I dismissed you earlier when you badlucked your way thru the same question twice.   You killed the discussion, not me.

Posted by dahsdebater on 1/21/2016 2:13:00 PM (view original):
Yeah, run-prevention is a terrible metric by which to measure pitchers...

Holy ****, really?

BL, dahs needs you.

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

Has he gone full badluck?    I've heard you can't come back from that. 

Posted by dahsdebater on 1/21/2016 1:03:00 PM (view original):
I'm pretty sure I have literally always leaned on ERA and ERA+ when evaluating pitchers.  Not sure where you've been.

I go with WHIP+ and OAV+.
ERA+ usually has more variables.

Also, it's the way you look at the game. I think saves are a fun stat that has been taken too far. Having a set role like 7th inning pitcher is comfortable for relievers because they know when they're coming in.

But I see it as, these guys are professional athletes, the best go against the best. Just like Stengal did with Whitey Ford. Instead of having him pitch in a rotation, he pitched against the best teams. So I want my best reliever to go against their team's best hitters. For my Tigers last year, I would rather have Joakim Soria go against say, the White Sox's Adam Eaton, Jose Abreu, and Melky Cabrera. Then have Alex Wilson, or Blaine Hardy go against Alexei Ramirez, Mike Olt, and Geovany Soto.

Of course your strategy can work with the Royals, and now. the Yankees. But for teams like my Tigers, or any team with a bottom tier bullpen, why wait to put in the best reliever?

You had Wilson and Hardy and AlAl.  I don't think you need to rearrange that bullpen to put Soria in at any specific time.

There's a lot of data out there.   Books on hitters, stats vs pitchers, hitters in situations, etc, etc.   Dozens if not hundreds of bits of data for each potential match-up.   All of that should be taken into account when deciding on which pitcher to use when.   One of those decision-makers shouldn't be "My delicate flower of a pitcher can only be used in the 9th inning with a 1 to 3 run lead."  

Anyone who believes that ignores data, common sense and obviously believes mermaids mate with bigfoots to make unicorns.

Posted by dahsdebater on 1/21/2016 6:05:00 PM (view original):
You had Wilson and Hardy and AlAl.  I don't think you need to rearrange that bullpen to put Soria in at any specific time.

Alex Wilson was good but he was alwys used in the 6th due to the terrible rotation. Seemed like he always pitched 2 innings. As for AlAl and Hardy, they werent very effective so why use them against the best hitters?

Posted by MikeT23 on 1/21/2016 6:28:00 PM (view original):
There's a lot of data out there.   Books on hitters, stats vs pitchers, hitters in situations, etc, etc.   Dozens if not hundreds of bits of data for each potential match-up.   All of that should be taken into account when deciding on which pitcher to use when.   One of those decision-makers shouldn't be "My delicate flower of a pitcher can only be used in the 9th inning with a 1 to 3 run lead."  

Anyone who believes that ignores data, common sense and obviously believes mermaids mate with bigfoots to make unicorns.

I get that you don't THINK these guys should be pandered to, and that they should suck it up, and pitch when the situation demands.  The reality is that several teams have had a great deal of success doing it with assigned innings and set roles.

Yes, sometimes that high leverage time is the 7th inning with the bases loaded, and you have your 3rd/4th best reliever trying to shut the door, but whether they succeed or fail, YOU STILL MUST PLAY THE 8TH AND 9TH INNINGS.  So let's say you have a one-run lead in the 7th, and Rivera/Nathan/Soria come in and slam the door.  The other team will still have SIX MORE OUTS, and if you throw your best fireman on the first fire you see, you're gonna get stuck with that same 3rd/4th best reliever in the 9th inning with little or no parachute if he starts to falter.

The reason the best RPs are saved for the end of the game is to reduce the negative impact of your bullpen on losses.

Scenario: 3rd best RP is brought in with runners on and a lead in the 7th. He blows the game. We lose. Because we're now losing, I consider saving the two best RPs and use others in the 8th and 9th. So we did lose the game, but our two best RPs are fresh for tomorrow.

Scenario: Best RP is brought in with runners on and a lead in the 7th, he shuts the door. 2nd best RP follows and shuts the door in the 8th. 3rd best blows it in the 9th. We lose. And now all my top 3 RPs are tired for tomorrow and I didn't even get a win out of it.

This is why you don't just throw the relief ace out there early in games. You want to make sure his usage is in wins as much as possible, so he's available to pitch in as many wins as possible, so you win more games.

This only really applies in the professional game where you play 162 games in about 180 days. At other levels (or tournament play), or in the playoffs, this doesn't apply because you're not as concerned about the freshness over a long season. But unless you want to make the case that a reliever should be expected to throw every game, you really need to keep him for situations to maximize your wins.

Posted by toddcommish on 1/21/2016 6:50:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 1/21/2016 6:28:00 PM (view original):
There's a lot of data out there.   Books on hitters, stats vs pitchers, hitters in situations, etc, etc.   Dozens if not hundreds of bits of data for each potential match-up.   All of that should be taken into account when deciding on which pitcher to use when.   One of those decision-makers shouldn't be "My delicate flower of a pitcher can only be used in the 9th inning with a 1 to 3 run lead."  

Anyone who believes that ignores data, common sense and obviously believes mermaids mate with bigfoots to make unicorns.

I get that you don't THINK these guys should be pandered to, and that they should suck it up, and pitch when the situation demands.  The reality is that several teams have had a great deal of success doing it with assigned innings and set roles.

Yes, sometimes that high leverage time is the 7th inning with the bases loaded, and you have your 3rd/4th best reliever trying to shut the door, but whether they succeed or fail, YOU STILL MUST PLAY THE 8TH AND 9TH INNINGS.  So let's say you have a one-run lead in the 7th, and Rivera/Nathan/Soria come in and slam the door.  The other team will still have SIX MORE OUTS, and if you throw your best fireman on the first fire you see, you're gonna get stuck with that same 3rd/4th best reliever in the 9th inning with little or no parachute if he starts to falter.

You recognize that you're playing to win a game that might not come, right?   On a bigger scale, of course.

It's game 6 of the WS and you're down 3-2.   You save your ace for game 7 because game 6 isn't the important one, right?   No, you don't.

And, FWIW, I'm not saying "first fire", I'm saying "best situation".    And, again, I'm not suggesting using guys mid-inning(which negates your example).   I'm suggesting, when hitters 3-4-5 are coming up late in the game, maybe you want your best pitcher facing them as opposed to using him against 7-8-9.

I'm on board with that for teams with big talent gaps.  Do you not agree that there are very few of those at this point?

I've been persistently using the Mets as an example because I couldn't really think of any others without thinking about it.  I guess with Tazawa pitching poorly, the Red Sox really didn't have anybody else of similar talent to Koji.  When Albers was hurt the White Sox had a fairly substantial dropoff I think, and after they traded Papelbon the Phillies were probably down to 1 arm (who is also now gone, so I guess they have a whole new kind of balance...)  The A's had all kinds of bullpen problems in front of Clippard, and I think he had a little bit of a down season himself.  Unless I'm forgetting something, that makes 3 teams that really had a substantially better pitcher for the 9th than 8th for most of the year, and 2 others for chunks of the season.  So for those 3-5 teams, I'm fine with shuttling your arms around to try to match up.  For the other 25-27, leave guys in their comfort zones.

Posted by tecwrg on 1/21/2016 1:17:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dahsdebater on 1/21/2016 1:03:00 PM (view original):
I'm pretty sure I have literally always leaned on ERA and ERA+ when evaluating pitchers.  Not sure where you've been.

Sounds like that's your problem.

Maybe BL can explain to you why ERA is a poor way to evaluate relief pitchers.

???

ERA isn't perfect but it works just fine for the purpose of dahs' point. He's saying, "no need to disrupt the comfort of your best reliever if your second best is basically just as good."

Nothing earth shattering about that point. I'd still lean toward, "use your best when the game is on the line," but this isn't a hill worth dying for.

Actually, we should probably throw the Reds in there, too.  I wasn't thinking about it because they have a few decent setup arms, but with Chapman being so dominant they did have a big talent gap.