I touched on targeting bad and/or fatigued bullpens in the pre-season. I can't sleep so I'm going to delve a little deeper here with a real example that hits all the markers.
Up until a couple days ago I haven't thought about BP's for a few reasons:
It's so early in the season that fatigue isn't much of an issue yet and the injuries haven't started to pile up.
The biggest thing I focused on in the preseason was scheduling, there's a lot of quirks. Every team plays 162 games in 181 days from April 4th to Oct 2nd, some have 5 days off in April, some 2. Some teams have 6 days off May-June, some 3. Long story short what I'm looking for is long stretches w/o a day off, or better yet long stretch w/o a day off, day off, another long stretch. There aren't many of these in April, the real grind of the season starts in May for most teams.
So like I said I wasn't paying much attention, until this box score jumped out at me Sat night:
Rough game for both pens, esp Ari as the starter only recorded 5 outs. Not good in a 14 inning game, lots of innings and pitches. Also, I highlighted De La Rosa as he's a starter, so they ran out of relievers, lol.
So next I check upcoming schedules, SD had the 18th off and I believe next Mon as well, so mostly a non-factor there. They didn't get taxed as badly as Ari anyway. Ari schedule, bingo! They play April 12-May 18 with 1 day off (May 2) 36 games in 37 days. You don't really want to start that off with 12 innings and 188 pitches from your bull pen.
They started April 12-15 just fine 9.2 innings, then the Sat massacre above, Sun was chill 2.1 innings, 2 from a guy (Marshall) that didn't pitch Sat, so I'm guessing they made a roster move to bring up a fresh arm. At this point they're worth keeping an eye on, but pretty refreshed after everyone gets a day off. Then tonight happened:
Another 6.2 innings and 118 pitches, brutal on the heels of Sat's fiasco, esp considering they don't have a day off until May 2 (that they get to spend flying across the country to Miami) and then 16 more games w/o a day off.
This is a bad bull pen to begin with as well. Fangraphs had them ranked 24th/30 by projected WAR in the pre-season. So they're on fumes, play 29 games in the next 30 days, and they aren't very good to begin with.
Why does it matter?
1- A fatigued pitcher is more prone to wildness and serving up fat pitches.
2- When a reliever is unavailable (like Hudson, and maybe Wagner/Delgado should be tonight) a lesser reliever is used in his spot
3- When it gets to the point of being forced to make roster moves you're generally calling up weaker pitchers.
4- When the situation gets as bad as it is for Ari a starter could not only be asked to go that extra inning, but be asked to take one for the team. If Ray starts off the game tonight by giving up 2 rocket singles, a walk, and then a 500 foot grand slam you wont see any stirring in the pen.
5- Better yet a weak mop up man is often asked to take one for the team and they just let him get killed out there.
Hopefully someone finds that useful, or at least worth reading. I think I can maybe sleep now, so there's that. Final note- I'll be following this Ari situation closely over the next few days. They really need their starters to go deep in these 3 games @SF before heading home. I'll probably be targeting Ari a little more than normal at any rate but if they get taxed again in SF I'll be loading up on Pirates this weekend for sure.