Stealing Wins (The repeatable skill of winning close games)

[Docwaukee]

So with our fearless leader returning for his 17th season, I thought it apropos that we highlight some of the interesting info in regards to his general success over the last 16 years.  In particular, are there any correlates to the perception that Scioscia led teams are particularly good at winning the close ones.

 

First off, lets start with his general record since 2000.

 

The Angels have a franchise record of 1416-1176 for a .546 winning pctg.  Their pythag winning pctg during that time is .535 for an 11 point delta.  Third overall behind NYY (.583) and STL (.565).  The 11 point delta from the pythag is the second highest positive margin (NYY +17).  

 

Here is some info on team record during that time with margin of victory indicated and the franchise rank since 2000 as well as how that relates to expected (pythag).

 

<=1 run .539%.  2nd to NYY (.548).  Pythag of .509 so +30 points (NYY +37) 2nd biggest difference.  3rd most 1 run games played

<=2 runs .543% 2nd to NYY (.569).  Pythag of .514.  +30 points (NYY +45) 2nd biggest difference. 11th most games played 

<=3 runs .543% 2nd to NYY (.575).  Pythag of .518.  +25 points (NYY +42)  2nd biggest difference.  12th most games played

 

How about the rest of the games?

 

>=4 runs .552%.  7th overall.  pythag of .554.  -2 points.  18th most games

 

So the closer the game, the better the team has performed relative to the rest of the league.  

 

What is it about the team's construct that could aid in something like this happening?

 

Breaking down each seasons winning pctg and how they performed in close games of <=3 runs margin of victory.  

Year, Overall (pythag), Close games (pythag) <=3runs, Close <=1run, the rest >=4 runs

 

2000, .506 (.497), .515 (.498), .582 (.515), .492 (.496)

2001, .463 (.475), .481 (.484), .500 (.500), .426 (.462) 

2002, .611 (.625), .570 (.527), .585 (.519), .677 (.736)

2003, .475 (.496), .440 (.470), .444 (.488), .521 (.521)

2004, .568 (.559), .564 (.531), .475 (.494), .574 (.589)

2005, .586 (.576), .545 (.511), .559 (.514), .680 (.674)

2006, .549 (.521), .567 (.539), .532 (.508), .523 (.501)

2007, .580 (.553), .583 (.540), .568 (.516), .576 (.566)

2008, .617 (.542), .645 (.555), .596 (.526), .558 (.523)

2009, .599 (.568), .554 (.525), .600 (.524), .672 (.613)

2010, .494 (.486), .531 (.520), .490 (.497), .438 (.449)

2011, .531 (.524), .520 (.521), .466 (.490), .547 (.527) 

2012, .549 (.542), .533 (.520), .500 (.500), .569 (.567)

2013, .481 (.498), .475 (.492), .462 (.491), .492 (.504)

2014, .605 (.593), .570 (.532), .551 (.513), .661 (.660)

2015, .525 (.490), .578 (.521), .673 (.544), .433 (.458)

 

So that's a lot of numbers.  

 

Just a few observations before we delve into the why.  

 

- in the Scioscia era, we have beat the pythag by 30 games

- we have had one winning season of the 12 where we didn't beat the pythag

- we didn't beat it in only one our the four losing seasons

- this holds true for games of 3 runs or less as well.  

- 2010 thru 2013 we were below .500 in 1 run games and considerably worse than the pythag for those games.

 

So as some might have already wondered, does this pattern correlate to the success and failure of the bullpen? 

Here is the pen performance in the MS era.  I included the overall WAR and WPA.   WAR would equally weigh what someone did in mop up vs. high leverage, whereas WPA gives more credit to high leverage situations.  

 

year, WAR (rank), WPA (rank)

 

2000, 1.7 (20th), 4.36 (6th)

2001, 3.8 (10th), 2.11 (12th)

2002, 3.8 (11th), 5.81 (4th)

2003, 5.2 (2nd), 3.68 (10th)

2004, 7.9 (1st), 6.30 (6th)

2005, 4.5 (3rd), 5.94 (2nd)

2006, 4.8 (7th), 6.97 (4th)

2007, 3.3 (17th), 6.03 (6th)

2008, 3.6 (10th), 6.76 (4th)

2009, 2.5 (15th), 3.65 (10th)

2010, 1.3 (20th), 1.47 (18th)

2011, 0.4 (28th), -0.53 (24th)

2012, 0.6 (28th), -1.66 (24th)

2013, 1.3 (27th), 1.0 (20th)

2014, 3.6 (13th), 6.1 (4th)

2015, 2.8 (17th), 3.64 (5th)

 

So breaking it down by season:

 

2000:  Excellent offense, Bullpen wasn't great .  SP was a massive outlier with a 3.2 WAR overall.  5 starters with 15 or more starts with an era over 5.  yeesh   

2001:  Nothing was all that great and it showed.  

2002:  Very good offense, Below average pitching, very good pen

2003:  Good offense, horrible starting pitching, good pen

2004:  Good offense, below average SP, very good bullpen

2005:  Vlad (overall avg offense), Good starting pitching, Good pen

2006:  wash rinse repeat

2007:  the same

2008:  a little less offense, still good SP, very good bullpen

2009:  very good offense, mediocre SP, very good pen

2010:  weak offense, below average SP, bad bullpen

2011:  solid offense, solid SP, horrible pen

2012:  incredible offense, poor SP, horrible pen

2013:  good offense, poor SP, horrible pen

2014:  excellent offense, mediocre SP, good pen overall (incredible in the 2nd half)

2015:  average to slightly below offense, below avg SP, mediocre pen (how did we win 85 games?)

 

So we certainly wasted 2010 thru 2013 over something as simple as a bad bullpen.  You can't just have a good pen though.  An offensive or SP outlier will ruin the deal as well.   Bottom line is that a bad bullpen can ruin your season and a good one can make up for defects in other areas.  

 

Mike Scioscia teams have been all over the road in terms of offense and SP.  We've had two seasons with him as coach where the team performed exceptionally well (89 wins or above) where the pen was worse than 6th ranked in WPA (2009 and 2012).  We've had two seasons where the team ranked 6th or better in pen WPA and the team finished with a winning pctg below .549.  (89 wins) and that was in 2000 and 2015.  

 

The 2000 and 2015 pen's were mediocre to bad but got it done in high leverage.  But the depth sucked.  In 2012, the offense made up for everything else being awful.  In 2009 a very good offense made up for a mediocre pen and SP.  2009 and this year seem to be the only true outliers and they were on the positive side.  

 

There is only one instance where we outperformed the pythag in one run games and the pen wasn't very good (2009) and one time where the pen was good and we didn't (2004), but in that year we were actually good in margins of 3 or less.  

 

As an aside, look at how the royals have done it the last couple of years.  

 

The interesting thing is that the success from 'good in high leverage' pen theory doesn't totally hold up for other teams, but it does for Scioscia run clubs.  Most likely related to how he manages them.  So creating as much depth as possible is the key so we aren't carting guys like Salas out in 1 and 2 run deficits.  I am talking about depth that would make Smith and Gott the 6th inning guys.  

 

One of Jerry's biggest weaknesses was to not only neglect the pen, but to put his head in the sand in regards to who was managing the team.  Good or bad, Scioscia is here he's gonna be for awhile.  Eppler needs to create a roster that maximizes his manager's strengths and minimizes his weaknesses.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ABC]

[Ohtaniland]

2015 run differential.....

Astros +111

Angels -14

End of story.

[DoubleOffTheWall]

Love this kind of statistical breakdown. Thanks alot! 

 

I simply draw from this - if you have a flawed team, a solid bullpen is huge. We have a severely flawed team, even within the SP core, and our bullpen wasn't that good either. I still have high hopes for this pen though, with the likes of Gott, Rasmus and Morin. 

[ten ocho recon scout]

Great post Doc, ill have to read it again when im not skimming at work. But its something some of us have been harping for a bit. Its not to make excuses for sosh, but pointing out what was once an absolute strength, that became an absolute weakness.

The angels never got "moneyball" credit. But i always felt their construction under stoneman with decent to good SP with a killer bullpen was savy. It was in some ways a very cost efficient approach, once SP prices had skyrocketed.

2012 was the year most seemed to turn on scioscia. We signed pujols, wilson was added to make an already good pitching staff better, mike trout, etc. But people somehow (even as recent as it was) forget we had isringhausen and hawkins at the back end of the pen. For an even more direct point, frieri became our number 1 pen arm...i dont have the numbers, but i i remember several blown leads that year. And texas/oakland had very good pens.

Even last season, the bullpen was pretty shaky until street and grilli arrived. (Which was why i was hesitant to trade jepsen after letting grilli go).

A solid pen isnt "the" key to success. But its far more important than a lot of people seem to think. Game 162 this year is a perfect example. Yes, we needed to score more than 2 runs. And yeah, the 7th inning had bad luck (the defense) mixed in with poor performance. But when youbsaw the options we had for the 7th inning...it wasnt too far off from where our pen was from about the time franky became a met until about when rondon became street.

Again, very good write up

[ten ocho recon scout]

Also, agree with mentioning dipotos role in the pen troubles (it obvio7sly wasnt just him). But i remember him saying he didnt believe in spending big on RP, and because i think hes a very smart/sabr guy, i figured it made sense. But after 2012 alone, something more should have been done. To enter 2014 with frieri still as the closer was bad news. Again, give him credit on the good (like the trumbo, chatwood, street deals), but hold him accountable to the others that didnt work out

[Angel Oracle]

As solid as Dipoto was on the pitching end, the off-season where he signed Blanton, Madsen, and Burnett, and traded for Hanson will always be a total embarrassment.

It seems that he was big on dumpster diving for relievers, until signing Smith and trading for Street.

You can't treat a bullpen that way.

Edited October 6, 2015 by Angel Oracle

[Inside Pitch]

Agreed, this was a great write up.   The pen was the one area where IMO Dipoto clearly showed his biases and his tendencies..   Like Recon is saying, it's not that a pen is "the key" to winning, but it becomes much more important when you have a field manager that likes to play for the one run lead...

 

This seems like one area where if JD/MS may have been able to find some middle ground the rest of the BS wouldn't have snowballed.

[ten ocho recon scout]

Buernett i thought was a good move, he just got hurt.

Cant really defend the others. Was thinking about it last night. Not sure what the dollars looked like, and dont know how he did this year, but never understood why we let vargas go. We traded morales for him, kept him a year, then let him go when we werent exactly nexk deep in pitching depth. And not to mention, mulder was actually expected to pitch here...

[Inside Pitch]

AO, the dumpster diving makes sense from the saber POV..   Its a long held saber belief that it's dumb to spend a lot of money on a bullpen, mostly because there are a ton of failed starters just aching to become a solid reliever.   Jerry stuck too closely to that IMO, not because the idea was a bad one but because the Angels farm system didn't really have the failed starters to try to convert to RPs....

We needed outside, immediate help.... the one year we got it they won 98 games.

 

Recon...  don't forget Burnett was unable to throw when he signed him.  That was a massively stupid move.  You can't assume that everything will go fine with an arm injury.  Dipoto did.   Vargas wanted four years -- I think that's why he was allowed to move on.

Edited October 6, 2015 by Inside Pitch

[ten ocho recon scout]

Forgot about that (burnett). I remember madsen having come over hurt, forgot about burnett.

That pen, with the SP staff of declining weaver, angel CJ, Vargas, blanton and hansen was bad. Disaster bad. Made pujols' foot and hamilton's year that much worse. Again, not trying to defend sosh, but no manager out there was going to be able to juggle that into a winner.

For everyone that thought this year was bad, dear god that 2013 team was ugly.

[Blarg]

What the Angels and many teams lack is a true long reliever. The last week of the season you watched as most relievers were entrusted with no more than one inning. So when a pitcher can't get out of the fifth you see a parade of arms to the 9th. This isn't sustainable in the regular season, only during roster expansion.

Gott, Smith, Street is a good run from the 7th to 9th inning but in order to rest any of those arms you either need blowouts or starters going long. Next season we will see Weavers continued decline, Wilsons continued struggle with himself, Richardson past his sophomore jinx, Santiago busy getting autographs and showering in his uniform, and three or more young arms covering one or more pitchers breaking down. There will be plenty of unfinished business that will require multiple innings covered so get a true long releiver to keep the bullpen back end continuity in place.

[stormngt]

And a Street blown save separating them in real standings.

2015 run differential.....

Astros +111

Angels -14

End of story.

[Glen]

And a Street blown save separating them in real standings.

Did Street blow any saves in the last week?

[Angel Oracle]

Forgot about that (burnett). I remember madsen having come over hurt, forgot about burnett.

That pen, with the SP staff of declining weaver, angel CJ, Vargas, blanton and hansen was bad. Disaster bad. Made pujols' foot and hamilton's year that much worse. Again, not trying to defend sosh, but no manager out there was going to be able to juggle that into a winner.

For everyone that thought this year was bad, dear god that 2013 team was ugly.

2013 was horrible, the 78-84 record only masked by a strong September.

[Angel Oracle]

Alvarez showed some promise as a long reliever, but was mainly used for an inning or so.

[stormngt]

That's not the point. Street blew a two out 3 run lead for a two game switch.

It's not the only reason why we came in third but it certainly stands out.

[5628438245quote name=Glen" post="690238" timestamp="1444144963]

Did Street blow any saves in the last week?

[AngelsLakersFan]

I've often correlated the success compared to team run differential to the depth of the team, and most of this comes from the bullpen. 

 

Scioscia has always managed games such that he uses his top 3 relievers when the team in ahead by 3 or less runs, and then he uses his other guys when the team is behind 1 run or more. The effect has been that the team does well in close ball games when they have 3 or 4 good relievers. When we don't have a quality fourth reliever we don't really come back when we fall behind late, and the games tend to get out of hand. 

[laagamer]

Great post man. Enjoyed reading that.

Bottom line is talent. The game of baseball is never a sure thing but aside from a few outlier seasons, we've had the talent to be competitive. And we will again next year.

Can't wait myself. HOW LONG UNTIL SPRING?

[tomsred]

That was a terrific post Doc, one of the best of the year.  Chuck should post that one up front as an article, it's great as a history piece of where we've been, and it's great at pointing out exactly where the deficiencies lie.  I printed it out, and plan to refer to it during in the future.

[HaloFan85]

This year's offense was actually the worst during Sosh's tenure.  Worst batting average, worst OBP, fewest runs scored, and fewest stolen bases.  The entire team stole only 52 friggin' bases!  That's only 3 more than Trout had in 2012!!  Funny thing is they had 176 home runs.  I'm guessing most of those were solo shots.

[AngelsLakersFan]

This year's offense was actually the worst during Sosh's tenure.  Worst batting average, worst OBP, fewest runs scored, and fewest stolen bases.  The entire team stole only 52 friggin' bases!  That's only 3 more than Trout had in 2012!!  Funny thing is they had 176 home runs.  I'm guessing most of those were solo shots.

 

I think this plays into the run differential beating. When you don't hit it's a lot harder to push that run differential up. This team had a negative run differential this year, keep in mind. 

[Slegnaac]

What the Angels and many teams lack is a true long reliever. The last week of the season you watched as most relievers were entrusted with no more than one inning. So when a pitcher can't get out of the fifth you see a parade of arms to the 9th. This isn't sustainable in the regular season, only during roster expansion.

Gott, Smith, Street is a good run from the 7th to 9th inning but in order to rest any of those arms you either need blowouts or starters going long. Next season we will see Weavers continued decline, Wilsons continued struggle with himself, Richardson past his sophomore jinx, Santiago busy getting autographs and showering in his uniform, and three or more young arms covering one or more pitchers breaking down. There will be plenty of unfinished business that will require multiple innings covered so get a true long releiver to keep the bullpen back end continuity in place.

We need to find another Scott Shields

[Ohtaniland]

That's not the point. Street blew a two out 3 run lead for a two game switch.

It's not the only reason why we came in third but it certainly stands out.

[5628438245quote name=Glen" post="690238" timestamp="1444144963]

Did Street blow any saves in the last week?

 

Luke Gregerson had 6 blown saves this season. Street had 5 so I don't understand your point. Houston was the better team this season in runs scored and ERA.

[Tyler]

What an outstanding post, Dochalo.