Detroit Tigers bullpen lacking

After another loss for the Tigers bullpen was accumulated this evening I took a look at where Detroit stood in terms of their bullpen around the league. Turns out pretty the news is not good; the Tigers rank 27th overall with a reliever ERA of 4.98 followed only by Colorado, Tampa Bay and Kansas City. To contrast that a bit to 2006, the Tigers were 4th overall with a team relief ERA of 3.51.

Detroit isn’t alone around the AL Central in slumping bullpens as all teams, except one, are in the bottom third of all MLB teams. The Twins are the lone exception as they rank 8th with a team relief ERA of 3.41. Below is a view of each AL Central team by ERA:

The Twins have three top performers in their bullpen and recently lost a key contributer in Jessie Crain. Crain had been struggling as of late though there are four other Twins bullpen members with an ERA below 3.00 and one, Pat Neshek, with 1.47.

The Tigers best relief pitcher is the closer, Todd Jones, with an ERA of 2.37. The next in line would be Fernando Rodney at 4.74 then Wilfredo Ledezma at 5.14. That is pretty bad and Detroit has some work to do to fill the spot of Joel Zumaya who’s out for a couple of months.

So what changes need to be made? Well, Billfer is eyeing Wil Ledezma as a struggling member of the bullpen ripe for replacement. I wouldn’t go that far with Ledezma at this point in the year. The Tigers have a number of options and have a few newcomers in the ‘pen in Seay and Byrdak. Both have been pretty successful and most of Seay’s damage has come in a couple bad outings; Byrdak has been lights out in both of his outings since being called up before this past Boston series.

The Tigers will need to ride the wave of both Rodney and Ledezma’s struggles and hope that some of the newcomers step up to the plate to fill in some innings until they straighten out. Another member to the bullpen would be nice to see and to open that spot I would eye cutting Jose Mesa. Mesa’s been struggling out of the gate and his best years are likely behind him. There is no reason to risk letting a talent such as Ledezma’s to get away to keep Mesa in the ‘pen.

So who would fill the spot? The Tigers have a number of options from today’s game 1 starter Zach Miner to tomorrows starter Andrew Miller or his Erie teammates Euglio De La Cruz or Dallas Trahern. We’ve known Detroit has depth in pitchers and it’s simply time to utilize it even more.