Mike Hazen and Torey Lovullo Media Day Report
Mike Hazen and Torey Lovullo addressed the media today covering a wide range of topics. But no area was discussed more in depth than the bullpen.
Hazen's initial comments addressed expectations and the results of the 2022 season. "I feel like in some ways you need to walk before you can run, I feel like that happened this year to some degree. But on the flip side finishing with 74 wins and not playing in October ....I don't look at it like congratulations we stunk less than we did last year."
While mentioning that his own expectations coming into the season might have been a little too high, he also acknowledged there was a lot of growth within individual performances and collectively as a team. But he also alluded to the thought that the late inning issues were not just about the bullpen.
Sharing the late inning blame
"As the season went along, you guys watch the games too. We played in a number of games where I felt like the outcome should have turned in a different way, and it didn't for various reasons. Some of that could have been youth, some of that could have been some of the changes that we made. I know the conversation around the back end of the 7th, 8th and 9th innings of some of our games but there were a lot of outcomes that could have gone in a different direction fairly easily."
He went on to discuss at some length how many plays on defense or at bats were not executed well, and highlighted some recent examples against Milwaukee and San Francisco. He feels these are areas that the young players need to improve upon next year to learn how win close games. In Hazen's view not every bullpen loss should be considered a bullpen loss.
Torey Lovullo echoed these sentiments later in the afternoon, saying each player should audit themselves, as he will do also. "So where does that take you? I think it's an individual thing. In the past week it happened three times. We know what happened. Everybody wants to throw it on the bullpen, which is an easy target. Certainly they were responsible for a lot of this. But other areas were responsible for a lot of it too. It could have been a defensive miscue, it could have been a bad pitch, or five bad pitches, it could have been grounding into a double play at a critical point in time in the game that wasn't the ninth inning."
Asked if there were perhaps a little recency bias in this line of thought, and whether or not the position players felt more pressure to be perfect with so little margin for error, Lovullo responded "I believe in synergy. I believe when one area is pulling as hard as the other, it doubles in power."
It's understandable why the GM and the manager would take this approach with the young players. They don't want the players making excuses, and everyone needs to look to their own areas to improve.
Let's check the playing record
While it's true there were some recent examples where the defense or situational hitting helped create the opening for a blown save or a loss, this observer's view is that in the aggregate that does not quite square with the season playing record.
For example, in total for the season the D-backs had a below league average offense, ranking 24th in batting average, and 21st in OPS. However, according to Fangraphs.com, when broken out into high leverage situations in the 7th thru 9th innings, they ranked 14th in batting average and 17th in OPS. In other words relative to the rest of the league, they actually hit better in close and late situations.
At the same time there is virtually no difference in the bullpen FIP in those late and close situations compared to their overall numbers. They ranked 28th in close and late, high leverage, and 29th overall, all innings, all leverage. In other words, equally as poor.
Note* FIP is a measure that only considers walks, strikeouts, and home runs, and does not include balls in play. It's converted to ERA scale.
Will Hazen look to convert a starting pitcher?
Addressing some of the specific areas he might turn to try to improve the bullpen Hazen was asked about converting starting pitchers to relievers, which we discussed here. In the past he has been slow to make that call. "You saw what happened last year. We lost our entire rotation at the beginning of May and it was a major contributor [to 110 loss season]. I think that's always something we need to be careful with".
He went on to speak of the difficulty of finding and developing young starting pitching, but said he would not be stubborn in this regard if it made long term sense. At the same time he said they would not be doing anything "off the wall, that we have a starting pitcher in this league that can go 6 or 7 innings and just shoving him into the bullpen because we have a leaky 7th inning".
As we wrote about a couple of weeks ago, Hazen acknowledged that the lack of power and strikeout rate at the back of the bullpen was a problem that needs to be addressed, but said "How we do that, I can't give you an exact blue print on. There's a number of ways to accomplish that. Taking a power arm starting pitcher and putting him in the bullpen, like Archie Bradley in 2017 was a way to do that".
He drew a distinction however between taking a pitcher who had thrown a year in the big leagues such as Bradley had in 2016 and converting him to the pen is not the same as taking a kid from Reno and doing it. But he's not blind to those opportunities. "Maybe on day one it looks like something and on day 130 it looks a little different." If they are in the playoff hunt late in the season he would consider making such a move.
Hazen will continue to work the waiver wire
Asked what other ways he could attack the problem Hazen said "I think we need to be more aggressive in transactions, waiver claims, smaller deals. We have started to do that over the last couple of years, I think it's paid some dividends. I think we'll be more aggressive in doing those types of things".
Expect a trade or two
Finally on the trade front, Hazen pointed out that many of the young guys you see on the team today have been the guys that were requested whenever he made inquiry into acquiring a more established power reliever. He clearly was happy he did not make those moves. "But now that we are building some of that talent at the upper levels, moving on to our major league team we are going to have to look at the trade market probably a little more aggressively in these areas too. That's another avenue that we're going to need to pursue."
Developing internal bullpen talent
"I don't think we've done a good job of that since I've been here, frankly. It's probably a glaring area for me." This is an area they have spent a lot of time discussing internally with coaches, development, and scouting staff. He still would not be inclined to draft a college reliever.
Beyond the Bullpen
Starting pitching is an area that you never have enough of but it's not an area where they will aggressively chase.
More right-handed hitting balance to face all the left handed pitching in the division.
Adding experience to the roster, to address some of the lapses he perceives where lack of experience were factors.
He did not think they needed to go for more catching but hinted if they did they would probably go defense first.
He would not be uncomfortable going with two rookie pitchers at a time in 2023 among Drey Jameson, Ryne Nelson, or Tommy Henry as they all built up over 150 innings in 2022.
Madison Bumgarner: While incumbency matters in spring training, it sounded like he will need to perform early in the year to hold his spot. Hazen emphasized the word competition.
Torey Lovullo said that all of the coaching staff would be retained.
Caleb Smith (Elbow) and Emmanuel Rivera (Fractured wrist) are being evaluated this week to determine if surgery is required in either case. Ketel Marte has already returned to the Dominican Republic, but the reason he was placed on the injured list was still not revealed.
You can listen to the entire press conference below.
Mike Hazen
Torey Lovullo
