This preview, written by Baseball Prospectus’s Russell Carleton, forms part of the main site’s comprehensive coverage of the postseason, “Playoff Prospectus”.
And suddenly, Andrew Miller is the toast of the baseball world. Miller, whose previous claims to fame included being “theguy picked right before Clayton Kershaw”, won the ALCS MVP award by turning the clock back to the 1970s and (get this!) pitching multiple innings in relief, and coming into the game in the (gasp!) fifth and sixth inning.
What gives? Did Cleveland not explain the leverage index to Terry Francona? Francona, dispensing with the standard recipe that pitchers in a bullpen are supposed to be used in reverse order of their quality brought Andrew Miller into the game, in some cases as his first reliever out of the pen. In a couple of games, Miller pitched two innings and threw around 40 pitches. His compatriot, Cody Allen, also pitched past his normal bedtime.
The Twitterati also nearly lost their collective minds when Dave Roberts finally did something heroic in the post-season by inserting closer Kenley Janssen into the seventh inning of Game 5 of the NLDS (an elimination game!) and then asking Clayton Kershaw to get the final two outs in relief.
We have entered a brave new world of bullpen use!!! The world will never be the same!!! I’m going to use completely unnecessary exclamation points!!!
OK people, calm down.
It’s a little surprising that this sort of bullpen usage is a little surprising. Cleveland was down two starters (Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar) and a third (Trevor Bauer) had an unfortunate encounter with a drone, so we all kinda figured that the fact that they acquired Andrew Miller at the trade deadline would come in handy. The idea of a bridge reliever or a multi-inning reliever in the playoffs is hardly a new thing. When Mariano Rivera first went to the playoffs in 1995 and 1996, he did so as a multi-inning reliever ahead of then-Yankee closer John Wetteland. And it’s not like elite relievers going multiple innings just started happening this year.
But no, this is not going to become a regular season thing all across baseball. At least not any time soon.
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Lead photo courtesy Nick Turchiaro—USA Today Sports.