Archive for Brad Lidge

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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Brad Lidge, fireman turned arsonist. Lidge was a perfect 48-for-48 in save opportunities last season for the World Champs, including the playoffs. This year has been a whole other story, as Lidge blew his 9th save yesterday against the Phillies lowly in-state rival the Pirates in true swamp gas fashion.

There’s a Jekyl and Hyde thing happening here with Lidge.

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I had something else planned for tonight, but in light of learning about Brad Lidge having to warmup on six different occasions over a two-hour span last night, my anger at this ridiculous game had to be expressed. First, a question: WHY does this game count? Why does this exhibition game, in which the rosters are not always indicative of the best players in each league, in which each team is required one representative meaning that other deserving players are excluded, in which players rarely last more than three or four innings, determine which league gets home field advantage in the World Series? Honestly? Can someone please answer this for me?

“Well, Cubs, you had a tremendous year, winning more than any other team in the whole sport, scoring more runs than everyone else as well, but you won’t have home field advantage in the World Series because your league failed to win the All-Star game.”

Say that a couple of times and let it sink in. I’m very confused why this game was made to be the determining factor of home field advantage in the World Series and doubly so why more stipulations were not made clear with regards to how managers must utilize players or how roster spots should be filled. The first basic point that needs to be fixed if this game is going to remain as “important” is that people who can actually play need to be selected. I don’t care how good Brandon Webb or Scott Kazmir have been this year: if they cannot pitch or just pitched a couple of days prior, they serve no purpose to the team. They are taking up a roster spot, risking injury and should not be participating.

Those actually capable of pitching should be selected, and for the sake of honoring those deserving, regardless of whether or not they can participate, why not just come out with some type of list, citing the best players of the first half, not necessarily intertwined with the game? That way a guy like Kazmir could be recognized for his first-half performance but not be subjected to what happened last night. Imagine if Corey Hart didn’t throw like a nine-year old girl, as Dave Cameron noted, and the game continued. Kazmir was on a strict pitch count and Francona would have no choice but to forfeit the game.

Or if Lidge could only go two innings last night, apparently David Wright was going to be his replacement. That would have been spectacular. The AL could have garnered home field advantage by hitting a home run off of a third baseman. And if Wright gets hurt pitching, I would have to imagine it would be mighty tough to justify his usage on the mound due to the game “counting,” to the thousands of Mets fans excited at the possibility of overtaking the Phillies in the NL East.

Either the game counts and the rosters should be populated by those capable of pitching, regardless of whether or not they are Jeff Suppan, Jamie Moyer, et al, or the game reverts to exhibition/fun nature and after a certain period of time, say 11-13 innings, it is called regardless of score. Pitchers should be required to go for at least one inning, with no platoon or LOOGY moves and, if the game “must be decided” as the commissioner’s office informed Francona, why take so many closers? Honestly, did the AL need anybody other than Mariano Rivera, Jonathan Papelbon, or even Francisco Rodriguez? It could have been Zack Greinke, not Joakim Soria, and then Greinke could have gone a few innings.

It just really irks me that the sport I love could be so stupid and naive with a tradition such as this. If you want to have a competition between the leagues to determine home field advantage in the world series, why not make a balanced interleague schedule and whichever league wins gets the advantage. That way it’s more than just one meaningless game acting as the determining factor.

Overall, IF the game supposedly counts:

a) No more fan voting
b) No more requirements about representatives from each team
c) Pitchers who can actually pitch are selected
d) More starters than closers
e) Pitchers have to go at least one full inning

If it doesn’t count, do whatever you want. It’s a fun game, there should be no real rules other than to have fun. Or, what I would ultimately suggest, is that all of the aforementioned suggestions be disregarded and just let Tim Wakefield make the team every year, with the clause that he can pitch for both teams.

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.

Last season, the Phillies employed a season-long strategy in which Pat Burrell would play six or seven innings before a defensive replacement helped rest his ailing feet. Usually coming in the form of speedster Michael Bourn, the strategy often worked to perfection; a natural centerfielder, Bourn could cover more ground and get to more balls. Those against the move argued that the Phillies shaky bullpen would give up many leads; in doing so, the Phillies were likely to have Chase Utley and Ryan Howard followed by Bourn in crucial situations, rather than Burrell.

Said proponents of leaving Burrell in the game could not deny that Bourn’s defensive prowess definitely helped the Phillies. Bourn was shipped to Houston in the Brad Lidge deal and so So Taguchi (yes that was planned) signed with the team to serve a similar role.

The problem thus far has been Taguchi’s inability to field his position in replacing Burrell. Add on the facts that Burrell has been posting gaudy numbers and the Phillies bullpen is still suspect and the move does not look good. Taguchi has only recorded one error on the season but there have been three other plays he should have made and did not. That accounts for four plays in his ten leftfield replacements that were not made. The plays in question have not necessarily been terrible but ones that a fan/manager/sane person would definitely expect to be made by a defensive upgrade.

In last night’s Phillies/Mets game, Taguchi misplayed a tough fly ball in the eighth inning, poorly timing his dive/slide. The ball bounced off of the front of his glove, allowing Raul Casanova to slide safely into second. Though the play ultimately did not result in a run it definitely did nothing to ease the pressure placed on the shoulders of JC Romero, now in the midst of his second inning of work. Here’s a graph of the game:

While it is not very likely Burrell would have produced different results if still in the game, Taguchi has not done a very good job as a defensive replacement. Looking at the Phillies likely 7th-9th inning pitchers we get the following:

• 7th: JC Romero – GB% increased from 57-63 % from 2005-2007
• 8th: Tom Gordon – career GB/FB of just 1.27
• 9th: Brad Lidge – career GB of 39.6 %, career FB of 38.6 %

Since Romero is primarily a ground ball pitcher it would make more sense to let Burrell stay in the game for the seventh inning, especially if his batting position is nearby in the offensive half of the inning. If Romero stays in for the eighth inning, like last night, it would not necessarily hurt to leave Burrell in as well due to his vast offensive advantage over Taguchi. With Gordon or Lidge on the mound it would make more sense to look for a defensive replacement but preferably one that would provide a significant upgrade. Nineteen games into this season Taguchi has not lived up to expectations.