When No One Was looking The Atlanta Braves Quietly Found A Setup Man
By Fred Owens
What the Numbers Don’t Show
Ramirez’ numbers are certainly good and when he gets in a jam –often of his own making – he reaches into his backpack and gets another gear . . . in one inning spurts. Asking him to go more than one inning is as we saw last night, an iffy proposition.
In his 16 appearances of one inning (14 IP) he pitched to a 1.071 WHIP, 1.29 ERA with 19 strikeouts and five walks average 16.5 pitches an inning. In five appearances of more than one inning (8 IP) he’s struck out seven but walked six. His WHIP jumps to 1.375 and the ERA follows to 2.25 and he averages just under 17.75 pitches an inning.
He also gave up nearly as many line drives (six) and doubles (two) in the five multi-inning outings as he did in the fourteen single inning appearances; eight and three respectively.
The sample size is small but reliever sample sizes are always small. The eye test tells me that even though he got out of three of those outings run free he was lucky to do so. I understand having to go to multi-inning stints in some situations. However when you have a bullpen full of arms there’s really no excuse for doing it. Hopefully the next manager will use him more effectively and that means no multi-inning outings.
That’s A Wrap
The Braves bullpen looks pretty well set up for 2017 forward with Ramirez, Paco Rodriguez, A.J. Minter, Caleb Dirks, Matt Marksberry and others set to join Mauricio Cabrera, Simmons, Krol and Vizcaino. It’s a nice mix of power arms, right and left-handed and controllable.
Next: The 2017 Payroll - a shot in the dark?
That cluster of arms also provides nice currency for obtaining missing pieces this off-season; like perhaps, a catcher.
Ryne Harper is pitching well for Seattle’s AA team but the signing Ramirez turned out to be a steal, much better than anyone could have expected. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out over the winter and in spring training. Who will we keep? What veteran reliever will we sign if any? These answers and more in future editions of the Take.