The New Age Trend Of Overvaluing Relievers Based On Fabricated Stats
March 7, 2013 at 1:45 pm by Franklin Rabon under Atlanta Braves
Those who wander over to this article may well think that some sort of anti-sabermetric screed is about to be levied upon the reading public. That I’m about to attack WAR and how it specifically applies to relievers. This belief may well elicit a feeling of giddiness or a groan of baseball blog world weariness, depending on the nature of the audience. But that’s not what this is about. This article is about how traditional thinking from the true old timers somehow was replaced with the idiocy of the saves ‘rule’ and further, how relievers in general came to be wildly overrated. Sprinkled throughout will be how this applies to the Atlanta Braves.
First, let’s get a little back history of how reliever usage patterns came about, loosely adapted from Baseball Prospectus’ Extra Innings.
In the truly olden days, the days of Old Hoss Radbourn, Cy Young and the like, there weren’t really relief pitchers. In fact most relief innings were sort of in an emergency and were usually performed by position players. These would be cases like, for instance, when the day’s starter got drunk between the 6th and 7th, as his team was having a particularly good offensive half in between his trips to the mound, and he couldn’t stumble back out to the mound (or maybe I’m just remembering my days of softball in law school). This trend continued into the early twenties or thereabouts, when we started to see the emergence of ‘swingmen’, starters who would also occasionally throw relief innings. These pitchers would typically throw a couple of relief innings once a week and also probably start a game that week as well. It was something akin to the current practice of occasionally using a starter in relief on his ‘throw day’. But during this time, roughly 90% of all innings were thrown by starting pitchers, ie it was more common that a complete game was thrown than one wasn’t thrown.
Around the 1930′s we began to see the appearance of the dedicated reliever. But even so, it wasn’t until the 1970s that more than half of all relief innings were thrown by dedicated relievers. Today, the figure stands around 80% (if that seems low, it’s essentially because spot starters aren’t considered ‘dedicated relievers’). From the 1960s to the mid 1980s, we saw what were called ‘firemen’, ie relief aces that came in when the game was most in peril, often pitched multiple innings of tie games or games that were close in either direction, ie what we modern saberists would call high leverage situations. These were the days of Goose Gossage. Managers were using their relievers in what they truly felt were the most important situations, not whatever situations an arbitrary rule for stat keeping dictated.
If three men can be responsible for such an atrocity as how modern relievers are used, they can be said to be Jermoe Holtzman, Tony LaRussa and Dennis Eckersley. However, three men also couldn’t be less culpable. To start with Holtzman, the inventor of the save, let’s understand where he was coming from. Mr. Hotlzman was a sportswriter, and the genesis for his inventing the save came from vulture artist extraordinaire Elroy Face, who in 1959 went an astounding 18-1, as a reliever. Holtzman realized that a large number of these wins were simply coming when Face surrendered the lead upon entering the game, but then had the offense retake the lead for him later in the game. Holtzman understood that pitcher wins were a stupid way to evaluate relievers, that Face had had an historically lucky season in 1959, and was actually better the previous season when he went just 5-2. Thus he dreamt up the save rule as we now know it. But Holtzman wasn’t setting out to change the game, Holtzman was a writer, and seemed to just feel that he could better help write about the game by using the save statistic.
It’s incredibly important to realize that in many ways this statistic was invented in response to one particular issue that one particular writer had with the evaluation of one particular player, ie all the times that Face came into a game when he had the lead, gave it up and then got the win. This fundamentally altered how the save rule was formulated, in contrast to other ways it may well have been formulated. Since Holtzman was primarily worried about not giving credit to losing a lead, the saves rule ignored situations where the game was tied or close, but the pitcher’s team was behind. Face hadn’t achieved his farcical 18-1 record through come from behind wins, so the stat ignored those. The wrong that Holtzman believed needed to be redressed was strictly blown leads that resulted in a win. So, while Holtzman was correct that pitcher wins are a particularly terrible way to measure relievers, he ended up creating a stat in its place that made about as little sense. Thinking about it logically, does anybody ever anywhere actually think that protecting a three run lead is nearly as important as keeping a game tied int he bottom of the ninth, giving your team a chance to win in extras?
In Holtzman’s defense, again, he was just coming up with a stat to use to write about the game of baseball. This was during a time when pocket calculators weren’t a thing, and quickly figuring advanced metrics was not only yet to be envisioned, but probably wasn’t even practically feasible anyway. Holtzman likely never remotely figured that managers would change their strategies based on his new stat. It wasn’t even until nine years later that saves became an ‘official’ stat, the first such statistic to gain that designation since the RBI in 1920.
Even after the designation of the save as an official statistic in 1969, it went largely ignored until the late ’80s, when Dave Duncan, Dennis Eckersley and Tony LaRussa entered the picture with a plan to revitalize the once great, but now aging starter’s career. Essentially Eckersley’s arm was aging, and the primary loss was in stamina. He couldn’t retain his effectiveness for more than one inning. Because of reasons that were somewhat personal to him, it was deemed that he would only pitch in one inning stints at the end of the game. And it worked spectacularly well. A career that had begun to fall by the wayside was totally revitalized, and Eck became a dominant force at the end of ball games. And because that’s how the game works, the approach was copied everywhere. Even in situations where it probably wasn’t warranted. It’s important to remember that just like the original formulation of the saves rule, the first truly modern closer was a specific adaptation, to a very specific set of circumstances, that was then over-applied and over-generalized.
By this time we began to see the save as a statistic all over broadcasts, both television and radio. The save went from outsider stat, to officially recognized but largely ignored, to payed attention to, to finally dogma. It’s hard to nail down a specific point where the save transitioned from something managers considered to dogma such that it would lead Fredi Gonzalez to say “When you’re on the road, you’ve got to push guys back a little bit, because you can’t use your closer on the road in the ninth inning of a tie ballgame.” but we know it happened due to the way that managers manage, and that gem of a Fredi quote. Not to single Fredi out, because evidently most managers think this way, but he’s one of the few that actually said it.
One criticism often levied at ‘new-agey’ stats is how complicated they are, however, let’s contrast the ‘king of new age stats’ on base percentage, with the save rule;
OBP:
1) take times where a player reached base via a hit, hit by pitch or walk
2) divide by number of times a player came to the plate.
Save:
1)He is the finishing pitcher in a game won by his team;
2) He is not the winning pitcher;
3) He is credited with at least ⅓ of an inning pitched; and
4) He satisfies one of the following conditions:
i) He enters the game with a lead of no more than three runs and pitches for at least one inning
ii) He enters the game, regardless of the count, with the potential tying run either on base, at bat or on deck
iii) He pitches for at least three innings
Essentially, we see that when traditional media baseball writers’ criticize criticism of the saves rule as “newfangled, new age-y, spreadsheet mumbo jumbo” they’re ignoring the reality that the save is a new age statistic whose importance only came about because of two different overly reactionary movements. First, the reaction to one particular pitcher, that had a lot of vulture wins, leading to a bit of a weird formulation of the the stat to begin with, and then one particular pitcher, Eckersley, with very particular abilities in the twilight of his career. If a relatively unknown reliever in 1959 didn’t have a statistically improbable season with regards to pitcher wins, or if Dennis Eckersley had blown his elbow out in 1987, we may well today see a lot of ‘firemen’ pitching multiple innings in high leverage situations. Instead, we see them brought in to protect three run leads, or because of the relative paucity of save situations, brought into meaningless games with near insurmountable leads in either direction to ‘get in work’.
Further impacting the situation is the well known cognitive bias, endowment effect. The endowment effect is based on the observed fact that when someone views something as theirs, the perceived loss is much greater than the perceived gain would be if the roles were reversed. In baseball this manifests itself in the fact that managers seem to hate losing games where they held a lead much more than they ‘like’ come from behind wins. This permeates the save rule because managers will disproportionately deploy resources (good reliever innings) in relatively safe margins of victory (three run leads) while often letting mediocre relievers *cough* Durbin *cough* pitch in tied games or games where the team is behind by only a run or two. It’s unclear whether this effect is purely based on the manager’s own endowment effect bias, or because he fears the media backlash of theirs, or maybe most likely some of both. But the effect is real, and relatively well established amongst major league managers.
However, all of that merely states why relievers aren’t used particularly effectively, it doesn’t begin to actually make the case that relievers are overvalued. It may well be the case that while they could have more value squeezed out of them if used properly, that they’re already highly valuable to begin with. After all, relievers are used more and more today than ever.
Like most sabermetric concepts, the basic and most important issue with reliever evaluation is a mind numbingly simple one, they don’t throw very many innings comparatively. This fact manifests itself in two very important ways 1) Small sample size anomalies and 2) the fact that it’s hard to accrue a whole lot of value when you don’t throw very many innings.
The first point is one that people often simply don’t want to hear. People hate you telling them that some observation isn’t significant because of a small sample. Beat writers love nothing more than to cite small sample batter pitcher splits, such as John Morosi recently championing Ryan Vogelsong to be on team USA because Joey Votto from team Canada is just 1-7 against him. Try to point out the objective fact that that’s not even two games worth of at bats, and you get called a spreadsheet obsessed nerd. Fans further don’t want to hear that most of the best reliever seasons are at least partially a product of small sample anomalies. Sure, there are some truly great relievers who do it year in and year out, Mariano Rivera comes to mind, but for most relievers a great season is often just a series of good breaks in a relatively small number of innings pitched as much as anything else. We readily accept that a starter can simply have a bad month, but in a month a starter often accumulates as many innings as a reliever does in a half season or longer. So, many times if you pay for a reliever coming off a great season, you’re most likely paying at least in part for a statistical anomaly, and there’s no real way of knowing when you are or aren’t.
The second point is one that I think everybody understands when they simply start to think about it. Simply put, by virtually any measure used to evaluate how much is paid for a player’s contribution per win, relievers are by far the highest paid position on a per win basis. The most common way to measure this is $/WAR, and not only do relievers ‘win’ by this measure as most overpaid position, but they nearly double up the next closest competitor, 1B. Further, it’s even understandable why 1B is so high, as the position is often where aging stars go after they’ve moved off tougher defensive positions. Since many relievers are pre-arbitration young guys, this really makes the few of those that are paid in free agency really stand out. It’s simply difficult for relievers to pitch enough to warrant their pay. This is further exacerbated by the fact that there aren’t even that many close games. Many games are out of hand in one direction or another before a reliever ever takes the mound.
None of this would really matter if budgetary constraints weren’t an issue. While relievers might be overvalued, they still have value. One can argue that having the greatest reliever in baseball history made sense for the Yankees, as they had virtually zero budgetary constraints, and they were a virtual lock to be in the playoffs nearly every year. If they overpaid for performance a bit or a bunch, so what? For most of the rest of the league, who do operate on relatively strict financial constraints, overpaying for relievers can be damning. Imagine a budget of $10 million dollars, according to what that money can usually buy on the open market, you could either get a reliever that’s worth something like 1 win, or you could get a second baseman worth nearly 2.25 wins. Make that mistake a few times and you’ve contracted yourself into an awesome bullpen, but straight out of the playoffs.
It’s obvious to anybody who is paying any attention that the Braves are one of those ‘financially constrained’ franchises. Not totally devoid of money, but due to an awful local TV deal, unable to outspend, or even spend with, the ‘big boys’. While it may well make sense for the Yankees to pay a historically great closer $15 million, as they did with Mariano Rivera from 2008-2012, it almost certainly doesn’t for the Braves. Further, any opportunity the Braves may have to turn bullpen arms into comparatively more valuable commodities should be acted upon. Rich teams like the Tigers and Yankees can afford luxury closers, and the Braves should leverage this whenever possible.
This fact has lead to two of the more controversial ideas this spring. First the idea of trading Craig Kimbrel at some point before he becomes a free agent versus signing to a long term lucrative extension. And most recently the possibility of trading Jonny Venters to the Tigers for Rick Porcello.
First, trading Kimbrel has been dealt with amply by Mark here. But a further point, even outside of a trade is the real point, that in no way, shape or form does it make sense for the Braves to sign Craig Kimbrel to a long term extension, unless he falls on his face in one of the next few years and his price comes way down. At this point Kimbrel is putting up historic numbers, leading some commentators, such as KC Covington, to call that we do whatever it might cost to lock him up long term. Some saying if it takes $15 million per year, so be it. While I don’t mean to denigrate opinions, because that’s essentially what we’re all doing, that’s just freaking nuts. Such an extension would likely preclude extending a player like Heyward, Freeman, Justin Upton, Andrelton Simmons, etc. to say nothing of a hometown favorite like McCann (but we got Gattis, so let McCann walk if needed, I suppose).
Next, the idea of trading Jonny Venters for Rick Porcello is indeed ludicrous, but not for the reason that many Braves fans seem to think, it’s ludicrous because Detroit would never trade a young league average starter for an inconsistent set up man. Even as much as teams like the Tigers may (perhaps correctly given their finances and team) overvalue relievers, even they’re not that dumb. There’s just not a world where any league average starter should be traded for a middle reliever, or even anything short of a historically dominant closer. And if this was indeed possible, it would border on General Managerial malpractice if Wren didn’t immediately make such a trade. Last year Rick Procello was closer to Craig Kimbrel in value than Jonny Venters was to Porcello. Heck, even in Jonny Venters’ best year (2010) he was behind Porcello’s value in his worst full season (also 2010). Porcello was worth nearly 3 wins last season, while even at Venters’ best, he likely won’t ever crack 2 wins. Again, this trade idea/rumor was ludicrous, but only because the Tigers would be idiots to do it, not the Braves.
The next several years will indeed be interesting for the Braves when it comes to relievers. Thus far, Wren has largely shown that he prefers to build the core of his bullpen with young power arms in their pre-free agency seasons. Now, as those arms mature into dominant forces, but consequently get more expensive and near free agency, it will be worth following as to whether or not Wren sticks to this philosophy, or cracks and pays Craig Kimbrel a king’s ransom. One can only hope that Wren sticks to the principles that got him here, more than the horses that got him here.
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Also put this in a reply to Franklin on twitter, but I love the line “Rich teams like the Tigers and Yankees can afford luxury closers, and the Braves should leverage this whenever possible.” With Mo’s announced retirement after 2013, let’s hope the Yankees stumble through 2014 without a dominant closer. Then see what they’ll cough up for Killa Craig (assuming no injury before then)
Honestly I think the Yankees will let David Robertson close after Rivera retires. Robertson’s 2012 season was good, but his 2011 numbers were Kimbrel-ish…
66.2 IP/100 k/1.08 ERA/1.84 FIP
That guy would be closing for most teams.
Thought he is a great pitcher, he isn’t a big name. Craig Kimbrel is known nationwide and that is the type of signing the Yanks and Cashman love….Revenue building…
I think you become a “big name” when you start closing for the Yanks and over the last couple years that has not been their MO.
Would it be possible to try and project Dan Uggla’s numbers this year. I was looking at his fangraphs page today and saw that his LD% was actually a career high(was about 20% higher than his career mark) which you would think would contribute to a higher BABIP(was higher than 2 years ago but lower than the league average and his career mark). Did his GB% dropping cause this? Some of his swing rates are interesting too.
If McCann puts up an OPS over .800 with at least 20 HR, he’ll be out of the Braves’ price range IMO. Someone will be willing to pay him more than he’s worth. I wouldn’t bet on the hometown discount.
When is the optimal time to trade an outstanding young reliever? I suppose that this depends on two factors: the relationship between market value and $/WAR and the added value of additional years of team control.
On the former point, you have to consider that while arbitration costs are supposed to roughly equate to 40%, 60%, and 80% of a player’s market value in the A1, A2, and A3 seasons, the market value of relievers is dramatically inflated. At what point does Kimbrel’s arbitration salary outweigh his analytic value to the team?
On the latter point, you have to wonder how much potential trade returns will decline with the loss of each additional year of team control. For example, how much less would the Yankees offer for Kimbrel after 2014 than they would after 2013 (assuming static production from Kimbrel)?
I would just like to point out that the Braves traded Tommy Hanson (a league average starter) for a middle reliever.
I guess that makes them idiots.
That assertion only holds water if you believe Hanson will continue to be league average. Because there are health reasons that lead me to believe Hanson’s best days are behind him, and the fact that arbitration rewards past performance, I would argue that getting 3 fungo bats and a giant tub of sunflower seeds is more valuable to the 2013 Braves than tendering Tommy Hanson a contract.
Hanson was fringe-average in 2011, below average last season, and seemingly on a downward trend. Always remember the perils of Other People’s Players. The basic point of that trade, to me, is that the Braves no longer had room for Hanson in the rotation and did not want to pay his arb salary. Since he was an asset with negligible (or perhaps negative) net value, the return was never going to be very exciting, and Walden, a fungible middle-relief type, is indeed not very exciting.
One thing that I’ve never seen done but would be interesting, is what is the “ideal” position players to pitchers roster makeup. For example, why do most teams carry 5 bench bats? Would it be more beneficial to them to carry a sixth and lose a reliever slot? I dont know how someone would do it, but it would be interesting to see the marginal WAR difference in that sixth bench slot vs the extra reliever.
All we really need to know about what the value is for relievers is this. 2 years ago nobody even knew who Avilan was. Now Venters is expendable because of him.
I like this article, but it seemed like you kinda rambled for awhile there…..
:-p
Making that hypothetical trade of Venters for Porcello only makes sense if:
1. The Braves can properly use Porcello to extract more value than they would from Venters.
2. The front office is willing to spend the extra money.
3. Or, the market values Porcello properly and the Braves could flip him for something more valuable than Venters.
On #1, that depends on what you think of Teheran and whether you want 180 reliable innings vs. the possibility of 180 well above average innings.
On #2, we supposedly have money to spend, but who really knows?
On #3, if the Braves could flip him for more than Venters, why would the Tigers deal with the Braves at all?
#1) We likely will not need or expect 180 innings from Teheran, especially with Beachy coming back sometime mid season. We’ll have to be fortunate to avoid injuries, but being the 5th starter usually means fewer innings over the course of the season anyways. Having a great pen will help limit Teheran’s innings as well, as we can hand it over to them pretty much after the 5th inning. Hell, maybe even after the 4th.
#2) Apparently Liberty said it was willing to increase payroll to keep the team competitive, both now and through the future. Whether that is an actual increase in Liberty’s contribution or just the built in raise from TV deals in 2014 is unknown, but it sounds like they are at least willing to pony up and keep the guys in place here for a little while longer.
#3) A 3 team deal is more likely than a trade into another trade. If someone likes our pieces more than Detroit’s, or vice versa, they’d just work it all into one deal so everyone can get what they’re after regardless.
@Dan
As two point 1, assuming we have 5 healthy starters come mid April is a hellua assumption. Last year we used, what, 10 starters?
As to point 3, sure, that’s exactly why the trade won’t happen.
While I agree with you about the health of the starters, I’m not sure it’s practical for the Braves to acquire $5 million 5th starters with an eye towards depth. And, as you pointed out, trading Venters for Porcello is moot because it would be a bad move for the Tigers.
Like I said, if it turns out that we make it to mid april with 6 healthy starters, trading a starter is easy that time of year, because there almost ertainly is a team that didn’t. But yeah, the point is obviously moot.
And Porcello is better than a #5 starter.
@jbrum
There is an “arm is even odds to fall straight out of the socket” exception to that rule.
Great article, Franklin. It’s this type of “competitive balance” that makes baseball so interesting. There are probably 25 teams that are either financially constrained or too analytically aware to pay top dollar for bullpen pieces. But those other 5 will basically outbid themselves with massive contracts. Looking through the CAC prospect write-ups, it’s no wonder why Wren is loading up on pitching. For position players, it seems that it’s easier to know what you’re getting once they reach the majors. For pitchers, it could come from nowhere. JR Graham could easily end up being the next Kimbrel, and I don’t think Kimbrel had shown significantly more by the same point in his minor league career. The organization doesn’t seem to force starting on guys that could contribute at the major league level right away, if necessary. As of now, we have the luxury of developing Graham as a starter, but if injuries come up, I don’t think they’ll hesitate to use him in relief in Atlanta.
From what we’ve seen of Frank Wren, I would be completely shocked if he overvalued any one of our relief pitchers, and just as shocked if he didn’t capitalize on their perceived value when the opportunity arises. There is certainly a “next man up” strategy in place, and it has led us to arguably the best bullpen in baseball. don’t see any reason to stray from that.
It amuses me that for much of baseball history relief pitchers were able to pitch multiple innings and be used in different situations without any particular psychological harm but that now you have to have a certain “make up” to pitch the 9th inning. I remember when “firemen” were brought in typically with men on base to get out of difficult situations and then would likely pitch the rest of the game. Yet, now pitchers are so psychologically fragile that it would destroy them mentally to not know their exact role every game. I don’t think, however, that this came about specifically because of the save rule. Rather, it seems that over the decades managers became less tied to having the starter complete the game and became more willing to use relief pitchers. Over time, as in most sports, the relief role became more specialized as successful managers, especially Sparky Anderson in Cincinnate, began using a deep bullpen to compensate for having a relatively mediocre starting rotation. Then, with free agency and the need to guard the investments in starting pitchers, teams began deemphasizing complete games and counting more and more on relief pitchers. Another factor, it seems to me, is that managers decided that the worst possible thing was to lose a game after having a lead in the 9th. I don’t know if this was always the case, but the dogma has become that losing leads in the 9th (or whatever the last inning is) is worse than, say losing an extra-inning game that was tied. This seemed to lead to the idea that there is something mystical about the ability to close a game in the 9th, regardless of the score. I don’t think managers specifically worry about getting the closer a save, but they believe that only the closer has the psychological ability to get three outs in the last inning so they try to arrange to have the closer pitch the last inning; apparently believing that blowing a game in the 6th or 7th is less devastating than blowing it in the last inning.
The result, of course, is the obvious overvaluing of relief pitchers generally and closers in particular.
@jbrum you also have to consider the salaries of the trade pieces when comparing their value (in addition to health concerns mentioned above). I believe the braves saved some salary through the trade which offsets some of the potential WAR delta.
Nice write-up Franklin. An additional point:
The overvaluing of relievers is partially a function of their misuse, which is a function of the ‘save’ statistic. Goose Gossage pitched 133 and 134 innings of 100% relief in 1977 and 1978. He only “saved” 26 and 27 games but was worth 5.9 and 3.1 WAR, or 9 WAR in 2 seasons. Gossage would have several more 3-4 win seasons, and though he wouldn’t pitch quite so many innings, he would often get in the neighborhood of 100. And he did this despite often pitching about the same number of games as Kimbrel pitched last year. Kimbrel only pitched 62.2 innings though, in his 63 appearances. And Gossage never came close to Kimbrel’s 79 appearances logged in 2011. One could make an argument for signing such a pitcher as Gossage for big dollars, given he were used in a similar way.
WAR factors in leverage index for relievers, at least fangraphs does, but LI is held down by the ridiculous practice of pitching your best reliever with a 3-run lead. Could Kimbrel pitch 50 2-inning high-leverage stints and generate twice the value for the team while maintaining similar effectiveness? He might’ve been worth 5 wins last year if used in that way. The point is moot, though, so while a properly-used Kimbrel *could* be worth $12-$15 million per year, the way Kimbrel will actually be used means he’s not worth that money.
Good one, guys. Lots of interesting info. Here are my thoughts…
1) I was amazed at how many Braves fans reacted negatively to the idea of trading Venters. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I see him as a liability who can’t throw strikes and is in the process of setting a new standard for how bad a pitcher can be defensively. Relievers can’t really win games for you, but at the least you expect them to not LOSE them for you, and it seems like Venters does that way too often.
Of course, we don’t really need Porcello, because I see Teheran being at least as good as him this year. Maybe not much better, but it’s worth giving him a full season in the big leagues to see if he’s the real deal or not.
However, we should listen to any and all trade offers for Venters, and if I ever find out we could have kept Prado by including him in the Upton deal, somebody will have to talk me off a ledge.
2) Much like Porcello, I didn’t see Hanson starting for us this year over Teheran anyway, so dealing him was the right move. Walden is just icing on the cake. Any Braves fan who thinks Hanson was a viable option going forward should be traded to the Astros for a giant tub of sunflower seeds and 3 fungo bats.
3) I’m all for using Kimbrel in more “high leverage” situations. He does us more good with the bases loaded and 2 out in the 8th inning in a tie game than with a 3-run lead in the 9th. I really hope Fredi comes around on this topic.
Venters has some flaws, but there is no denying that he is a good reliever. Relievers who K 10/9ip with 60+% ground ball rates are very rare. And I would make the case that Venters is actually more valuable because Fredi refuses to deploy Kimbrel in the highest leverage situations. I would prefer if Venters walked fewer batters, but the walks are not the end of the world when your K rate is so high, and the high GB rate leads to DPs that erase some of the walks.
First – I want to voice my complete support for the basis of this article. Even as a kid before I was aware of SABRE style analysis I didn’t understand why teams spent big money on releivers. That’s probably a result of being a Braves fan and watching the bullpen be cobbled together with 1 guy making ~1.5M and the rest scraps for league mins or internal rookie types. Those bullpens were always good enough (see NL East trophy case).
Now that I can put some numbers with this I’m like a lot of folks around here:
-The mismanagement of assets vs. leverage by baseball managers is so absolutely ludicrous that it makes me want to tear my hair out when the Chad Durbins of the world are summoned to face the opposition’s 3-4-5 (L-R-L) hitters in a tie game just because it’s the 8th inning.
-The above mismanagement and the overall obsession with the “closer” and other predefined bullpen roles has created a massive overvaluing of releif pitchers – especially elite closers. If a mid-salary (really this applies to any team that cares about money) team who develops talent that fits this overvalued market perfectly doesn’t take advantage of the disproportionate returns available to them they’re absolutely crazy. Look – I’d love to see our elite or close to elite releivers in Braves unis until they cease to remain effective the truth is that we can replace them for far less than they’re worth on the open market.
Now, that all being said…I heard an awesome pseudo-stat on the radio this morning. I love it for its wow value, although without comparatives it’s like most statistics – useless. Sounds good though!
After 180 innings of postseason pitching, more men have walked on the moon (12) than have scored an earned run off of Mariano Rivera (11).
But even with that stat, Mariano Rivera blew a world series. Blew a save in a decisive world series game. Still the GOAT, but imagine if that was his only bite at the apple.
Oh, absolutely. The stat just illustrates a couple of things –
1. The uselessness of stats with no comparables.
2. The fact that the comparison was made at all shows the general public’s (and fans’ and GMs’ and managers’) misunderstanding of value and asset deployment vs. leverage.
I totally understand the argument that “saves” has basically ruined the idea of using your best relievers in the highest leverage situations.
I especially enjoyed the “endowment bias” as I have never really thought of that being true, but it is actually quite evident when you look at the way every manager manages his relievers.
But, that leads me to a question (and I’m asking not to argue, but just to sort of play the other side of the ball). Let’s say Freddie, last season, starts buying into all of us “saberists” over here at CAC and stops looking at saves and such and starts paying attention to leverage.
Tie game (maybe down by 1), starter shows fatigue and gets hit quickly for back to back singles. 2 on, nobody out. Typical Freddie probably brings in Durbin (or the like) right? Well, now that he’s paying attention to leverage, he brings in Venters or Kimbrel.
We all scream for joy and whichever pitcher comes in and holds the fort. The last few innings play out with the reliever being used according and finally, our offense comes through. We have the lead going into the bottom of the ninth and need to hold for the victory. Sadly, Kimbrel, Venters, and EOF have all been used. :( We’re now left with what Durbin, Gearrin, Livan to close it out.
Me, I’m EXTREMELY nervous. Basically, we have rolled the dice for an opportunity to win the game, but Durbin comes in and blows it for us.
Trust me when I say that I understand all the points being made and I’m sincerely not trying to argue. But it almost seems like you’re kind of damned if you do and damned if you don’t, doesn’t it?
Sure there’ll be games where we hold a lead or a tie and then our offense goes nuts and we win easily. But then there’s times when the strategy will backfire. Just like it might backfire bringing Durbin in during high leverage.
I guess the question I’m asking in all of this is, is it really possible to quantify either strategy actually being better than the other?
I hope all of this makes sense…
The problem isn’t in situations like you describe. In cases that it literally is, like you say, damned if you do, damned if you don’t. It really doesn’t make a difference the order you pitch your relievers in for a situation like that. The situations where it makes a difference are the situations where in a game that was tight throughout, your best pitcher never even entered the game. ie, a tie in the 9th, Kimbrel doesn’t come in, game gets blown and he never even pitched. Then he comes in the next day with a 6 run lead so that he can ‘get in work’.
Yeahh… that wouldn’t make sense whatsoever. See what you’re getting at now. Thanks!
I disagree – this theory definitely applies to the above situation. By using your best releiver in the highest leverage situation you increase your chances that you’ll have a lower leverage situation in which to use your less talented pitchers.
If you throw the Durbinator (or equivalent) out there, you lessen your chances that you’ll have a situation (high or low leverage) to utilize your most talented pitcher.
sure, but the point is in the situation he described, it doesn’t matter what inning you lose the lead in. That is, in that specific case, where the lead did end up being lost, it retroactively didn’t matter.
The point is, if you don’t use the best relievers early, you may not get into a situation where you have the lead anyway. Let’s say, in a tie game on the road, you try to save Kimbrel for the save situation; you end up losing the game anyway. On the other hand, maybe the offense explodes and you end up with a five run lead that even Durbin can hold. Or, even if it’s a one run lead, it’s not inevitable that Durbin/Livian, whoever blow the lead. You may be able to scratch out three outs with the rest of the bullpen but if you lose the game early by not using Kimbrel, you never get to that point.
right, I understand that. I think you’re looking at things preemptively, from a game management standpoint, we were discussing them ex post facto, from a “what happened” standpoint. If you get to the point where both Kimbrel and Durbin pitch, it doesn’t matter at all the order in which they pitched. However, you’re right that you have to get there first. That’s the point I was making with my second statement originally, that when it hurts you is when Kimbrel doesn’t even enter the game because Derb blew it.
Really getting into Teheran’s 2-seamer.
Completely off-topic, but has anyone seen Simmons and the Netherlands play in the WBC yet? I see he had a good night last night (2-4 with a Walk), but I am more interested in how he looks defensively.
Like a defensive genius if I had to guess. No reason to expect anything different.
Talking chop has a link to a nice DP he turned. Ran out into CF to catch an “infield fly”, beats the CF to it, catches the ball, spins and throws to first to double off a runner who was halfway up the baseline.
Loved the history of relievers section and the evolution of the save stat and modern day closer.
Over at ESPN, there is an article explaining why Chapman of the Reds, who I always associate with Kimbrel, SHOULD DEFINITELY be turned into a starting pitcher. Why does no one say that about Kimbrel? Isn’t Kimbrel the more polished pitcher (and younger, too, right)?
What leads folks to say that such a projection makes sense for a given pitcher? Would Kimbrel be a more valuable starter than reliever? Is it just that the Braves have good starting options in the majors + AAA?
I think with Kimbrel the belief has always been that he’s never had a great third pitch, and that with his body size/delivery style he wouldn’t be durable enough to start. Also being a bit wild is more tolerable from a reliever than a starter, because of the number of pitches they have to throw.
It seems to me these comments sort of beg the question. The issue is not whether it’s good to have a dominant relief pitcher, it’s whether you should pay lots of money. It clearly benefits the Braves to have a Kimbrel available to close games. The question is how much do you play for that given that the marginal benefit to having a Kimbrel over a lesser but not incompetent (and cheaper) closer is relatively small.