soriano's desire for a lucrative multi-year contract, the ability to obtain a draft pick in return, and most importantly knowing that future Hall-Of-Famer Mariano Rivera would return in 2013 to fill the hole left by Soriano. In addition to Rivera's return, the Yankees still have Nate Robertson, the strikeout machine, who has posted a 12.20 K/9, 2.70 FIP, and accumulated 6.0 fWAR since 2009. Between Robertson, Rivera, and a mix of Boone Logan from the left side, the Yankees bullpen should hold up late in games.

Roberto Hernandez

The Rays made some minor changes to their bullpen, but given their recent success, these changes should prove fruitful. Tampa traded ground ball specialist Burk Badenhop to the Brewers, replacing him with Roberto Hernandez, the pitcher formerly known as Fausto Carmona. Carmona, like Badenhop throws from the right side, and more importantly throws a hard sinker that induces a great number of ground balls. Since becoming a regular in the Majors, Hernandez has posted a ridiculous 58.4 ground ball percentage, good enough for a 2.26 GB/FB ratio. Hernandez did most of his previous work from the starting rotation, and while the Rays may ask him to spot start in a pinch, his role will be out of the bullpen where Joe Madden expects him to induce ground ball after ground ball. The Rays also resigned Joel Peralta while retaining the services of All-Star closer Fernando Rodney by picking up the 2013 team option attached to his contract. Add those names to lefty fire baller Jake McGee, and the Rays bullpen looks ready to buttress their young starting pitching for another season.

Koji Uehara

The Red Sox made headlines by signing lots of free agents this offseason, including a few in the bullpen. The Sox signed southpaw, and well traveled, Craig Breslow, now onto his 7th MLB franchise, to a conservative 2-year $6.25 million contract, added former Ranger's righty Koji Uehara for 1-year and $4.25 million, and traded for former Pirates closer Joel Hanrahan. In addition, the Sox will benefit from the return of Andrew Bailey from an injury marred 2012 campaign, especially since Bailey's 2013 will determine how much money the reliever will get paid in his 3rd year of arbitration. Oliver, a projection system created by Hardball Times' Brian Cartwright, projects good numbers from the Red Sox bullpen, especially from Uehara, who I think represents the keystone to success for this relief core. Also, don't forget about Daniel Bard, who many at spring training say is progressing nicely and might fit into the Sox pen around after All-Star break if the team moves a pitcher a the trade deadline.

Name	ERA	K/9	BB/9	FIP
Koji Uehara	2.99	10.15	1.39	2.74
Joel Hanrahan	3.64	9.90	3.93	3.08
Andrew Bailey	3.99	8.25	3.20	3.12
Junichi Tazawa	3.77	8.67	2.89	3.28
Craig Breslow	3.75	7.93	3.32	3.51
Alfredo Aceves	4.35	7.10	3.44	3.86
Andrew Miller	5.17	8.58	6.34	4.10
Total	3.95	8.65	3.50	3.38

The 2013 Blue Jays bullpen looks eerily similar to the 2012 pen that ranked middle of the road in some statistical categories and poor in others amongst AL teams. They coaxed lefty Darren Oliver to return, and remain hopeful that Sergio Santos can overcome shoulder surgery to return to his level of nastiness by June. The Jays put a lot of faith in their starting rotation, stocking it with work horses like R.A. Dickey and Mark Buehrle, as well as possible ace Josh Johnson. These three starters should lessen the load on the Blue Jays pen, but given Johnson's injury history and Buehrle's age, the Jays may need to call on their relievers in 2013 more often than they expect.

Darren O'Day

How about those Orioles? Did the organization with the golden bullpen do anything to improve on 2012? Instead of adding or subtracting, the Orioles did their best to keep their 2012 bullpen in tact for 2013. The O's avoided arbitration with Jim Johnson and Darren O'Day, two of the most utilized and important parts of their 2012 relief prosperity. The team returns Luis Ayala, Tommy Hunter, lefty Brian Matusz, and Troy Patton, all of whom they hope will continue to perform at a high level. While the O's may not have "upgraded" their bullpen, the team expects to add one if not two highly touted starting pitching prospects in mid-season, Dylan Bundy and Kevin Gausman. With the addition of these young stars to an already solid starting pitching staff, the Orioles have no need to tinker with a bullpen that already promises to keep men off base, and to induce lots of double plays late in games.

The AL East is a free for all in 2013, with no one team looking like the current favorite. Given that fact, each team has done their best to ensure that their bullpen won't be the one to falter in 2013. Most of a team's success derives from hitting and starting pitching, but with 5 teams so close to each other in talent and projected wins, it may come down to which relief core can hold the lead in the latter third of the game. While we can only attempt to predict which bullpen will be the most valuable in 2013, it is safe to say that the competition for the, most-likely, 2 playoff spots in the AL East should be fierce.

Patience

Chris Perez

Today, the Cleveland Indians announced that they had avoided arbitration with closer Chris Perez, settling on a 1-year $7.3 million contract. This was Perez's second year of arbitration, having qualified as a "super 2" player. MLB players with 3 years of service in the big leagues become eligible for arbitration. Arbitration lasts for 3 seasons, unless the player in question has almost three years of service (say 2 year 200 days) at the end of a season. In this case, MLB awards them "super 2" status, which allows the player to be eligible for arbitration for 4 years instead of the usual 3. Some teams have tried to use this to keep young players under team control for extra time, but the league recently changed the necessary dates of service time to make it more difficult for teams to exploit the apparent loophole.

Perez, a right-handed bullpen pitcher has served as the Indians closer since 2010. Ever since conforming Perez to the ninth inning role combined with his "super 2" status, has made Perez ever-increasingly expensive. Relievers are overvalued in the current MLB market; sometimes more often by arbitrators who weight saves as more important than true markers of success for bullpen pitchers. This combination has led to Perez's new 1-year contract of $7.3 million, which equates to about 1.33 fWins. Perez is young, and entering what can be the most fruitful years of a pitcher's career, meaning that he should be able to pitch up to, or at least close to, his annual average value. Since becoming the closer, Perez has accrued 1.6 fWins in 3 seasons for an average Fwins/season of 0.5 fWins. 0.5 Fwins is worth only $2.75 million, which is 38% of what he will be paid this year. Well, if it's so obvious that Perez won't be worth his 2013 contract based on his past performance, so is he set to improve to the point that he will?

As you can see from the graph to the left, Perez's strikeout numbers have fluctuated ending in a K/9 that ranked 51st amongst all 2012 qualified relievers. On a different note, Perez has consistently lowered his BB/9 numbers to end the season 39th amongst all relief pitchers. Essentially, Perez has been a decent bullpen pitcher, one that has improved in some areas, but not enough to make him one of the 20 best relief pitchers in Baseball. His numbers might cause some to wonder why he has been dubbed as the pitcher to throw in supposedly the most crucial situation for the Indians late in games. Maybe if he performed exceptionally well in the clutch, it might justify his AAV as well as his standing in the Cleveland bullpen. Unfortunately for Perez, his WPA/LI, which measures how well a player performs in high leverage situations in comparison to an average leverage situation, and Perez hasn't performed exceptionally well. His WPA/LI has been below 1.0 every year of his career, not a good sign, seeing as the top echelon of relievers (30 best), has a WPA/LI over 1.0 with names like Rodney, Chapman, and Kimbrel all hovering around 2.0 or greater WPA/LI.

Given that we have now proven that Perez's $7.3 million salary is quite inflated, even assuming some improvement, the next question to ask is why have the Indians not considered trading Perez. The Indians, while improving their status this offseason, haven't made significant enough improvements to put them in the discussion for possible playoff team. This fact only adds to my confusion as to why Indians GM Chris Antonetti didn't make a deal to move Perez before coming to a 1-year deal. Now, it is completely possible that the Indians decide to trade Perez now, after setting a definite price tag to him, but that possibility is logically outweighed by the chance that that the Indians go into 2013 with Perez in their bullpen. Given Perez's soft numbers, it's possible that Antonetti wants to wait and see if Perez's stock rises before flipping him so as to receive the best possible package in return.

League

Hanrahan

According to Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, as of January 6th, the Indians were still considering trade offers for Perez, but wouldn't budge unless they could receive a similar package to the one the team swindled for outfielder Shin-Soo Choo. Choo brought back outfielder Drew Stubbs and pitcher Trevor Bauer. Given that the Indians have set an asking price, maybe we should take a look at recent trades for relievers of similar or better caliber to get a sense of what the Indians might expect in return for Perez. So far this offseason two comparable relievers were moved. The Red Sox traded Jerry Sands, Stolmy Pimentel, and Mark Melancon to the Pirates in exchange for Joel Hanrahan and Brock Holt. Hanrahan represents the comparable reliever. Most thought that this trade broke down to Hanrahan for Melancon, which pundits quickly dubbed a victory for the Pirates. Hanrahan had a very lucky season last year given his peripherals while Melancon fought off a tough start to put together solidly underrated numbers. Melancon is younger and under team control for more years, making him slightly more valuable than Hanrahan. The other trade this offseason was between the Astros and Rockies. The Astros dealt reliever Wilton Lopez to the Rockies for minor league pitchers Alex White and Alex Gillingham. Both prospects are starting pitchers, each with enough deficiencies to label them both as projects. So, so far we have one reliever exchanged for another reliever of slightly better standing and the 2nd acquired for 2 project prospects. These aren't lofty hauls.

During the 2012 season 2 other "big time" relievers swapped teams, Jonathan Broxton and Brandon League. League went to LA for 2 prospects, one an outfielder with some upside and the other a relief pitcher who made double A last season, but struggles with his control. Broxton was moved in exchange for Donnie Joseph and J.C. Sulbaran. Josepth is a lefty specialist out of the bullpen who has put up very good numbers in AA and AAA, leading the Royals to put him on their 40-man roster heading into 2013. Sulbaran projects as a 4 or 5 starter who has the build to be an innings eater and the numbers to back it up. Both Broxton and League were under less team control than Perez, but both performed better than Perez prior to being traded. In 2011, 3 comparable relievers were traded midseason and 2 in the offseason, all yielding similar packages in return with the exception of the swap between the Rangers and the Blue Jays. In that deal, which was made in the offseason, the Blue Jays sent catcher Mike Napoli to the Rangers in exchange for reliever Frank Francisco. This was just prior to Napoli's power surge, making the deal very skewed in Texas' favor.

Overall, this analysis of previous trades gives us a sense of Perez's realistic trade value. Teams that are in the market for Perez's services include the San Francisco Giants, Detroit Tigers, Toronto Blue Jays, and possibly the Cincinnati Reds. On the other hand, by the time the 2013 trade deadline roles around, that list may have grown to almost twice the size. Simple economics teach us that it is best to buy low and sell high. So, the Indians want to wait until Perez is at his highest demand before flipping him, which might be now, or could be in 6 months. At the moment I'd be surprised if the Indians could get more than a similar deal to the one that Astros got for Wilton Lopez. Lopez was a far better reliever than Perez in 2012, but he comes with some injury concerns (Just ask the Phillies), so his stock was about the same as Perez's is now. I expect the Indians would much rather receive one top 6 prospect than 2 high ceiling/low floor prospects like the Astros got for Lopez. This leads me to believe that Perez, if moved, won't call a new city home until June or July. Recently, with the Nationals' signing of Rafael Soriano, the pattern of NL teams polishing their rosters by stacking their bullpens has emerged. This advent has made Perez look more and more like a very likely future trade candidate, so watch out for teams like the Pirates, Phillies, and Reds to come calling looking for relief help midseason.

In the offseason, MLB lovers grasp onto anything to quell their desire for Baseball given the lack of games being played. This includes looking for a trade wherever possible, and over-analyzing every move made from the flashiest to the most diminutive. Anyone who works in an MLB front office has to be immune to such temptations because oftentimes it is not skill, guile, or competitiveness that leads to the best results, but good timing. MLB General Managers and their staff's have to act as stock traders, timing the market at the precise time so as to cash in for the best possible return. Antonetti and the Indians seem to be waiting patiently, asking for too much and fending off lesser offers for Perez now, hoping to time the market perfectly later to and get the high caliber prospect they are looking for in return for Perez. Such patience should be admired, as some GM's due to pressure from all sorts of sources often jump the gun and make a hasty trade that backfires with ease. The Mariners recent trade for Michael Morse marks a good example of such a move. The Indians know Perez is not worth the money they are paying him right now, but in due time, he may reap benefits they hadn't even though possible.