Bringing in your best relief pitcher

[Angel Oracle]

10 minutes ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Been saying that for years. Closers eant to close because of the stat, which gets them paid. The 8th or even 7th inning guy may have the tougher job on any given night, but holds dont pay like saves.

Scott Shields nods head in approval.

[Docwaukee]

the leverage index when Jansen came into the game ie, home team down by 1 run, bottom 7.  runner on first, no outs is 3.0

the leverage index of bot 9, 0 outs, home team down by a run with no runners on (ie, the time a closer usually enters the game) is 3.6

for the leverage in the 7th inning to be greater than 3.6, there has to be at least 2 runners on and 1 or 2 outs.  

leverage does not take into account the quality of the batter coming to the plate.  

This isn't about leverage as much as it is having your best pitcher pitch to their best hitters late in the game.  

[Homebrewer]

49 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

the leverage index when Jansen came into the game ie, home team down by 1 run, bottom 7.  runner on first, no outs is 3.0

the leverage index of bot 9, 0 outs, home team down by a run with no runners on (ie, the time a closer usually enters the game) is 3.6

for the leverage in the 7th inning to be greater than 3.6, there has to be at least 2 runners on and 1 or 2 outs.  

leverage does not take into account the quality of the batter coming to the plate.  

This isn't about leverage as much as it is having your best pitcher pitch to their best hitters late in the game.  

You lost me at "the leverage index"

[fan_since79]

5 hours ago, Homebrewer said:

A team that can't hit Joe Blanton doesn't deserve to move on in the post season. 

Blanton was a completely different pitcher this year. A lot of teams couldn't hit him.

7-2, 2.48 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 158 ERA+, 6.2 H/9 inn

 

[Homebrewer]

9 minutes ago, fan_since79 said:

Blanton was a completely different pitcher this year. A lot of teams couldn't hit him.

7-2, 2.48 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 158 ERA+, 6.2 H/9 inn

 

Honeycutt >>> Butcher

[Oz27]

2 hours ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Been saying that for years. Closers eant to close because of the stat, which gets them paid. The 8th or even 7th inning guy may have the tougher job on any given night, but holds dont pay like saves.

Hopefully Andrew Miller knocks off that silly notion. Also, I would question how much save totals impact contract value these days. There aren't many, if any, archaic front offices left and 2010 Fernando Rodney contracts don't happen that much anymore.

Put it this way, Dellin Betances has 22 career saves because the Yankees have had Miller and Chapman for parts of the last two years. But he is clearly an elite reliever, even if his very good 2016 didn't quite live up to his incredible performances in 2014 and 2015. If he were a free agent now - or if he were a free agent in a hypothetical world where he had 40 saves each of the past two years - I would like to think the contract he would get in either scenario would be exactly the same.

[Stradling]

Is it really silly just because fans say it's silly?  Guys in the pen say they are most prepared in defined roles.  Shouldn't that be taken into consideration?  I agree that if I had to choose between pitching my "closer" in the 8th against the meat of the line up or hope to use him in the 9th, I'd choose the 8th.  But I've also heard guys say the last 3 outs are the toughest of the game to get.  

[Oz27]

10 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Is it really silly just because fans say it's silly?  Guys in the pen say they are most prepared in defined roles.  Shouldn't that be taken into consideration?  I agree that if I had to choose between pitching my "closer" in the 8th against the meat of the line up or hope to use him in the 9th, I'd choose the 8th.  But I've also heard guys say the last 3 outs are the toughest of the game to get.  

Some do, some don't. Andrew Miller says quite the opposite. And I think guys only feel that way now because they've been conditioned to feel that way their whole careers. Hopefully that's changing.

My 'silly' comment though was about pitchers wanting to close because it'll lead to higher contracts. I don't think that's true anymore. There is no way in hell any analytically-minded front office is factoring save totals into their calculations and nearly every front office is analytically-minded these days.

[m0nkey]

Well his team is moving on and you're going home you bum 

[Jay]

Dusty sounds bitter

 

 

[Troll Daddy]

Oz is living the dream

[Docwaukee]

1 hour ago, m0nkey said:

Well his team is moving on and you're going home you bum 

"It’s not a trend that I’d like to be a part of anytime."

you mean winning Dusty?  

[Homebrewer]

Scioscia wouldn't even answer such a silly question, he'd just kick you out of his office...

 

 

for good 

[disarcina]

watching that Dodgers -Nats game and seeing Dave Roberts bringing Jansen in at a very critical point of the game in the 7th and then having Kershaw. the ace, close - and I realize it's a playoff game -- but mixing things up and having players placed in something different than their 'traditional' or 'assigned' roles depending on the game situation is something that I don't think ever occurs to Mike Scioscia as a move a manager can make.

oh - not Sosh -- we use this guy in the 7th, this guy as the set up guy and this guy closes and never shall anything change here -

Props to Dave Roberts. He's manager of the year in my book.  Not a Dogs fan since O'Malley sold the team but I like Dave Roberts..........

[Oz27]

Let's not make Dave Roberts into some kind of hero. I'm a fan of his overall but he still has significant flaws. His lineup optimization, for example, is pretty bad.

[disarcina]

Dave Roberts made a very Bruce Bochy type move there.........or Tony LaRussa.

guys that win.

[Homebrewer]

If the Cubs rip them apart in 4 straight, which could absolutely happen...people will be second guessing using all your horses up in 1 game.

[Docwaukee]

the save is a stupid stat.  the concept of trying to quantify the skill of getting the last three outs when there is no one to back you up and the game is on the line is important though.  

every other pitcher except a 'closer' pitches with the understanding that they might get taken out for a better option in order to preserve your chance to win.  A closer either walks off the field having finished off a win, or if they have completely blown the game and their team has either lost or is likely to lose.  

Leverage is calculated for a reason and the closer the game, the higher it gets.  It escalates as the game gets later.  So a reliever who does his job increases the probability that their team will win.  ie, the Win Probability Added.  A stat that I think does a good job at estimating the true value of a reliever.  

9 of the top 20 pitchers for WPA were relievers in 2016.  While the stat is not predictive for any individual player, it does a nice job of indicating the true value of a late inning reliever.  

So while defined pen roles may be somewhat antiquated, the value of a high end reliever is actually becoming more and more apparent as evident by the cost in trade of some of those players.  

There was one team that didn't have a reliever WPA in the upper half of baseball.  The Giants.  Who I might remind everyone lost to the cubs because of poor bullpen performances.  

We were ranked 28th this year.  

From 2010 to 2016, we ranked 17th in reliever WPA with 9.26.  5.33 of which came in our 98 win 2014 season

From 2002 to 2009, we ranked 2nd with a WPA of 46.76.  

We can dissect the reasons to pitch who when, but the bottom line is that it doesn't matter quite as much when you second and third to last guys out are legit.  And that is essentially what I am saying.  Make it not matter that much if there are defined pen roles.  Make it not matter if your best pen arm pitches in the ninth because those in the 7th and 8th are almost if not as good.  

 

[Oz27]

Good summary, Doc. It is amazing we have had a bad bullpen over such a long period now. The only period where it has seemed acceptable for awhile now was the second half of 2014, when Street, Smith and Jepsen were all really good. A big part of the problem, at least as I see it, is that we've been really bad at producing our own top level relievers over the past decade. Jepsen had a pretty good career, O'Day turned out excellent but we inexplicably gave up on him and Bedrosian is going to be really good (and already is, actually). We also traded Will Smith, who has turned out pretty well too. But everyone else, unless I'm forgetting anyone obvious, really falls into the 'flash in the pan' category.

The best way to build a bullpen is to do so through your minor league system because relief pitching is so damn volatile that it is incredibly risky to attempt to do so through the free agent market. We've just produced Bedrosian and maybe one or two others will turn into good relievers from the farm in the coming years (such as Alcantara), while Meyer should do well as a late-inning bullpen piece if he doesn't stick in the rotation. Either way, we have been really bad at drafting and producing relievers over several regimes now and we have to get better at it. It's a pretty big part of the reason our MLB bullpen has been bad for a long time.

[m0nkey]

8 hours ago, Homebrewer said:

If the Cubs rip them apart in 4 straight, which could absolutely happen...people will be second guessing using all your horses up in 1 game.

If they don't use up all their horses in one game they might not even be there...

[Angel Oracle]

Deep bullpens, with solid teams, can lead to deep post-season runs.   

[disarcina]

Jansen probably can't pitch/ not available today (Saturday) but should be good to go as usual after that.

Kershaw?  9 pitches to close out a game won't impact his start date at all.

If anything, he's probably available for 10 -15 more pitches today.

[Erstad Grit]

My criticism was Roberts should have started Urias on game 4, then Kershaw on normal rest with Hill available in the pen on 3 days rest. The Dodger pitching staff will implode this next series. 

[Billy_Ball]

[Blarg]

Only 2 of those guys were worth putting into a game. In fact if you try and Google Crim stats you are directed to Crime Stats which is not far from the truth about his career.