The 28-yr Old Record-Breaking Rookie

by
July 29, 2008

His story may not follow the same Hollywood storyline as Chris Coste, but Athletics rookie reliever Brad Ziegler has made quite a splash since his call to the big leagues on May 30. Ziegler, who maintains his own blog titled Getting Ziggy With It at Athletics Nation, was drafted in 2002 by the Athletics before returning to school, incidentally where he played alongside Ryan Howard. The Phillies drafted him the following year but, following shoulder tendinitis, deemed him unworthy of even their low single-A affiliate.

Though the outlook appeared to be bleak, Brad caught on with an independent team and, after four starts, found himself a member of the Athletics farm system. After a few seasons in the minors, Ziegler shifted to a sidearm or submarine delivery and steadily improved. Following a strong start in AAA this year, the Athletics brought him up to “the show,” where he has yet to disappoint.

In fact, he has tossed 27 innings without allowing a runner to cross home plate. While not even half of Orel Hershiser’s consecutive scoreless innings streak it is actually the new record for most scoreless innings to begin a major league career. The previous record, 25 innings, belonged to George McQuillan who did so in 1907, his rookie year with the Phillies.

Brad doesn’t throw hard but currently possesses a groundball rate of 69.9%; his GB/FB is a ridiculous 4.64. Given the amount of flyballs given up we would expect him to have surrendered at least one home run, so it isn’t as if his lack of gopher balls is extremely lucky. Overall his numbers look like this:

0.00 ERA, 2.86 FIP, 0.81 WHIP, .202 BABIP, 4.33 K/9, 2.00 BB/9, 2.17 K/BB, 100% LOB

He isn’t striking out many hitters but his low walk rate has resulted in a quite respectable strikeout to walk ratio. Few runners have reached base thanks to an extremely low BABIP and the aforementioned walk rate, and as his 100% LOB and new record suggests, none of these runners have scored. 27 major league innings isn’t really enough to gauge anything with regards to a true talent level or expected results moving forward, but here are Brad’s current ranks amongst relievers with at least 20 innings pitched:

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.

T-1st, least home runs allowed with 0
1st, 0.00 ERA (second place is Joe Nathan at 1.05)
1st, 100% LOB%
1st, 4.64 GB/FB
2nd, 69.9% GB (Roy Corcoran of the Mariners is higher)
4th, .202 BABIP
4th, 0.81 WHIP
6th, 1.44 REW
T-9th, 1.05 WPA/LI (tied with Jonathan Papelbon)
10th, 2.00 BB/9

Suffice it to say, Brad Ziegler has had a very impressive first 23 games, ranking in the top ten in a number of statistical categories. His numbers may regress as the season goes on but he has done enough at this point to be known as more than a former teammate of Ryan Howard. Brad is definitely, as his blog suggets, getting ziggy with it, and opposing hitters are paying the price.





 

Eric is an accountant and statistical analyst from Philadelphia. He also covers the Phillies at Phillies Nation and can be found here on Twitter.

5 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Nick
17 years ago

who woulda thunk it, back when he couldn’t even hack it in low A ball (so most teams seemed to think), that he would later go on to break a 101 year old major league record.
and i just have to say, from my personal experience, his interaction w/the fans is tremendous. he doesn’t “big league” any of his fans; as one can tell from his efforts he puts into his blogging and answering fans’ Q’s, as well as if you ever meet him – he’s as generous and courteous with his time as any player i’ve ever seen. in spring training i remember him being pestered by a young fan for an autograph during the game while he sat in the bullpen; and he had to explain to the fan he wasn’t allowed to sign autographs during the game, but afterward he’d be sure to sign for him. well, Ziegler ended up being called in to finish up the game and pitch the final out. after hi-fiving his teammates, he came running back to the bullpen so he could find the kid, and gave him the autograph he said he would.
i wish those types of people all the success in the world. here’s to all kinds of crazy future success for you Ziggy!

0