Pacific Perspectives: Park prospers in Philly ‘pen

Posted by Michael Street on Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at 2:51 pm

When the Phillies signed Chan Ho Park this offseason, he made it abundantly clear that he intended to be a starter. He tearfully declined to pitch for his native South Korea in the World Baseball Classic, saying he wanted to concentrate on stretching out to become a starter again.

Nevermind the fact that he hadn’t started regularly since 2006, when he went 12-8, with a 5.74 ERA and a 1.67 WHIP between the Dodgers and Padres. Nevermind that this capped off four straight years when he’d logged an era over 5 (nearly all of them with the Texas Rangers, a really tough place to pitch).

He’d been a starter for nearly all of his 15-year career, only moving to the bullpen after his return to Los Angeles in 2008. That season, he’d started five games, finishing with a 1-0 record, a 2.84 ERA and a 1.20 WHIP. As a reliever, he’d appeared in 49 games, with a 3-4 record, a 3.84 ERA and a 1.46 WHIP.

All his peripherals were better in a starting role, though the 70.1 IP he’d logged out of the bullpen far outweighed the 25.0 IP he’d gobbled up as a starter. Some of those relief stats came from his last four appearances of the year, when he surrendered 7 ER in just 2.0 total IP. Park surely used these as an argument that he was better suited as a starter.

Well, the Phillies gave him a chance to start, and he edged out the youthful J.A. Happ for the fifth starter position in spring training, racking up a 2-0 record with a 2.53 ERA in the Games That Don’t Count. Park struck out 25 in 21.2 IP while walking just 2, though he also gave up 20 hits. Happ didn’t do much worse, with a 0-0 record and a 3.15 ERA in 20 IP, striking out 14 and walking 6, while allowing 18 hits.

But the Phils liked Park’s strikeout numbers, and also liked having the lefty Happ in their bullpen, since southpaw stalwart JC Romero would be unavailable for 50 games due to suspension.

So they turned the 36-year-old South Korean righty loose as their fifth starter—and he bombed.

He only managed to pitch a total of 20 IP in his first four starts, coughing up a 9.00 ERA on 28 hits (including 5 HRs). Worse, his strikeouts were a measly 11, against the same number of walks.

Surprisingly, his record only stood at 0-1, mainly because the Phillies had managed to win each of the contests by just a run or two and their bullpen came in to stop the bleeding (including 5 scoreless IP by Happ in two separate outings).

Park did turn it around in his next two starts, collecting his first win of the year by only giving up 2 ER in 14 IP, striking out 8, giving up 8 hits, and walking 2. He’d lowered his ERA two-and-a-half runs, from 8.57 to 6.00.

Then came the proverbial backbreaking straw, the 1.1 IP he threw against the lowly 11-25 Washington Nationals, who scored 5ER on 5 H and 4 BB against just 2 Ks. That was it for the Phils, and they put Park in the pen and promoted Happ to starter.

Park wasn’t happy about it, but it’s turned out to be a good move for both pitchers.

Happ now has a 3-0 record in 8 starts, with a 3.16 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, and good supporting ratios. He was a bit better as a reliever (2.49 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, with much better secondary ratios), but it’s easier to fool batters when they only see you once a game, and easier to throw harder when you’re only out there for a few frames.

Park, however, has been transformed. He went from a 1-1, 7.29 ERA, 1.74 WHIP starter to a 2-1, 3.57 ERA, 1.37 WHIP reliever. His K/BB ratio zoomed from 1.24 to 3.13, which is what happens when you nearly double your K rate (from 5.7 K/9 to 9.9 K/9) while dropping your walk rate (from 4.6 to 3.2).

As a starter, batters had a .909 OPS against him, clubbing a .515 SLG. Out of the bullpen, opposing OPS dropped to .645, much of that in SLG, which plummeted to .318. In fact, batters have only gotten 5 extra-base hits off of him since he moved out of the rotation, and all of those are doubles (contrast that to the 10 2B, 1 3B and 5 HR they cranked off him in only about 1/3 more IP when he started).

It wouldn’t be the first time that an aging pitcher made the shift from being a career starter to an outstanding reliever. One recent example is lefty Darren Oliver, who started from 1993-2004, putting up a mediocre career line of 82-77, 5.13 ERA, 1.54 WHIP, including ten straight seasons of 4.20+ ERA for six different teams.

Even the 2005 Rockies didn’t want Oliver, and they cut him loose. When he returned to the bigs in 2006, he became a reliever, and has turned his career around. Since the transition, he’s got a 22-5 record in 357.1 IP, with a 3.58 ERA and a 1.31 WHIP.

It’s also the curious legacy of Japanese pitchers that the relievers turn out to be far more successful than the starters. Some of this is no doubt due to the fact that most arrive here late in their careers; Park was excellent in his younger years, having begun pitching as a 21-year-old and the best Japanese MLB starter of all time, Hideo Nomo, began his MLB career at age 26.

But pitchers of any nationality want to be the big dogs, either the starter or the closer, and Park is neither,  mostly appearing in innings 6-8. But his outings have been important ones, and he must learn to take solace in that.

Of his 16 appearances, eight have been with the game tied or the Phils ahead by two runs or less; only four have been blowouts, with the Phils ahead or behind by four runs or more, and two of those were in his first three relief appearances.

Manuel is learning to trust him, just as Joe Torre did last year, and it paid off for the Dodgers. In high leverage situations in 2008, he had a tOPS+ of 88, to go with a 91 under medium leverage, and 111 under low leverage conditions.

Ideally, Park can be the versatile pitcher for Philadelphia that he was for Los Angeles in 2008: a guy who can pitch 1-2 innings of relief on a regular basis, step in for a key out or two, or slide into the rotation as an emergency fifth starter. In the meantime, the promising young J.A. Happ is getting his chance to dominate as a starter—everyone wins this way, and Park can at least say he had the chance to keep the starting spot he was given.

The shift to the bullpen is partly one of mental and physical preparation, and partly one of ego, of accepting a position of nominally decreased importance. But if there’s one characteristic that typifies Asian players, it’s their ability to put the team first. Park’s learning how to do that, and the Phillies are the better for it.