Where Do Bullpens Come From?

[This post is cross-posted from Tiny Chunks of Empire]

Good discussion over at Primer on "where bullpens come from". Specifically, the provenance of individual relievers - how they came to be relievers, and most specifically, whether they were originally starters and were converted to relief.

What's more interesting to me than whether a guy is a starter convert, though (and which made my heart jump a beat when I saw "where do bullpens come from") is how General Managers (and field managers) build a bullpen.

Let's take our current Blue Jays and their superb pen as an example. How do you build a really good pen? Let's look at the relievers on the active roster...

B.J. RYAN - Big-ticket free agent signing (in fact, the largest ever contract awarded a reliever at the time it was signed). Signed away from Baltimore. Currently in year 3 of a 5-year, $47-million deal.

JEREMY ACCARDO - Acquired in a 2006 deadline trade with San Francisco for Shea Hillenbrand and reliever Vinnie Chulk. The trade was widely seen as a pure contract dump (Hillenbrand was massively unpopular with the team and had a relatively big contract) and Accardo was a relatively anonymous player. The trade was a brilliant steal for Toronto, so far. Accardo is currently making major league minimum and will be arb-eligible next season. He was originally an undrafted free agent, showing how far down the organizational totem pole he was at first, and then rocketed through the Giants' system in two years.

CASEY JANSSEN - A 4th-round draft choice in 2004 out of UCLA (received a $150,000 signing bonus). Few had Janssen rated that high other than myself and a very few other statistically-aware draft watchers. Janssen moved steadily through the system and came to the team as a starter when injuries hit in 2006; he was moved to the pen before 2007 and performed brilliantly. Still making minimum and will be arb-eligible in 2009.

SCOTT DOWNS - Signed as a minor-league free agent before the 2005 season. At the time, Downs was widely seen as going nowhere fast given what many perceived as mediocre stuff. What wasn't understood is that Downs had good stuff, just not a good fastball. His secondary pitches were excellent and when he was signed he was coming off a brilliant September for Montreal - in his last seven starts of 2004 he had an ERA around three and a half for a bad team. He has pitched extremely well since coming to Toronto, first as a swingman and now as the #1 setup lefty. Downs became arb-eligible after 2004, and signed modest one-year contracts for 2006 and 2007, before cashing in on his 2008 with a 3-year deal worth $10 million in total.

BRIAN TALLET - Acquired in a minor-league trade with Cleveland prior to the 2006 season, for minor-league reliever Bubbie Buzachero. Tallet has performed extremely well since coming to Toronto for absolutely nothing. I didn't think much of Tallet at the time, thought he was a gimmicky guy trying to make a go of it with a crossfire delivery. Turns out he was just waiting for Brad Arnsberg. J.P. Ricciardi doesn't get too much credit for Tallet though - he was DFAed in the spring of '06 and again in the spring of '07, and could easily have been lost to the team either time. Tallet was arb-eligible for the first time this year, as a "super two" and signed a modest one-year deal for about 50% over the minimum.

JASON FRASOR - Acquired in a trade with the Dodgers at the roster cut-down deadline just before the 2004 season. The Jays faced losing OF Jayson Werth due to a roster crunch and flipped him to LA for Frasor who had trouble moving up the ladder with the Dodgers. The knock on Frasor in LA was his size (too small) but he became an immediate favorite with the Jays who had a fairly dire bullpen situation after the clearout of Gord Ash's refuse pile and the implosion of Ricciardi's first round of scrap-heap pickups from 2003. The trade was probably a draw; Werth has been a useful part-timer for the Dodgers when he has been healthy, but Frasor has produced well for Toronto (his ERAs show a gradual recession, but the underlying stats show that's unwarranted). After making minimum for three years, he qualified for arb status last year as a super two and has since signed two modest one-year deals; he'll earn about three times the minimum this year.

BRANDON LEAGUE - A 2nd-round draft choice in 2001 out of high school in Hawaii, by the Gord Ash regime (received a $660,000 signing bonus). Was a starter under Ash, but once Ricciardi came one the scene and began pushing prospects more aggressively, League began flipping back and forth between starting and relieving. League saw sporadic action in 2005. He started the season with the big club but was inconsistent; the team thought he may profit from more seasoning and sent him back to Syracuse (calling up Matt Whiteside, of all people, in his place). Brought back in July, he struggled initially but finally caught his groove in the mopup role. He was sent out in 2006, though, specifically to close for Syracuse and to work as a short reliever once and for all. He did not pitch well but was brought back to Toronto in July and pitched brilliantly, mostly setting up Ryan and doing it very well. He then missed much of last season with a self-inflicted injury. League's still on the minimum and will be arb-aligible if he spends the year with the big club, as he should - he is now out of options.

BRIAN WOLFE - Acquired in trade with Milwaukee prior to the 2006 season. This was a widely-criticized trade in which the Jays dumped 3B Corey Koskie to Milwaukee in exchange for Wolfe, who was seen as a nothing player - mere organizational filler. Wolfe had bounced around a great deal and had actually been released by Minnesota's AAA farm club in Rochester because the pitching-laden Twins had nowhere at AA or AAA to put him when he was still recovering from an injury. The Brewers had picked him up and stuck him in A-ball where they were short a reliever, and then flipped him to the Jays after the end of the season. Wolfe had a highly undistinguished 2006 but caught fire in 2007, pitching great in the Syracuse pen and earning a call to Toronto when A Small Eternity With Tomo Ohka pulled up its tents and slunk out of town. Wolfe pitched for Toronto for most of the rest of the season; once John Gibbons realized that righties weren't touching Wolfe's stuff with a bargepole, he gained an increasingly prominent role as a righthanded specialist. Wolfe was never entirely convincing, but he stayed and more than held his own. He won a job for '08 easily out of camp. The Jays could easily have lost him in the 06/07 offseason as Wolfe was a six-year free agent, but credit to the management, they brought him back despite his poor year. He has at least two more years at the minimum.

RANDY WELLS - A Rule 5 Draft pick from the Chicago Cubs before the 2008 season. (Wells was therefore bought for the waiver price - $50,000). Currently auditioning for the role of mop-up man and sixth starter.

So for those counting, that's two draftees (one by Ricciardi's team, one that he inherited but who was mostly developed by his people); one very big-ticket free agent; one minor-league free agent with a spotty track record; three guys picked up in trades that were widely seen as forced on the Jays by salary or roster considerations; one guy picked up in a "my trash for your trash" trade; and a Rule 5 draft pick.

The total value spent on acquiring the eight guys behind Ryan probably wasn't ten million dollars of value all told, and 70% of that was Jayson Werth. You wouldn't accept the entire package together for Jeremy Accardo. Would you? Even if you could magically trade draft picks, would you take a second-rounder, a fourth-rounder, Shea Hillenbrand circa 2006, Vinnie Chulk circa 2006, Jayson Werth circa 2004, Bubbie Buzachero circa 2006, Corey Koskie circa 2006, and $860,000 for Accardo? I wouldn't. Accardo was an honest-to-god genuine big leaguer (though struggling) when the Jays landed him, but the other five non-draftees (Downs, Tallet, Frasor, Wolfe, Wells) were flotsam and garbage - none was considered a major league prospect worth blowing your nose on.

And that is how you build a bullpen. There will always be room for one or two guys who are genuinely, blow-you-away great (both in ability and salary demands). But the vast majority of great pens are built off someone else's rejects and your own mid-round draftees. The Jays have done that brilliantly.