1-2-3

[Theoldmole]

I turned on the radio just as Howie was saying the average closer will set the opposition down 1-2-3 about 40 percent of the time. I presume he was comparing this to the numbers for Cliffdweller Frankie Rodriguez, but I didn't hear the first half of the comparison. What are Frankie's numbers?



[youtube:2li0ee53]An1-ntyBcz8[/youtube:2li0ee53]

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

This year? They're off-the-charts absurd.

No clean innings, only one "clean" appearance-- a one-out number against the Nats (on 4/10, Blaine Boyer's eventual last stand). 1.87 WHIP, or almost two baserunners per inning on average.

Yet, he's only blown one save opportunity, and cruises along with a 1.35 ERA on the year. As long as he retains his ability to strike out/induce weak contact from hitters, he'll be better able to tiptoe out of danger than, say, Mike Pelfrey. But, frankly, what he's doing now is unsustainable.

Edited May 5, 2011 by Guest

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Love that song.

I mentioned this in the Wayne Hagin thread the other day. Howie asked the Elias Sports Bureau and they said something like 30% (don;t quote me) of K-rod's innings were 123 last year, which they found appalling and I found maybe a little high among closers but not all that far from what I'd guess all pitchers do, especially those who BB and K as much as Frankie. I think they said he hasn't had a 123 yet this year.

[Ceetar]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Love that song. I mentioned this in the Wayne Hagin thread the other day. Howie asked the Elias Sports Bureau and they said something like 30% (don;t quote me) of K-rod's innings were 123 last year, which they found appalling and I found maybe a little high among closers but not all that far from what I'd guess all pitchers do, especially those who BB and K as much as Frankie. I think they said he hasn't had a 123 yet this year.

nope, hasn't done it yet this year. Supposedly he's not real thrilled with how he's pitching. Which makes him not the only one, but at least he's getting the job done.

[Gwreck]

I started crunching this data but never got around to finishing. I would measure Rodriguez's effectiveness by seeing where his appearances fall in each of the 7 categories below:

Clean Innings - Tied or Leading
Clean Innings - Trailing
Unclean Innings - No Runs Allowed
Unclean Innings - Runs Allowed, didn't give up lead
Unclean Innings - Runs Allowed, game now tied
Unclean Innings - Runs Allowed, blew save/gave up lead
Unclean Innings - Walkoff loss

[Guest Edgy DC]

In a world where closers work 59 innings or so, it's hard to get meaningful data when slicing it so many different ways.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Stuff like ERA and FIP only really gain real future-predictive validity as you approach 200 IP-sized sample sizes.

[Guest attgig]

so, if the rolaids relief award went to the best closer, maybe K-Rod should get the pizza/greasy hamburger/deep fried twinkie award for causing the heartburn in the first place.

[Guest attgig]

20 of 53 appearances in 2010 were 0 hit/0walk varieties - with one of them (his first apperance) being 1.2 innings. the rest were 1 inning appearances.

there was a single 2 out appearance that was of 0hit/0walk... but you can't relaly say 1-2-3 inning with 2 outs.

[Frayed Knot]

I did a "study" on this last year.
I followed all ML closers for a month or maybe two (so it was a decent sample size) and tracked all cases where a club brought in a pitcher for what we'd call a 'standard save opp' in this post-Eckersly era: 1 inning only; 1, 2, or 3 run lead; start the inning clean (no runners on); no short saves; no long saves, etc.

Now if only I could remember what I found.
I believe what I got out of it all was on the order of 80/30:
80% of all those opps were successful (20% blown) with about 30% of them being "perfect" saves (a 1-2-3 inning)

Edited May 5, 2011 by Guest

[Guest attgig]

and in 2009, out of 70 appearances...
he had 24 0 hit/0walk.
19 of which were 1 inning
2 of which were 2/3 inning.
3 of which were 1/3 innings.

[Willets Point]

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[Frayed Knot]

I did a "study" on this last year. I followed all ML closers for a month or maybe two (so it was a decent sample size) and tracked all cases where a club brought in a pitcher for what we'd call a 'standard save opp' in this post-Eckersly era: 1 inning only; 1, 2, or 3 run lead; start the inning clean (no runners on); no short saves; no long saves, etc. Now if only I could remember what I found. I believe what I got out of it all was on the order of 80/30: 80% of all those opps were successful (20% blown) with about 30% of them being "perfect" saves (a 1-2-3 inning)

Found it

So what I did was to track all ML games for a month starting just after last season's ASG.
Out of 400 games played in that month just over half (203) of them involved a pitcher going for the standard 1-inning 'clean' save.
Of those the closer was successful in saving the game 81.8% of the time (166 of 203) but less than 1 time in 3 (66 of 203 - or 32.5%) were those games saved 'perfectly'.


A bigger sample might yield somewhat different results, but I recall the data stabilizing itself as I went along and really didn't change much after about 100 games were in the hopper.