Could the Dodgers' Much-Maligned Bullpen Be Better Than Advertised in 2015?

Let's acknowledge two things that are undeniably true about the Los Angeles Dodgers bullpen.

One is that it was the club's Achilles' heel in 2014, as it posted a pedestrian 3.80 ERA in the regular season and then a 6.48 ERA in October. The second is that it's going to take a lot more than just a week for the Dodgers bullpen to prove it's going to be any better in 2015.

And yet, here we are to discuss something radical: The notion that the Dodgers bullpen has already shown it could indeed be better.

Granted, you certainly wouldn't think so based on appearances.

Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports

New boss Andrew Friedman and his front office did make new additions to the bullpen over the winter, but none named David Robertson or Andrew Miller. Then Kenley Jansen, the Dodgers' relief ace, knocked himself out until May with a foot injury. And heading into Wednesday's action, the Dodgers bullpen owns a decent, but not great, 3.24 ERA through eight games.

But ERA can often be misleading with bullpens. And so it is in this case.

According to FanGraphs, here are the leaders in bullpen Wins Above Replacement:

Rank	Team	IP	ERA	WAR
1	Atlanta Braves	31.0	1.74	1.0
T1	Los Angeles Dodgers	25.0	3.24	1.0
3	Colorado Rockies	30.0	1.80	0.7
T3	Kansas City Royals	19.0	0.00	0.6

So, there you go. By one measure, the Dodgers bullpen has been arguably the best bullpen in baseball so far.

This actually makes sense when you look at the things that should define a bullpen's quality. Dodgers relievers are striking out 13.31 batters per nine innings and walking only 2.88 batters per nine innings. They've also given up zero home runs. Home runs are bad, so that's good.

Why hasn't this translated into a strong ERA? Writing at DodgersDigest.com, Mike Petriello said it well: "Bad luck, shoddy defense, lousy sequencing timing, whatever you want to call it—for the most part, they’ve done their jobs and just haven’t seen the results. That’s the kind of vagaries you can see in a mere week of baseball."

That answers that, but it's also really not the important question. That would be whether what's worked for the Dodgers in the (very) early season could work for them over the long haul.

So, let's talk about that.

Alex Gallardo/Associated Press

It hasn't all been roses for the Dodgers bullpen so far in 2015. Chris Hatcher has allowed seven runs (five earned) in only 2.2 innings, and J.P. Howell and Paco Rodriguez have also had their issues.

But that their performances haven't been bad enough to drag down the bullpen's overall performance tells you just how good the good performances have been. Those are the ones we're going to zoom in on, with the focus on strikeouts, walks and homers:

Player	G	IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9
Yimi Garcia	5	6.0	15.0	1.5	0.0
Juan Nicasio	3	4.2	13.5	5.8	0.0
Joel Peralta	5	4.1	8.3	0.0	0.0
Pedro Baez	4	4.0	13.5	2.3	0.0
	Total	19.0	12.6	2.4	0.0

These four guys have eaten the bulk of the Dodgers' bullpen innings thus far, and you can see how they're largely responsible for the bullpen's mastery of strikeouts, walks and home runs. The only blemish is Juan Nicasio's walk rate, which is inflated by one three-walk inning on Tuesday night against the Seattle Mariners.

This leaves us to determine one of two possible outcomes. Either these four guys are only going to be an early-season bright spot this year, or they're actually going to continue helping the Dodgers.

In terms of the latter, Joel Peralta gets the benefit of the doubt.

Peralta has been a well-above-average reliever dating back to 2010. And though he's a fly-ball pitcher who most certainly will serve up some big flies eventually, he doesn't serve up as many as he should. As the PITCHf/x leaderboards at Baseball Prospectus can vouch, he has some serious rising action on his fastball that makes it difficult to square up.

The real wild cards are Yimi Garcia, Pedro Baez and Nicasio. The first two are rookies, and the third is a veteran who's best known for being a lousy starter for the Colorado Rockies. Why should anyone believe they can keep this up?

Where Garcia and Baez are concerned, here are two reasons: They both have really good stuff, and they're both on a roll. 

Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

Garcia has a track record as a minor league strikeout artist dating back to 2011, and both he and Baez earned their way into the Dodgers bullpen with strong springs. Garcia struck out 15 and walked two in 11.1 innings, and Baez struck out 11 and walked two in 10 innings.

Yeah, yeah. No need to shout that these are only spring performances. I can hear you. But as Mike Podhorzer found at Rotographs in 2012, spring strikeout and walk rates actually can predict breakout performers. Garcia and Baez are illustrating the point on the young season. 

And they're doing it with nasty stuff. 

FanGraphs clocks Garcia's average fastball in the 93 mph range, and he also throws a low-80s slider. Per Eric Stephen of True Blue LA, Dodgers skipper Don Mattingly observed that Garcia's pitches have "real action," and that's most apparent when he pounds hitters with high heat. Brooks Baseball illustrates how that's a whiff-happy approach for him, and we can see it in action here:

Baez, meanwhile, throws even harder than Garcia with an average fastball of 96.3 mph, via FanGraphs. That's not news to anyone who watched him pitch in 2014, but what is new is that Baez's slider accounts for 24.0 percent of his pitches, a usage-rate hike of 12.6 percent compared to last year.

And he's benefited from that. Brooks Baseball had the whiff rate on Baez's slider in 2014 at 13.33 percent. So far this year, it's at 23.81 percent.

Conveniently, this brings us to a very similar story where Nicasio is concerned.

Chris Carlson/Associated Press

Via FanGraphs, Nicasio's average heater has risen from the low 90s in 2013 to 94.4 mph following Tuesday's game. And after never rising higher than 27.4 percent in Colorado, his slider usage is at 34.2 percent.

For Nicasio, the benefit of those extra sliders hasn't been whiffs. As Brooks Baseball shows, his slider has instead acted like a sinker, inducing grounders on three-quarters of the balls put in play against it. That explains his beastly early-season 70.0 percent ground-ball rate.

In all, here's what you can trace the Dodgers bullpen's quietly excellent start to the season back to: A proven veteran is pitching like a proven veteran, and three other guys are teasing the potential to produce as classic fastball-slider relievers.

What's intriguing about this is that four quality relievers are more than enough to anchor a quality bullpen. Even more intriguing is how this awesome foursome could turn into an awesome five-some in May. That's when Jansen, he of the 2.25 career ERA and 4.48 K/BB ratio, will be returning.

Mind you, you shouldn't mistake this as a promise. It's much too early for promises. Heck, it will still be early for promises a month from now.

Rather, this has been more like a proof of concept. Early though it may be, there's some real potential stirring in the Dodgers bullpen. If it goes from stirring to thriving, what was once an Achilles' heel will turn into an asset.

And considering that this Dodgers team was already expected to run away with the NL West, that's not a happy thought for the rest of the division.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted/linked.

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