Over the last few days we have had plenty of time to consider which relievers for our respective teams are true mop up men. First, I asked you to help me out by identifying which relievers fit the bill, before testing those results against a neat little formula devised by TangoTiger. The formula multiplied the number of games pitched by the quotient of leverage index divided by innings pitched. The smaller the number, the more mop-uppy the pitcher. This formula produced an interesting list of pitchers that included many of the same relievers initially identified by the readers.

There were also a bunch of pitchers on the list that, according to the commenters, did not belong. It seems that many teams did not have a true mop up man, persay, but rather a few pitchers who, individually, failed to meet the 40-IP qualifier. That being said, 16 relievers still remained after removing those who did not belong: Darren O’Day, Seth McClung, Josh Rupe, Aquilino Lopez, Boof Bonser, Gary Majewski, Clay Condrey, Joel Peralta, Jon Lieber, Lance Cormier, Jason Hammel, Franquelis Osoria, Luis Vizcaino, Buddy Carlyle, Brian Tallet, and Mike Timlin.

With the list narrowed down, the next step involved determining which of these mop up men performed at the highest level in 2008, thereby earning the Fangraphs Mop Up Man of the Year Award. If this award were designated for hitters, then WPA/LI would be a very appropriate evaluative metric. Unfortunately, pitchers create their own situations, and relievers enter into previously designed situations, meaning WPA, which factors in the crucial natures of certain situations, is a much better tool. For measure, though, I also included the WPA/LI, because the true winner of this award should post good marks in both categories:

Darren O'Day      (LAA) -0.35 WPA   -0.24 WPA/LI
Seth McClung      (Mil)  0.11 WPA    0.38 WPA/LI
Josh Rupe         (Tex)  0.87 WPA    0.71 WPA/LI
Aquilino Lopez    (Det) -0.09 WPA   -0.54 WPA/LI
Boof Bonser       (Min) -0.63 WPA   -0.67 WPA/LI
Gary Majewski     (Cin) -0.19 WPA   -1.15 WPA/LI
Clay Condrey      (Phi) -0.20 WPA   -0.31 WPA/LI
Joel Peralta      (KC)  -0.93 WPA   -1.42 WPA/LI
Jon Lieber        (CHC)  0.00 WPA    0.02 WPA/LI
Lance Cormier     (Bal)  0.12 WPA    0.10 WPA/LI
Jason Hammel      (TB)   0.63 WPA   -0.41 WPA/LI
Franquelis Osoria (Pit) -1.07 WPA   -0.99 WPA/LI
Luis Vizcaino     (Col) -0.73 WPA   -0.76 WPA/LI
Buddy Carlyle     (Atl)  1.14 WPA    0.99 WPA/LI
Brian Tallet      (Tor) -0.34 WPA    0.64 WPA/LI
Mike Timlin       (Bos) -1.12 WPA   -1.08 WPA/LI

Four pitchers stand out, in particular: McClung, Rupe, Hammel, and Carlyle. Let’s take a closer look at these four:

          WPA   WPA/LI     ERA    FIP   WHIP                    
Carlyle: 1.14     0.99    3.59   3.58   1.24  59 K/26 BB in 62.2 IP
Rupe:    0.87     0.71    5.14   4.99   1.56  53 K/46 BB in 89.1 IP
Hammel:  0.63    -0.41    4.44   5.46   1.52  29 K/23 BB in 50.2 IP
McClung: 0.11     0.38    3.67   3.92   1.46  37 K/26 BB in 41.2 IP

Honestly, this isn’t even a contest, as Buddy Carlyle is, far and away, more deserving of the honor than anyone else on this list. Because of this, Buddy Carlyle of the Atlanta Braves—do a drumroll in your head—is the recipient of the 2008 Fangraphs Mop Up Man of the Year Award. Congrats, Buddy: you may not have worked out as a starting pitcher, but nobody can clean up messes or preserve the lead/deficit the way you did this past year.

Yesterday began our discussion regarding mop up pitchers, the ones that enter into blowouts and accrue innings to prevent the unnecessary usage of higher-leverage relievers. I asked for some help identifying the mop up men for several teams, as only a few existed off the top of my head, and got great feedback. One of the comments on the thread, from TangoTiger, suggested we apply the formula: GP*(LI/IP). The minimum amount of innings would be set to 40, in order to ensure these pitchers logged ample enough time to qualify.

The LI component, for those unaware, is Leverage Index, developed by the aforementioned TangoTiger. The stat essentially measures the stress level of the situation at hand. An average LI is 1.00, so when dealing with supposed mop up pitchers, of interest are the average LIs for pitchers equal to, or below, the average. Plugging it into the above formula, dividing by innings pitched, and multiplying that quotient by the total number of games pitched should, in theory, help us narrow these mop up guys down. Basically, the lower the number provided by that formula, the more mop-uppy the pitcher.

Below are the results, with the mop up number next to the name. I was only looking for the mop-uppiest pitcher on each team, so certain players with lower scores than others mentioned will not appear below:

Darren O'Day         (Angels),         0.251
Seth McClung         (Brewers),        0.279
Josh Rupe            (Rangers),        0.289
Aquilino Lopez       (Tigers),         0.301
Brian Bass           (Twins/Orioles),  0.334
Boof Bonser          (Twins),          0.343
Gary Majewski        (Reds),           0.361
Clay Condrey         (Phillies),       0.365
Joel Peralta         (Royals),         0.414
Robinson Tejeda      (Rangers/Royals), 0.426
Jon Lieber           (Cubs),           0.436
Lance Cormier        (Orioles),        0.445
Billy Sadler         (Giants),         0.464
Ryan Rowland-Smith   (Mariners),       0.478
Jason Hammel         (Rays),           0.509
Franquelis Osoria    (Pirates),        0.514
Luis Vizcaino        (Rockies),        0.523
Jeremy Affeldt       (Reds),           0.531
Buddy Carlyle        (Braves),         0.543
Nick Masset          (White Sox/Reds), 0.551
Jesus Colome         (Nationals),      0.558
Cory Wade            (Dodgers),        0.603
Doug Waechter        (Marlins),        0.624
Brian Tallet         (Blue Jays),      0.627
Chris Sampson        (Astros),         0.660
Mike Timlin          (Red Sox),        0.660
Mike Adams           (Padres),         0.763
Jensen Lewis         (Indians),        0.788
Edwar Ramirez        (Yankees),        0.799
Santiago Casilla     (Athletics),      0.926
Juan Cruz            (Diamondbacks),   0.969

This is the list generated by the suggested formula. If there are players above that you disagree with, please comment below your case for disagreement, as I would like to have a concrete list to evaluate for Monday. Then, we can identify which mop up pitcher was the best at his job in 2008, and get cracking on sending he, or his agent, an official award. Also, remember, not every team may have a specific mop up man, so some of the players on this list, especially towards the bottom may not belong in the discussion. Curious to hear your thoughts.

When constructing a bullpen, every General Manager keeps at least one guy around, not to come in and extinguish a fire or save the game at its most crucial point, but rather to prevent further damage and save the arms of others. These are known as mop up pitchers, because their job is, essentially, to help clean up, or not spread further, the mess created by others. These pitchers tend to be the equivalent to the 12th man in the NBA, and are only called upon in situations wherein using other, better relievers would result in the wasting of resources.

One such mop up pitcher is Clay Condrey of the Phillies, who actually put together a relatively solid season. In 56 games, he posted an ERA of 3.26 and an FIP of 4.19. Numbers not necessarily keeping his agent’s phone ringing off the hook, but he did a very effective job of mopping up; entering into blowouts or games out of reach and at least keeping the score where it stood. All told, Condrey’s pLI, average leverage index, was 0.45, which happened to be the lowest amongst all relievers with at least 50 innings pitched. Interestingly enough, his career has seen the pLI decrease every season, from 1.10 five years ago down to 1.02, to 0.96, to 0.60 last year, to this year’s 0.45.

Some of his low leverage index contemporaries this season were Aquilino Lopez, Brian Bass, Joel Peralta, and the recently-signed Jeremy Affeldt. Readers, I need your help. Unfortunately, I do not know the mop up men for every team, but if we can compile a good list of 30, we will be able to determine whomever was the most moppy-uppiest of them all, and declare a winner. Further, if we are able to name all 30 and officially declare a winner, I will make some sort of an award in Microsoft Publisher or some such program and mail it to his team.

So… let the names begin!

Mike Mussina officially called it quits this week, finishing his career up with a 20-win season that saw him post career highs or lows in several statistical categories. He was hands down one of the best pitchers of this generation, one which featured four of the best pitchers in the history of the sport. Mussina routinely finds himself mentioned on the list of this generation’s top pitchers that includes: Greg Maddux, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, and Curt Schilling. This post isn’t about Mussina, though, who is usually nestled between Glavine and Schilling on this list. No, instead, I am focusing on the starting pitcher that concludes this list: Kevin Brown.

Whenever most people see this list of nine starting pitchers, Brown tends to be the only player that raises eyebrows or conjures up questioning. For whatever reason, the vast majority of fans forget how great he was, for a significant period of time. Perhaps it serves as a testament to how amazing Maddux, Pedro, Unit, and Clemens were, but Brown put together a remarkable career that all too often goes unnoticed or forgotten. When the Hall of Fame discussions sprout up, Mussina is routinely the equivalent of that team that goes 86-76 but misses the division and wild card by a couple of games, a very good team but just not on par with the playoff teams. Brown, however, tends to be like this year’s version of the New York Yankees: a team with a good, winning record, that finishes in third place, unnoticed behind the bigger winners ahead of them.

The only legitimate reason I can come up with to explain why Brown is not thought of as highly as some of these other guys, not including any type of post-season performance or in-season awards, is that he continued through five injury-plagues seasons following the end of his peak, essentially leaving an extended poor aftertaste. From 1989-2000, though, Brown was by far one of the best pitchers in baseball. In fact, a look at some of the numbers allows him to stake claim as perhaps the fourth best in this 12-yr span, behind Maddux, Clemens, and Johnson.

Looking at those with at least 240 starts (20+ starts in 12 seasons), Brown posted an ERA+ of 130, behind just Maddux (158), Clemens (148), and Johnson (138). In terms of raw ERA, Brown and Johnson tied at 3.20. And in terms of OPS against, Brown’s .646 was topped by nobody outside of Maddux, Clemens, Johnson, and Smoltz; and Smoltz was virtually identical with his .643.

Here is what an average season looked like for all four of these pitchers:

Maddux:  33 GS, 240.0 IP, 211 H, 47 BB, 174 K, 2.62 ERA, 2.99 FIP
Clemens: 31 GS, 219.2 IP, 186 H, 76 BB, 210 K, 3.08 ERA, 3.21 FIP
Johnson: 30 GS, 206.0 IP, 159 H, 90 BB, 251 K, 3.20 ERA, 3.21 FIP
Brown:   31 GS, 219.1 IP, 205 H, 60 BB, 158 K, 3.20 ERA, 3.35 FIP

Now, clearly, the first three posted superior numbers to Brown in this span, but not numbers so incredibly better that, at the end of 2000, they were sure-fire Hall of Fame pitchers while Brown was only considered very good. In fact, looking at WPA/LI, from 1989-2000, Brown’s 30.55 was within striking distance of Johnson’s 31.84, and not too far behind Clemens’ 38.23. As mentioned before, though, Brown’s career did not end in 2000, and things went downhill from that point on. From 2001-2005, he made 30+ starts just once, injured his hand punching a wall, and underwent intense scrutiny from the Yankees fanbase. Those five years basically erased a large portion of the reputation he built with brilliant performance the previous twelve seasons.

All told, Brown finished his career with a 3.28 ERA and 3.33 FIP. Greg Maddux, assuming he retires this season, will end up with a 3.16 ERA and 3.26 FIP. Clemens, a 3.12 ERA and 3.08 FIP. And Johnson, a 3.26 ERA and 3.14 FIP. There are many more important statistics than ERA and FIP, and nobody is debating that Maddux, Clemens, Johnson, and Pedro (who, for the record, isn’t included here because he did not become a legit starter until 1994) are far superior to Brown, but looking at all the numbers really makes me wonder why such a gap seems to exist between Brown and the likes of Moose, Smoltz, Glavine, and Schilling.

Any thoughts? Brown has pretty much no shot at the Hall of Fame, but his numbers deem him worthy of being remembered as much more than – “Oh yeah, he was pretty good back in the day.”

The title to this post is one of the most common sayings amongst baseball fans. It also happens to be the saying that drives me the zaniest, makes me want to bang pots and pans on my head, or tie someone to a chair and force them to watch, on a continuous loop, the film You Got Served. Albert Pujols recently won his second MVP award. The BBWAA got it right, thankfully, but Pujols winning the vote by a final tally of 369-308 was much too close for my liking, regardless of who finished second. Add in that the second place finisher was Ryan Howard of the Phillies and this is when I begin to lose my cool. Keep in mind while reading this article that I am a devout Phillies fan, and that I am not criticizing the writer’s association for a 369-308 final tally, but rather criticizing everyone across the country who felt that Howard truly should have sniffed the MVP award.

To start things off, why did anyone even think Howard deserved the award, or felt he had a good shot of winning, in the first place? He hit 48 home runs and knocked in 146 runners, very gaudy power numbers. This is the first reason. The only other reason conjured up involves… ugh… Howard “hitting when it counted.” Yes, in September, when the Phillies were fighting to get into the playoffs, Howard did more than just endorse Subway: he hit .352/.422/.852, a 1.274 OPS, with 11 home runs. His September performance carried the team into the post-season, where they eventually won the World Series. Because his performance earned the team a playoff berth, he must be highly considered for the award, right? Right?

Is it just me, or does the entire season count? I mean, I know I’m not a rocket scientist (another cliche favorite of mine), but I do know that statistics and performances technically count for the entire duration of the 162-game season. Going off of this, Howard only hit when it counted some of the time, because, for half of the season, he was average or below average. In April, he hit .172/.297/.343, with five home runs. In June, .234/.287/.439, and in August, .213/.328/.463. Even if you ignore the batting average aspect of the slash line and focus on the OBP/SLG, those are not solid months. Those are Ronnie Belliard months. Did anyone stop to think that if Howard had performed even on par with slightly above average offensive players in those three months, that he wouldn’t have needed to carry the Phillies in September?

I mean, sure, we cannot go back and change the course of history like in that Ashton Kutcher movie, but I would venture a guess that if Howard posted even an OPS of .830 in those months, that the Phillies would have been in a great situation entering September with regards to the playoffs. Instead, he was essentially reverse-anchored, and his entire season was evaluated with the final month in mind. The opposite happened to Chase Utley, who went crazy in April/May, and tailed off the rest of the season, still posting great numbers, but built on a performance far from fresh in the minds of fans and voters. Nobody remembers movies or performances from January and February when it comes time to the Academy Awards, and that is pretty much exactly what happened with Utley. Back to Howard, though, who by no means deserved to win the award, or even finish second.

Howard’s WPA/LI this season was 2.93, pretty good, but by no means great. On his own team, here are some other players and their context-neutral win contributions: Chase Utley (3.63), Cole Hamels (2.83), Pat Burrell (2.77), Jayson Werth (2.70). Factor in Brad Lidge’s 5.37 WPA as a closer, and that gives us five other players on the Phillies that were either better than Howard in terms of overall production, or very close to him. Suffice it to say, strong cases were not made for Hamels, Burrell, Utley, or Werth.

His 2.93 WPA/LI ranked 16th in the senior circuit, but where did he rank in some other categories? His home run and RBI totals topped all others in the whole sport, but outside of that, he honestly did not have an impressive season. His OBP ranked 49th, and despite the 48 HR, his SLG finished sixth best. Put together, this slotted him 14th in the OPS department. Howard’s WPA ranked 23rd, and in the fielding department, he finished 12th at the position. For those curious, Pujols ranked either first, second, or third in BA, OBP, SLG, OPS, WPA, and WPA/LI, as well as fourth in home runs and ninth in RBIs.

The most interesting statistic I saw involving Howard’s candidacy was this: in 700 PAs, Howard posted a 2.93 WPA/LI, making him about three wins above an average player offensively. In just 229 PAs with the Dodgers, Manny Ramirez posted a 3.10 WPA/LI. And keep in mind that WPA/LI is a counting stat, just like home runs.

Ryan Howard is an important part of the Phillies, and his September performance did carry them into the playoffs; however, strong April numbers would have counted just as much, and likely would have prevented September from meaning as much as it did to the team. For someone to “hit when it counts,” that player should be consistently great all year long, since the entire season counts. I can understand his candidacy in a year when there really isn’t a clear-cut winner for the award, but Pujols was so far ahead of everyone else that it is borderline absurd for certain writers or fans to froth at the mouth over Howard’s exclusion from several ballots. As a fan of his team, I can vouch that without his production, the Phillies wouldn’t have been nearly as good, but the same can be said, if not moreso, for Chase Utley, Cole Hamels, Brad Lidge, Pat Burrell, and Jayson Werth.

No matter how you look at it, unless you are advocating giving the MVP award to someone with only one amazing month, Howard did not deserve the award, should not have finished second, and definitely should not have finished that far ahead of Utley.

Bobby Abreu has had an incredibly consistent career, at least from an offensive standpoint. From 1998-2007, his OBP never fell below the .393 mark. He has knocked in 98 or more runners each year since 1999. In that same span he has never recorded less than 35 doubles, a walk rate below 14.5%, or a BABIP lower than .327. Additionally, in the ten seasons from 1999-2008, Abreu has hit the 20 HR-20 SB mark eight times, even reaching the 30-30 mark on two of those occasions. For his career, he is right around a .300/.400/.500 slash line, with 241 home runs, 318 stolen bases, and a WPA/LI of 37.03. When he decides to retire, he will be remembered as a great offensive player, one who never truly became the superstar many felt he could become, but who still put together quite the impressive resume.

Some of these numbers have taken a turn for the worse over the last two seasons, however. His OBP fell to .369 in 2007 and .371 in 2008. His ISO has dropped from .242 in 2004 to .176 right now, which is higher than the .162 posted the year prior. Primarily known for having a great eye at the plate, Abreu’s ability to lay off of pitches out of the zone has diminished as well, as his O-Swing% has risen from 10% in 2005 to 16% over the past two seasons. Almost a direct result, the walk rate, never before lower than 14.5%, was 12.2% in 2007, and just 10.7% in 2008. Essentially, this is a case of an aging player losing the skills that make him effective.

Abreu is now a 34-yr old free agent, who will turn 35 during Spring Training of 2009. According to recent reports, he is seeking a deal worth 45 million dollars spread over three seasons. The Yankees and Mets are both seemingly shying away from his asking price, which brings forth the idea that he just is not worth the investment. If so, what exactly is he worth?

From 2006-08, his WPA/LI is an aggregate 5.73. Using some weighting, I am quite comfortable deeming him as a true talent 1.8 win above average player. Defensively, however, is another story. Via the + – system, Bobby has either been the worst, or among the worst, rightfielders in baseball over the past three seasons, posting a -14, -14, and -24. We’ll call him a true talent -17 fielder, which amounts to about 1.5 wins. Before any adjustments are even made, we are now looking at a player worth about 0.3 wins above average. As a corner outfielder, though, -0.5 wins must be docked via a positional adjustment, and +2.0 wins must be added to give us a total above a replacement player. 1.8 + 2.0 – 0.5 – 1.5 = 1.8.

With this in mind, Bobby Abreu is worth about 1.8 wins above a replacement player. Multiply that total by the 5.5 million dollar per win free agency rate, and the grand total is 9.9 million, which will be rounded up to 10 million. Essentially, based on his true talent level right now, if Abreu were to sign a one year deal, a fee of ten million dollars would be appropriate. Since he is seeking a three-year deal, a 10% discount rate comes into play, deeming an appropriate contract worth 27 million dollars over three seasons. Abreu is currently seeking about 18 million dollars more than he is worth. If some team can convince him to serve as a DH, then his asking price may not be in the realm of the absurd, but 15 million dollars per year for a very bad defensive corner outfielder currently losing the offensive skills that allow him to stay in the lineup should not be very realistic.

Abreu was my favorite Phillies player growing up, and my second favorite player to Greg Maddux, but at this stage in the game, he just isn’t worth what he is asking.

Reports recently circulated that Pedro Martinez definitely plans on pitching in 2009, if not longer than that. Having just turned 37 years old, he certainly would not be the oldest pitcher in the major leagues next season; however, based on his performance this season, the supremely dominant Pedro is long gone. With that in mind, what type of contract should he sign? Or, then again, what would be reasonable, given his track record as well as his most recent performance? I’m sure the Mets will make some type of offer to him, be it half-hearted or not, but if he wants to pitch next season, you better believe he will be able to find a home.

In 2006-07, since he made just five starts in ’07 alone, Pedro started 28 games, threw for 160.2 innings, and surrendered 141 hits, 19 of which were home runs. He walked 46 and fanned 169 hitters. This resulted in a 4.15 ERA and 3.67 FIP, still very solid. Last year, however, things took a turn for the worse. In 20 starts and 109 innings, his K/BB dipped below 2.0, and he posted a 5.61 ERA and 5.18 FIP. Given that we estimate replacement level to be a 5.50 FIP, Pedro was pretty darn close to being a replacement level pitcher last season.

The marcel projections for next season are now available here, and they are not too optimistic regarding Martinez. Marcel has Pedro pegged for 117 IP with a 4.85 ERA and 4.57 FIP. Based on his FIP, Pedro is projected to give up 60 runs in 117 innings pitched next season. How does that stack up with the replacement level? Well, unlike Dave’s recent posts on Sabathia and Burnett, both of whom are projected for 180+ IP, Pedro is slotted to log a significantly lesser amount of innings. Since he is only projected to pitch in 117 innings, we cannot use the 160 inning replacement benchmark. Instead, we will adjust the replacement level starter to amass Pedro’s projected innings total.

In other free agent value posts, the replacement starter and reliever came into play since manager’s will have a quicker hook with replacement level starters. In Pedro’s case, we are assuming he will miss starts entirely, not get a quick yank out of the game. Now, we compare Pedro’s 117 innings to that of the replacement level starter:

Pedro Martinez: 117 IP, 60 runs allowed
Replacement SP:117 IP, 72 runs allowed

Put together, Pedro is projected to be twelve runs better than the replacement level next season, or one win above replacement. If free agents are going for the rate of 5.5 million dollars per win, then Martinez should sign a deal worth 5.5 million. Add in his name value and his “veteran leadership” and we can bump that up to at least 6 mil, perhaps even 6.5 mil.

I would tend to think the 10% discount for a multi-year deal would not apply here, as it would be more appropriate for Pedro to sign something like a 1 yr-6 mm deal, laden with incentives. He may not be the dominant force he once was, but there will likely be plenty of teams willing to take flyers on him for next season, if not more than that.

The free agency period began last Friday, and some teams have wasted little time making offers both curious, as in the supposed over-bidding on CC Sabathia by the Yankees, and apparently laughable, as in Scott Boras’ reaction to the Dodgers offer to Manny Ramirez. Some free agents have been signed, as well, including lefty reliever Scott Eyre (Phillies), and, well, lefty reliever Jeremy Affeldt (Giants). Will Ohman, another lefty reliever, is currently being courted by the Braves, and another lefty reliever, Joe Beimel, is rumored to be on the Giants wish-list.

Beimel had a decent year for the Dodgers in 2008, that was made to look much better by a shiny 2.02 ERA. His FIP of 3.30 was more telling of his actual ability this past season, but as a lefty specialist who only amassed 49 innings in 71 appearances, his 1.45 WHIP and 1.52 K/BB were masked by an 85.1% strand rate. In 2007, his K/BB was essentially the same, though a .291 BABIP, a full 30 points lower than this year’s .320, helped produce a 1.29 WHIP. Despite this, his strand rate was a below average 67%, leading to a higher 3.88 ERA. Beimel’s FIP, however, was 3.39, right in line with the 3.30 from this past season.

How does a pitcher with a K/9 barely over 5.5 and a BB/9 over 3.0 produce such solid FIP marks? Well, he doesn’t give up home runs. In 2008, Beimel did not surrender any longballs. The year prior, he allowed just one ball to leave the yard. Yes, over the past two seasons, Joe Beimel has allowed just one home run. I struggled to wrap my head around this and decided to look up how many “peers” he has in this regard.

Looking strictly at those with 50+ total innings combined in 2007 and 2008, three pitchers did not surrender any home runs: Jim Johnson, Joey Devine, and Kevin Cameron. These three, however, primarily pitched in just one season, with Johnson appearing in just one 2007 game, Devine appearing in just ten, and Cameron making only ten appearances in 2008. Suffice it to say, nobody who has logged significant time over each of the last two seasons has been effective enough not to surrender a home run.

With this new qualifier, Beimel tops the list with 155 games and just one home run allowed. That is 117.1 innings of 3.07 ERA baseball, and just one gopherball. After Beimel, the next lowest amount of home runs surrendered by a pitcher with significant time in both seasons is three, belonging to both Matt Lindstrom (137 games) and Kerry Wood (87 games).

Three pitchers have allowed only four home runs in 2007-08: Saul Rivera (162 games!), Chad Bradford (147 games), and Randy Flores (113 games). Below are some stats for these six pitchers:

Joe Beimel:     155 g, 117.1 IP, 1 HR, 3.07 ERA,  2.40 WPA
Matt Lindstrom: 137 g, 124.1 IP, 3 HR, 3.11 ERA,  2.07 WPA
Kerry Wood:      87 g,  90.2 IP, 3 HR, 3.28 ERA,  0.64 WPA
Saul Rivera:    162 g, 180.0 IP, 4 HR, 3.75 ERA,  1.61 WPA
Chad Bradford:  147 g, 125.0 IP, 4 HR, 2.74 ERA,  0.93 WPA
Randy Flores:   113 g,  80.2 IP, 4 HR, 4.57 ERA, -1.61 WPA

Beimel allowed seven home runs in 2006, giving him a grand total of eight allowed over the last three seasons. How does that stack up with the rest of the league in the same span? Looking at pitchers with significant time in each season—BJ Ryan would be in this list but he only made five appearances in 2007—we see that Bradford tops all others with just five home runs allowed. Sean Green of the Mariners is next at just seven allowed, with Beimel and Saul Rivera joining the fray with only eight gopherballs surrendered.

With Beimel’s poor strikeout and walk rates, he should not really be anything other than a specialist reliever, but pitching in San Francisco, assuming the Giants ink him soon, there really isn’t any reason why the home run numbers should crazily regress, especially if he only faces one or two batters in each appearance. Beimel is more likely a 3.40-3.50 true talent ERA pitcher, but that is still quite good, and with lefty relievers flying off the shelves, it would not shock me at all to see him signed before this week ends.

As many of you now know, last week we unveiled some tremendous new metrics. Available on individual player pages as well as the leaderboards, you now have access to plate discipline metrics for pitchers and pitch type statistics for hitters. The former includes information along the lines of how often a pitcher induced a swing out of the zone, in the zone, as well as his percentage of first-pitch strikes. The latter includes the percentages, and velocities, of pitches seen for hitters, as well as his percentage of first-pitch strikes seen.

I wrote a bit of an introduction to these new statistics last week, and David has written several glossary-type entries as well. This is the type of information that has piqued my interest for a long, long time, and it now adds another dimension to evaluations. For instance, did you know that Johan Santana posted an O-Swing % (percentage of pitches out of the zone that batters swung at) of 30.1 in 2005 and 2006, which decreased to 28.2% in 2007, and 26.8% this past season?

Using the new statistics, I decided to run some correlations to see if certain statistics held strong relationships to each other. First, here are the results for correlations run between the percentage of first-pitch strikes and six prominent evaluative statistics:

F-Strike %

K/9:    0.194
BB/9:  -0.719
WHIP:  -0.515
BABIP:  0.096
ERA:   -0.31
FIP:   -0.406

The results here are not that shocking, or at least they should not be. Getting ahead of the hitter is generally considered key for the pitcher. Doing so, in theory, should correlate quite strongly to any metric involving walks. As we can see, there is a very strong relationship between the percentage of first-pitch strikes and the walks per nine innings issued by pitchers. The relationship loses a bit of its strength when hits allowed are added to the equation in the form of WHIP, but the -0.719 correlation between F-Strike% and BB/9 is actually the strongest of any that I ran. Here are the results for O-Swing % and the same six evaluative metrics:

O-Swing %

K/9:     0.281
BB/9:   -0.493
WHIP:   -0.462
BABIP:   0.036
ERA:    -0.362
FIP:    -0.428

Here, the results are a bit different. Nothing is incredibly strong or on the same wavelength of strength as the FStrike-BB/9, but we have a few relationships of moderate strength. What exactly is O-Swing? It is the percentage of pitches that a pitcher threw out of the zone, that a hitter swung at. With this in mind, we might initially expect that pitchers with the highest percentages in this area would strike more batters out, walk less, and therefore be very effective in the ERA and FIP department. One thing to keep in mind, though, is the percentage of pitches that these pitchers throw in and out of the zone.

Jake Peavy and Barry Zito, for instance, were amongst the bottom in terms of percentage of pitches thrown in the zone, at around 47%. However, Peavy induced many more swings on these pitches than Zito, which is a big reason for the difference between the two, since their percentages of pitches in and out of the zone were virtually identical. When we have pitchers with different percentages in the mix, as is the case in the correlations using O-Swing, the results should not be as concrete. Overall, the strongest relationship here also involves BB/9, as the idea goes back to the Peavy/Zito example: Peavy gets swings and outs on pitches out of the zone, Zito does not. The higher the percentage is of swings out of the zone, the better the chance is that the BB/9 will be lower.

Lastly, Z-Swing%, which is still a bit curious. For instance, does a pitcher want a higher or lower percentage here? I would venture a guess that a lower percentage would be better, as the pitch is already in the zone and therefore very likely to be called a strike. A hitter failing to swing will take a called strike. It probably is not as important as FStrike or O-Swing, but here are the correlations:

Z-Swing %

K/9:   -0.067
BB/9:  -0.014
WHIP:  -0.037
BABIP: -0.150
ERA:   -0.027
FIP:    0.087

Well, I guess it really doesn’t matter for pitchers, as the percentage of swings induced on pitches in the strike zone does not share anything close to a strong relationship with any of the above six metrics. Interestingly enough, the highest correlation for Z-Swing involved BABIP, which was the lowest for F-Strike and O-Swing. The -0.150 isn’t significant by any means, though, so nothing should be taken away by that. At the very least, these results show what we would generally expect: the more first-pitch strikes, the lower the rate of walks or vice versa, and inducing swings out of the zone can result in better rate and run prevention stats.

Every so often, I will check my e-mail and find a hidden gem from our captain, David Appelman. The messages usually discuss any pertinent baseball topics we may have interest in covering, but, every now and then, inform us writers of new statistical updates at the website. This is my favorite type of e-mail, one of which I received yesterday, that almost gave me a sabergasm. See, we have some new stats on this site that are not only incredibly useful, but are incredibly interesting to peruse as well. You can find these new statistics on the individual player pages as well as the leaderboards.

To get the suspense out of the way, the statistics are: First-strike percentage for both batters and pitchers, Plate Discipline stats for pitchers, and Pitch Type stats for batters. The percentage of first strikes tells us, for pitchers, which ones get ahead 0-1 in the count most often; it also counts a ball put in play on the first pitch as a strike. For hitters, we can see which get behind 0-1 the most or least, with plate appearances ending with just one pitch intermingled as well. For instance, did you know that Corey Hart of the Brewers had a 68.9% F-Strike this year? Yeah, over two-thirds of his plate appearances began with him down in the count 0-1, or ended after just one pitch.

On the flipside, Chipper Jones had the lowest F-Strike for a hitter at just 48.3%. Albert Pujols finished at a somewhat distant second with 49.7%. From a pitching standpoint, Barry Zito threw a first-pitch strike just 51.5% of the time, with Edinson Volquez and Oliver Perez finishing close behind. Inversely, Mike Mussina led all of baseball with a 67.6% F-Strike. Close behind him were Ervin Santana, Cliff Lee, Greg Maddux, and Dan Haren, all of which exhibted exemplary control during the 2008 season.

The plate discipline stats for pitchers are not what some may think. No, it isn’t hitting stats for pitchers, explaining how often Joe Blanton swung at pitches out of the zone. Rather, these include the O-Swing, Z-Swing, etc, stats, but for hitters against pitchers. So, if you go to Joe Blanton’s page, and find the plate discipline section, you will be able to see how often hitters swung at his pitches in the zone, out of the zone, how often he threw in the zone, how often did hitters make contact on his pitches, and more along those lines.

This is an amazing addition to the site, and something I will delve into much more next week, but as an appetizer, I will say that Daniel Cabrera, by far had the lowest percentage of swings at pitches outside of the zone. Jake Peavy, however, induced the highest percentage of such swings. In fact, here’s an interesting nugget: Peavy led the league with a 32.4% O-Swing, and threw just 47.6% of his pitches in the zone. Meanwhile, Barry Zito, who had the lowest F-Strike%, threw a league-low 47.2% of his pitches in the zone, but only induced 26% swings on those pitches. Essentially, while both he and Peavy threw the same amount of pitches in and out of the strike zone, Zito could not get as many hitters to swing, which amounts to a large difference in strikeouts and walks.

The other addition is pitch type stats for hitters. Haven’t you ever wondered what percentage of pitches certain hitters see in a given year? I know I have. Countless times this year I wondered what percentage of fastballs Ryan Howard saw, given that he really cannot hit anything else. Well, with the additions here, I know now he saw 51.2% fastballs in 2008, the fourth lowest percentage in the sport. Hunter Pence, at 49.8%, actually saw the lowest percentage, with Dan Uggla, Aubrey Huff, Ryan Howard, and Geovany Soto close behind. Basically, this bottom five consists of sluggers who struggle with breaking pitches, and therefore see a wide array of such pitches.

Click the leaderboard again, to sort by descending order, and we get: Gregor Blanco (70.5%), Jason Kendall (70.0%), Chone Figgins (69.1%), Placido Polanco (68.1%), Willy Taveras (68.0%). Pretty much the opposite group, as these guys are by no means whatsoever power threats, but five hitters who rarely strike out. Moving further, we can also take a look at the average velocities these hitters faced.

Did you know that the AL East had a very high average fastball? It must have, since Kevin Youkilis led the league with a 91.8 mph heater faced, while Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Dustin Pedroia, and Jacoby Ellsbury all found themselves in the top five. Reverse the list and we see that Chone Figgins, who saw one of the highest percentages of fastballs, led the league by seeing the slowest average fastball, at just 90.1%. I’m sure myself and my colleagues here will be using these stats much more moving forward, but hopefully this serves as a nice introduction to the new types of information now accessible.