The bullpen meltdown on Sunday has me wanting to debut a regular feature that will appear in this blog: the bullpen confidence rating. Basically, a 5-level system determining how comfortable I am when a player comes into the game.
As my hair (or whatever I have left) continues to get lighter, I use a gray hair index). So here we go:
No gray hair (extremely high confidence):
No one yet
Wisps of gray hair (high confidence):
-Porter Hodge – he’s looked good in his first couple of outings. He did give up a hit on a 0-2 slider that got too much of the plate. And he was having trouble locating the fastball in the other appearance. But overall, he’s the only guy I really trust.
Some gray hair (medium confidence):
-Ryan Pressley – he’s given up runs in almost every appearance. But he had some wiggle room in each.
-Julian Merryweather – not much of a sample size, but he looked decent in the spring
-Brad Keller – another small sample size, but the stuff looks OK
-Caleb Thielbar – has had a few ups and downs – including two walks to start the meltdown inning. I’d feel better if the Cubs had another relief arm that is good against lefties.
-Colin Rea – no real high-leverage situations yet
Lots of gray hair (low confidence)
-Nate Pearson – with a big lead, gave up 2 walks and a HBP to lead off an inning. Also, the couple runs he gave up on Sunday helped keep things close. He really needs to stop walking people.
-Eli Morgan – he almost went to Iowa, but they decided — oops, I Mean there were injuries to Miller and Brasier, which left a spot open for him. He was the primary culprit in the meltdown, giving up hard contact when he was not walking people. He’s a change-up specialist, but he needs to locate it better and mix in some fastballs to keep people from teeing off. Barring another injury, he would be the first to be on that revolving door to AAA.
No hair left (no confidence)
-No one yet, but Morgan and Pearson are close
Not Applicable:
-Ryan Brazier – IL
-Tyson MIller – IL
Cubs in 7 
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