Ahoy Mahay

One of the most sought after players leading up to, and at, the trading deadline was Kansas City Royals reliever Ron Mahay. I’m not sure if he was ever really going anywhere or if the media latched onto this effective lefty as a potential savior for some teams, brewing the trade winds themselves. Regardless, he stayed put and is still a late inning lefty for the Royals. In looking at his numbers, I was quite surprised (and embarrassed) to find out that he is actually in the midst of his twelfth big league season; I honestly had not heard of him prior to 2001.

From 1997-2002 his numbers jumped all over the place. Here are his FIPs and LOB% in that span:

1997: 4.23, 89.2%
1998: 5.02, 67.2%
1999: 3.38, 85.4%
2000: 6.54, 69.1%
2001: 5.41, 98.1%
2002: 8.01, 55.6%

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mahay is what it appeared to be throughout these six years, but he apparently still performed well enough to earn more opportunities. That could largely be due to the fact that his career ERA is close to a full run below his FIP; the controllable skills might not be there but that does not automatically disqualify him from effectiveness. From 2003 to the midpoint of 2007 he played for the Rangers before being traded to Atlanta in the Mark Teixieira deal. In the off-season he signed with the Royals and has been one of the most effective relievers this year, and arguably the best non-closer.

In looking at the Relievers page on the leaderboards here, Mahay has the 5th highest WPA of any reliever in baseball. The top portion of that board is generally reserved to closers as they usually perform in the most pressure-filled situations; Mahay’s position means he has found himself in some tight jams and performed admirably in escaping from them.

Now, WPA is not an end-all barometer, but it does have more merit when dealing with relievers. Still, I like to think of it the way Dave Studeman thinks of it, as a “story stat,” one that mirrors our emotions in the game and tells the story of exactly what happened. Based on our emotions when watching, Mahay’s performance has been worth about three wins this year. Teammate Joakim Soria ranks second with a 3.57 WPA, so they have quite possibly been the best relief tandem in baseball this year, yet both are likely still unknown in numerous areas across the country.

When we look at WPA/LI, however, or context-neutral wins, Mahay falls to thirteenth, worth about one win. Soria ranks first in the whole league, at just about two wins, and another of their teammates, Ramon Ramirez, actually ranks ninth, ahead of Mahay. WPA/LI counts each plate appearance as its own entity and attempts to rid the bias in WPA that credits certain situations as being worth many more plate appearances. This tells us that Mahay has been very adept in late-inning situations but his overall performance has not been as incredible as we may think.

He is still performing very well and would most likely be an upgrade on any of the teams that received him, but he is not a savior. And especially considering his trade would have taken place at the deadline, when as Dave showed, the upgrades would not be as substantial with just fifty games remaining, you have to wonder how much of an upgrade he even would have been. As I said, he is a very good reliever relative to the last two years, but a team’s success should not hinge upon acquiring Ron Mahay.