Warming Up In The Bullpen

It took a long time for relief pitchers to be recognized for inductions to Cooperstown.  Why is that?  My theory is that because most relievers only handled about 1/3 the workload of a starter, that they didn’t deserve to be recognized.  It was also looked at that those who weren’t good enough to start are sent to the bullpen.  There is some foundation to that line of thought.  But, the closer has taken on such a prominent role in recent years that you have to start looking at them as being legendary players.  Check that list of World Champions from a couple of posts ago.  Not only did they have good rotations, but they had strong bullpens as well.  A common thing that Whitey Herzog mentioned in the 1980s was how his bullpen was strong enough to shorten games to a six or 7 inning affair.  If bullpens can be what distinguishes from a good team and a great team, then you need to start looking at players in the bullpen as being all time greats.  I’m not saying that we should induct all types of relievers, like setup men and LOOGY’s, but inducting closers I’m ok with.

There are 5 relief pitchers in the Hall of Fame.  Not much to go on for an average, but it’s something.  Of those 5, their average career was 18.6 years and had a career WAR of 38.6, giving us a baseline of 2.7 WAR/yr.  I’m cutting it down to 1.95.  Why would I do such a thing?  Simply put, our relievers today don’t get that workload, and even the top closer on my list I’d consider more of a 1 inning closer than anything else.  The extra work hurts their value a bit more than you’d expect.  With that out of the way, here are the WAR+ values:

Name	WAR+	Tier
Eckersley	167	S
Wilhelm	154	S
Sutter	134	A
Gossage	124	B
Fingers	114	B

Thoughts:
Amazing to see what our old relievers look like compared to the new guys, eh?  Not much to say about this one.  I’d imagine that most people would put Sutter below Gossage and Fingers, but Sutter was a lot better than people remember.  He was a decent strikeout pitcher, and didn’t give up as many baserunners as those two.  What hurts Rollie a bit is a slow start to a career (He was mostly a 1 WAR player at best until his age 28 season), but after that it was pretty darn good.

Upcoming Ballots:
Pre-2013:
Lee Arthur Smith:  WAR+ of 88.  His career seems pretty solid to me.  I’d have no problem with him being inducted.

2013-2015: No one worth looking at.  And yes, I’ll ignore Tom Gordon and Jose Mesa if I want to.

2016: Billy Wagner and Trevor Hoffman come up.  Hoffman gets an 89.  Wagner gets a 100.  I don’t know what’s hurting Hoffman that much.  His career ERA+ is 141, he struck out over 9 per inning.  Yet in 6 of his 18 years he was worth less than 1 WAR.  WAR is pretty tough on relievers.  With Wagner, he was pretty much a left handed one inning Nolan Ryan, and I think a lot of people would want that coming out of their pen most days.

I guess that’s every position.  Remember, I’m only looking at players.  Managers, executives, all that stuff can stay in and it’s too hard to tier them.  I’ve got one more post in this series coming up about current players who I think will make it.  Should be a fun read and calculation.

Closers

The 9th inning is always purported to be the hardest three outs to get with a tight lead.  There’s some truth to that, because the amount of wiggle room is essentially nothing in some cases, and every occurrence is magnified (One out makes up 33% of the remaining outs, instead of lower numbers from earlier innings).  But, let's be honest here, most major league pitchers should be able to pitch an inning and not blow a lead of 2 or 3 runs.  The best use of closers has been debated for a while.  Some people think you should use Mariano Rivera in the 9th with a save situation no matter what, while some will say that with the 3/4/5 guys due up in the 8th you should use him then.  So why do people pay so much attention to the save, the most arbitrary and useless stat in history (including batting average and RBIs)?  Furthermore, why are closers put such a prominence on?  The only thing I can guess at for an answer that makes sense is that it helps the bullpen have set defined roles, even though the Cards won the WS last year with a closer by committee for the most part of the year.

This is something that runs through my mind a lot when I read articles like this one from Anthony Castrovince.  Overall not a bad piece, but I’m in a picky mood right now (just got done grading some tests and quizzes) so I’m going to pick.

Who is the best closer in baseball?

Mo.  Sorry, was I not supposed to answer there?  It’s Mo.  I’m one of the biggest anti-Yankee people on the planet.  It’s Mo.  No doubts, even with that torn knee.  Maybe he’s being rhetorical, but the answer seems obvious.

The answer, provided you weren't guided by blind allegiance to a particular team or anti-Yankee enough to view even Hall of Famers as ho-hum, was Mariano Rivera, of course.

I even said Mo.  Who’d you think I was going to pick, Jason Motte?

But with Mo on the mend from a torn ACL, we are left with the reality that there is no such thing as the clear-cut shutdown closer upon which all other closers are judged.

Oh, okay.  I see what you’re saying.  We don’t have the sure fire hall of famer, so then we’re going to go through each team (roughly) and pick the best closer?  Sounds interesting.  What criteria should we use?  I’d suggest WHIP, K-rate and FIP.  If we’re feeling really frisky, I’d say OPS against and WAR, too, but the other three should be decent enough.  Can’t just use ERA for a reliever because one or two bad outings can heighten it more than for a starter.  Shouldn’t just use saves for what I talked about above and here.  So where’s our first stop(s), Tony?

Chris Perez is one of three men leading the Majors with 11 saves, but he's blown a pair of opportunities and has an ERA of 3.95. Jonathan Papelbon, the Phillies' $50 million man, is the only guy with a track record anywhere near that of Rivera's, and he's 10-for-10 in save situations this season, but he obviously hasn't had as many opportunities as Philadelphia envisioned for him.
Oh.  You went that way with it.  OK.  Well, Perez may have 11 saves but also has a WHIP of 1.17 and a K/9 of 6.6 (with a 3.3 BB/9).  It’s probably not going to be him, he walks too many guys for my tastes and that K-Rate, while higher than last years, is a lot lower than his career rate of about 8.  Paps has a 0.857 WHIP (damn!) and a 9.6 K/9 rate (damn!!).  I’d say he’s a good candidate right now.  To shorten this up, I’m going to just list the closers he mentions below.  In parenthesis will be the stats he quotes for them.

Fernando Rodney (9/9 in saves, miniscule ERA)
Jim Johnson (9/9 in saves, miniscule ERA)
Craig Kimbrel (11/12, 2.77 ERA)
Jason Motte (6/7, .170 OBA)
John Axford (6.10 ERA)
Jose Valverde (7/9, 4.60 ERA)

Now, that is a pretty bad use of stats.  ERA for relievers is terrible.  Saves are also bad, but I’ve whined enough about those.  How about mentioning those miniscule ERAs for Rodney (0.54) and Johnson (0.57)?  That would make your argument stronger, even though using ERA for relievers is stupid.  What should he have used?  Well, I’ll help him out a little bit:

Fernando Rodney (.900 WHIP/8.1 K/9)
Jim Johnson (.766/6.9)
Craig Kimbrel (1.385/15.9)
Jason Motte (.805/10.5)
John Axford (2.032/17.4)
Jose Valverde (1.66/7.5)

I’m too tired to tackle the rest of the article, but to be fair the last bit brings up a lot of good points.  How the bullpens are misused (especially on the road) to try to get closers saves so they can get the big bucks and setup men get holds so they can get pizz-aid.  He also mentions that relievers as a bunch are fairly volatile (The Panamanian Wonder notwithstanding) and that the save conversion rate hasn’t changed much this year, even with all of the injuries to key closers.  The only thing I really objected to was what stats he used.  Don’t use saves and ERA for them.  Please.  It’s embarrassing.

Jose Valverde: Prepare For a Return To Form

    No, Not the 49 of 49 pitcher that he was last year, but prepare for a 2.80 ERA, with 85 to 90% save opportunities converted. Valverde just isn’t as good as his stats last year. He won’t suddenly, after 9 years in the majors, have become some type of huge lock as a closer, he’ll have an above average save percentage, and a respectable ERA, but to think that after having seen 75 outings last year, ignoring the postseason, he’s just not likely to be the same guy he was last year.

There’s nothing about Valverde that suggests he’s going to be the class of the closers, and after having already blown a save (So has Mariano Rivera for what it’s worth) but he’s simply not any better now than he was 2-3 years ago, aside from having a notable streak of uninterrupted saves. Sure confidence and the ability to stay cool under pressure are what defines a closer (aside from you know, not blowing a 3 run lead in the 9th very often) but, he didn’t just come into that makeup, he wasn’t going out in Arizona or Huston praying he didn’t get shelled, he was going out there to close games, and with some pretty solid reliability he did that and he’s been doing so for the majority of his career.

If I were putting together an expansion team today, would I take Valverde? If he was available, sure! That doesn’t mean he’s the greatest closer in the league, definitely very good, but he’s much more Isringhausen than Hoffman, and at age 34, isn’t likely to start really refining himself and getting better, he had his peak year last year, and to expect anything like a repeat would be foolish. He may not fade much over the next year or two, but Valverde isn’t going to be sniffing the all times save record by his 18th season unless he starts getting a good handful of 50+ save seasons under his belt in a hurry. He started closing games at the same age as Trevor Hoffman (25), but he has not amassed near the same number of closes over the first 9 seasons that Hoffman had 314 vs 242 (Mariano Rivera has 336 between ‘96 and ‘04). It should be noted that over the first 9 year as closers both Hoffman and Rivera threw over 100 more innings than Valverde, but that only serves to drive the difference in reliability and trust that the teams controlling each pitcher had in them throughout their first 9 seasons in the ‘pen.

Again, it’s not to say that Valverde isn’t a very good closer, he is, but it is to say that he’s currently overrated, and expectations should start coming down to earth in a hurry.