Archive for Billy Wagner

Craig Kimbrel is really freakin’ good. While his blown save in the final game of the 2011 season gave him a bit more fame for the wrong reasons, Kimbrel has been downright tremendous in his young career. He has only gotten better this season, and at just 24 years old, still stands to improve a bit. Improvements beyond his current performance would make for one scary closer against whom almost nobody would reach base.

Kimbrel has now logged 126.2 innings in his career, and has the following marks: 1.71 ERA, 1.46 FIP, 15.3 K/9, 42.7% K/PA, 45.4% groundball rate. He has an 83.5% strand rate, a .157 opponents average and a 1.01 WHIP, even with a relatively high walk rate. But he’s getting better in that area as well, as his walk rate has decreased each year: from 18.2% to 10.5% down to his current 9.1% mark.

Whether we’re looking at the career numbers of all relievers in the history of baseball, or pitchers through their first three or four seasons, Kimbrel ranks ahead of everyone in most important categories. This is only his third season — and second full year — in the majors, but he is off to a historic start. It wouldn’t be out of line to suggest that, through three years and 120+ innings, Kimbrel has the best numbers of anyone ever.

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Yesterday, R.J. Anderson discussed just how impressive Billy Wagner’s career has been and how magnificently he is pitching this season:

FIP supports that Wagner has pitched extremely well. His 2.12 figure would actually be the second best seasonal total of his career, which is a bit breath-taking within itself. Wagner gets lost in the shuffle with Mariano Rivera doing his thing as the premier salt-and-pepper whiskered closer, but he’s right there with him. Evidently Wagner is talking about retiring at season’s end.

Braves fans should convince him to reconsider given how he’s pitching.

There is no question that Wagner has had a phenomenal career. He has never had an ERA above 3.00 during a full season in the major leagues. Since 1997, his season-high FIP has been 3.09 in 2007 (a year in which he had a 2.88 tERA and 2.63 ERA), which is his only season with a FIP over 3.00 since his rookie year. Simply put, Billy Wagner has been one of the best closers/pitchers in baseball since he came to the major leagues, and has simply dominated.

Although the Hall of Fame is something that analytical folks tend not to worry about, I still think it has a certain genuine lure and appeal that things like the All-Star Game and Gold Gloves just do not. Call me a softie, but I still like thinking about the Hall of Fame, however messed up the process may be to get in (and it’s extremely messed up).

By objective value standards which we use at Fangraphs, Wagner has produced 23.8 WAR thus far in his career (Rally’s WAR database currently has him at 27). For comparison, we also have Robin Ventura at 61.3 WAR and Bret Boone at 25.4 WAR. Those guys aren’t knocking on the Hall’s doors any time soon.

But we know that we have to value relievers differently than we do starting pitchers and positional players. Wagner has had a positive WPA every year in his career save one (2000). His career WPA/LI is higher than Goose Gossage’s. There are a few things holding him back in terms of mainstream importance:

1) Living in the shadow of Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman
2) No World Series appearances/rings
3) Relative lack of Saves (he has 17 fewer Saves than John Franco)
4) Never started a major league game (see Eckersley and Gossage)

Don’t think those shortcomings actually play a tangible factor? Here’s Ron Chimelis, a member of the BBWAA who will likely be voting on Wagner’s candidacy in the future:

Can a one-inning guy be an immortal? Mariano Rivera proves he can.

As for Wagner, in 15 years, has pitched all of 822 innings. It took him 769 games to do it.

The Hall of Fame’s small roster of closers consists of Dennis Eckersley, Goose Gossage, Rollie Fingers and Bruce Sutter.

Eckersley made it partly because he was also a starter. That will no doubt get John Smoltz in, too.

The other three enshrined closers were multiple-inning guys. They also helped define the art…

Among left-handers, John Franco ranks first with 424 saves. Wagner is second.

Is Franco a Hall of Famer? I don’t think so….

So, who gets in? Rivera, for sure.

It’s hard to dispute Hoffman, the all-time leader….

There are other reasons to dismiss him, though. No World Series (also not his fault), and an 8.71 playoff ERA.

In his only League Championship Series, in 2006 with the Mets, Wagner’s ERA was 16.88.

Is Boston’s new reliever a Hall of Famer? I don’t think so, whether he reaches 400 saves or not.

Wagner has had an amazing career. Somehow, the success of the Atlanta Braves this year, as well as his performance in a couple of innings in the playoffs in October, could be the tipping point in his Hall of Fame candidacy. Now there’s a reason why the process, and not the concept, is so messed up.

Frank Wren’s modus operandi to the 2010 offseason: Replace younger, healthier players with older, more injury prone players. He’s not a doctor, but he plays one in real life. Actually, I’m not here to pick on Wren. You can make arguments for all of his acquisitions this offseason. But seriously, this is getting weird.

Last week Wren traded Javier Vazquez and essentially replaced him with Tim Hudson. Hudson threw a grand total of 42 innings last season for the Braves, and it was enough to convince him to re-sign him to a 3-year/$28 million deal. That pretty much sealed Vazquez’s fate as a Brave, as no one was interested in picking up Derek Lowe’s ugly contract. Vazquez has thrown over 200 innings the past four seasons, averaging 5.3 WAR per season during that span. Hudson has been a 5+ WAR pitcher four different times over his career, and the success rate of Tommy John surgery is pretty good. This might work out just fine, and at least the Braves got a decent return for Vazquez.

The Braves also replaced 30-year-old Rafael Soriano with 38-year-old Billy Wagner, who is also is coming off of Tommy John surgery. Soriano was a 2 WAR reliever in 2009 but has a checkered injury history of his own. Still, he showed us last season what he is capable of. Soriano surprisingly accepted arbitration, but the Braves had no trouble finding a taker for his services, swapping him to Tampa Bay for Jesse Chavez.

Now the Braves are replacing Adam LaRoche with Troy Glaus. Glaus is reported to have signed for a $2 million deal, with incentives. The deal is pending a physical, but the well-respected Dr. Lewis Yocum has already given the thumbs up on Glaus’ surgically repaired shoulder to interested parties. It’s worth noting that it was more than just Troy’s shoulder that limited him to just 14 games last season; he also experienced troubles with his back.

Glaus will play first base with the Braves, which should help health-wise. When he’s right, he is plenty productive. Over his career, his wRC+ is 123, and in his last healthy season Glaus posted a 131 wRC+ with the Cardinals in 2008. For the money, this is a nice upside play in an iffy 1B market for Wren and Co. On the flip-side, they’re obviously showing that they are not counting on a whole lot from Glaus.

I’m seeing a lot of roster-churning going on, but I’m not sure I’m seeing a lot of progress. If anything, it looks like they’ve taken a step back. Jason Heyward could go Cameron Maybin on the Braves, Matt Diaz may not be able to handle regular duty, and Glaus, Wagner and Hudson are all too familiar with the disabled list.

The Braves were in shouting distance of the wild card last year. If they want to send Bobby Cox out a winner, filling their needs with a bunch of injury-risks in hopes of improving seems like an “interesting” way to go about accomplishing that task. Considering some of the alternatives, it might have been the best, but definitely not the safest approach. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Following a two-year stint with the Phillies, southpaw closer Billy Wagner up and signed a 4 yr/$43 mil deal with the division rival Mets. The deal would last from 2006-09 with an option for 2010. In his first season with the Mets, Wagner posted a 2.84 FIP and provided two wins above replacement, a very solid figure given that relievers do not accrue much in the win value column thanks to such small samples of data.

In 2007, Wagner added +1.4 wins with a 3.09 FIP. Last year, despite missing time with injuries, he still managed to produce +1.2 wins. Extrapolated out over a full season that performance would, at the very least, match the year prior. His injuries were very significant, however, leading to Tommy John surgery which kept him out of action down the stretch in 2008 and was set to sideline the flamethrower until the end of the 2009 campaign.

In the offseason, the Mets went out and signed Francisco Rodriguez to a lucrative three year deal, and traded for JJ Putz of the Mariners. Putz has not lived up to expectations thus far but the season is still young and plenty of time exists to turn things around. What happens in September, though? Wagner comes back, all but assured that his option for 2010 will not be exercised thanks to the presence of K-Rod, but still needs to audition for his future employer, whomever that may be.

Assuming he does return in September, and that Putz turns his season around, that could be one very scary three-headed monster at the back end of the bullpen. Wagner might only be used in low leverage situations, but you have to figure he would still be effective given his track record. The Mets may have choked away playoff berths at the end of both 2007 and 2008, but if Wagner can return around that time, his presence might help prevent the trifecta.

With the new design of the home page up and running I recently noticed that Orioles closer George Sherrill not only has the oldest-sounding name in baseball but also leads all relievers with a 2.03 WPA. Sherrill, part of the Erik Bedard trade, has 17 saves out of the Orioles 23 wins; his saves:team wins percentage of 73.9 leads all closers as well.

Something interesting about his success—other than the fact that five of his saves have come against his former employer Seattle—is his higher than expected 3.43 ERA. Granted, ERA is not too useful of a barometer when analyzing the efforts of a closer, but his high saves total and high WPA led me to believe he has been shutting down opponents with the greatest of ease.

A closer look at his game logs shows that, of his 8 earned runs allowed, three have come in non-save situations and another two in his blown saves. In all successfully converted saves, Sherrill has allowed just three earned runs. Despite this relative success, there are four other closers who have been performing extremely well while surrendering next to nothing, regardless of whether or not their appearances coincide with blown saves or non-save situations.

Billy Wagner: 16 GP, 17 IP, 9 H, 0 ER, 3 BB, 19 K
Brad Lidge: 19 GP, 19 IP, 9 H, 1 ER, 8 BB, 21 K
BJ Ryan: 14 GP, 14 IP, 11 H, 1 ER, 6 BB, 17 K
Mariano Rivera: 16 GP, 17 IP, 9 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 14 K

Here are the averages of these four stacked up next to Sherrill:

Sherrill: 21 GP, 21 IP, 13 H, 8 ER, 10 BB, 16 K
Others: 16 GP, 17 IP, 9 H, 1 ER, 4 BB, 17 K

Another interesting area to look at is the situation in which the closer entered. Coming into a bases loaded, no out situation with a one-run lead is much different than entering into a nobody on, one out situation with a two-run lead. The statistic gmLI measures the difficulty level when the pitcher entered the game. Here are the average gmLIs of these five closers:

Wagner: 1.34
Lidge: 1.83
Ryan: 2.10
Rivera: 1.65
Sherrill: 2.21

Generally speaking, the average LI, or neutral event, is 1.00; 10% of all events will be over 2.00.

Sherrill has the highest average gmLI of the five while Wagner has the lowest. While it is definitely remarkable that Wagner is yet to surrender an earned run—he has given up 4 unearned runs—it looks as though Sherrill has been less successful in preventing runs due to pitching in much tougher situations.

These other four may have better peripherals, but do not let Sherrill’s ERA fool you: In just 21 innings pitched he has contributed two wins while pitching in tough situations.