When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

04.23.2008
Mightier Pen?

Tyler Walker’s nasty outing last night — strikeouts of Jackson, Reynolds, and Upton — got me thinking. How good has the Giants bullpen thrown so far?

To the naked eye, everyone seems in good form except Brad Hennessey, and Erick Threets was bumpy before he went on the DL. Yabu has been pretty good in the long role.

Chris Haft has been thinking the same thing, and he writes this morning that the pen has stranded 35 of 39 inherited runners, second in the NL. That’s a good measure, but it doesn’t take context into account. In other words, preventing a run in a tie game is worth more than preventing a run in a blowout. A two-inning save of a one-run game is worth more than a one-inning save of a three-run game. 

Let’s check one of my favorite nerd-stats, a Baseball Prospectus thingie called WXRL. It judges a reliever’s performance not just on the raw stats but on the context in which he works. WXRL is expressed by wins, specifically the number of wins a reliever has contributed to his team. It’s accumulative, so the higher the better.

Given my time constraints, I’ll keep it to the NL West. My naked-eye assessment was generally right: the Giants’ “big three” of Wilson, Walker and Taschner have each contributed about half a win so far, pretty good but not enough to crack the NL top 20. (Wilson ranks 20th, Walker is 26th, and Taschner is 28th.) Hennessey has been awful, giving away as many wins (.5) as Wilson has contributed. Threets hasn’t been much better.

Overall, SF relievers have added .88 wins to the team. That’s only third-best in the division, however. The D’Backs are slightly ahead, but the Rockies are in the early lead with 1.64 wins, thanks to surprising work from Kip Wells, Taylor Buchholz and Matt Herges. (These totals include starters doing relief work, such as Tim Lincecum and Chad Billingsley’s outings in the weird LA rain-delay game.)

Note that San Diego’s vaunted bullpen is last, with .27 wins, dragged down by negative contributions from Cameron, Hoffman and Thatcher. Only Heath Bell has been outstanding.

In terms of raw stats, what I like the most so far are some of the BB/K ratios. Walker, 11 Ks / 1 BB. Taschner, 6 Ks / 1 BB. Wildman Threets is the worst offender at 6 Ks / 9 BBs. I’m eager to see if Wilson can boost his K rate — only 5 in 7.1 innings — as he gets more consistent work.



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[April 23, 2008 4:25 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Chris said

I agree about Yabu. He's been a nice surprise so far.

12.7 IP 11 H 8 SO 2.84 ERA 1.184 WHIP

[April 23, 2008 4:38 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

I forgot to mention that WXRL has him in negative territory, which seems a bit harsh. Perhaps it's because in his most highly-leveraged outing, the ninth inning appearance in the second game in LA, he gave up the winning run. He got a win last week with nice middle-inning work in the Randy Johnson debut game, but other than that, he's mainly pitched in mop-up roles.

[April 23, 2008 5:07 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Giants Dwarf said

I would like to see what Wilson could do with constant work as well. That would only be possible if the Giants constantly had 9th inning leads to protect, something I would also be in favor of seeing.

[April 23, 2008 5:32 PM]  |  link  |  reply
giantsrainman said

I have a problem with BP's WXRL. How does it make since for BP to belive thier is such a thing a clutch pitching when they argue that their is not such a thing as clutch hitting. I just don't buy it. If one exists then so does the other. If one does not exist then neither does the other.

[April 23, 2008 5:55 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Chris replied to giantsrainman

Rainman,

What do you mean about clutch pitching? I've never seen BP state that WXRL is a measure of "clutchness"

[April 23, 2008 9:29 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM replied to Chris

I think rainman brings up an interesting question, and Chris has a good start to the answer.

The key to WXRL -- and I admit I don't know the precise formula they use, just the concept behind it -- is "leverage." The tighter and more crucial the spot, the more the leverage.

I guess you could talk about a batter's "clutchness" as his performance under highly-leveraged conditions. But people who say clutchness doesn't exist point to studies that show batters, over long periods of time, don't do better in highly-leveraged situations than in less leveraged situations.

Just as with relief pitchers, you could measure this over the course of a year and assign points, but here's the big difference: Managers put relievers into their "clutch" situations -- or, in the case of the closer who comes in to pitch the ninth with a three-run lead, non-clutch situations. Batters simply come up when it's their turn in the order. (Pinch-hitters excepted.)

[April 24, 2008 12:11 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Brian said

I don't know exactly how this WXRL is calculated, but if it takes into account the context of the pitcher's appearance, I would guess Giants pitchers have had less opportunities to contribute to wins because we suck so much and those situations are few and far between. Thus, you would expect their positive win contribution total to be less than pitchers from other clubs who actually get the chance to pitch in situations that matter...correct me if I'm wrong in my assumption.