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John Bale

The Great Royals Bullpen Makeover made a stop in the Far East this winter, when the Royals signed reliever John Bale to a two-year deal.

Bale has a pretty limited major league track record. Pitching for three teams in parts of four seasons, he’s pitched only 78.2 innings and has a career ERA of 4.69. His strikeout rate of 7.78 batters per 9 innings is decent enough, but he’s had control problems, walking almost 4 batters per 9 innings. But in this case, the numbers really don’t tell a story because the last time he pitched in the big leagues was in 2003.

With his career going nowhere, Bale requested the Cincinnati Reds release him so he could join the Hiroshima Carp of the Japanese Central League. In his first year in Japan, he was a starter winning 11 of 25 starts with an ERA of 4.21. Most impressive was the fact that he totaled 173 strikeouts in 160 innings. I say that’s impressive, but really I have no idea if I’m losing something in the translation. They say batters who have power in the Japanese League suffer a dip when they jump to the majors. Do American pitchers overpower Japanese hitters?

The following year, he became the closer for the Carp and saved 24 games in 51 appearances with an ERA of 3.19. He also struck out 72 batters in just under 54 innings. Look at it this way: 45% of the batters he faced in 2005 didn’t put the ball in play. I don’t care where you pitch, that’s impressive.

Bale moved out of the closer role and posted solid numbers last year. In 43 innings he posted a 2.93 ERA while striking out 46 batters. He was used in a variety of roles, starting five games and finishing 11. He also earned six saves.

He’s signed for the next two seasons for a total of $4 million. With Andy Sisco gone, Bale is now lefty number two in the bullpen, which gives Buddy Bell some flexibility along with Jimmy Gobble. Buddy likes to make sure his bullpen guys are plenty rested, last year he used the same reliever on consecutive days only 86 times. So maybe one night, he brings in Bale to get David Ortiz and then next night it’s Gobble’s turn. Bale has better control than Sisco, so this might be a lefty tandem that can work.

After being away from the major leagues for three years, Bale is one of the mysteries headed into the season. With his contract, we know he’ll get his shot in the bullpen, but can he get the results? That’s the $4 million question.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 10th, 2007 at 12:15 am and is filed under Player Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.