The Time Jerry Blevins Had the Greatest Something
Odds are, as FanGraphs readers, you aren’t Oakland A’s fans, but you are at least somewhat familiar with Jerry Blevins. You know something about who he is and what he does for a living. You might have an idea of how good he is at it. To you, this isn’t weird; Blevins is a baseball player, and you know a lot about a lot of baseball players. To other people outside the baseball-fandom bubble, you know a lot about a lot of guys you’ve never met. Speaking generally, it is profoundly unusual to be familiar with Jerry Blevins. Tuesday night, though, Blevins got himself in headlines, so it’s very slightly less unusual to be familiar with him than it was before.
As you might’ve seen or read about already, Blevins came through with a clutch ninth-inning relief appearance that allowed the A’s to beat the Angels, 6-5. According to Cool Standings, the win boosted Oakland’s playoff odds from 85 percent to 90 percent, and the loss dropped LA’s playoff odds from 32 percent to 26 percent. Recall that the Angels were supposed to be one of the best teams in recent baseball history. There is now a three-in-four chance they don’t even reach the one-game playoff. I don’t know how these odds would’ve swung had the Angels rallied and won, but suffice to say things would look very different indeed.
Blevins pitched in the ninth inning last night, but he did not begin the ninth inning. Grant Balfour began the ninth inning with the A’s up 6-3. Two walks and two singles later, it was 6-5 with nobody out and runners on the corners. That’s when Blevins came in to attempt to save the day, and that’s when Blevins started saving the day.
It was Albert Pujols who drilled the second single off of Balfour. Following the single, the Angels were still behind, but their win expectancy was about 64 percent. This is one of those things that’s been revealed since win expectancy was developed — it is possible for a team to be both trailing and heavily favored. Watching on TV, you think, okay, the team with the lead is always ahead. Technically that’s true, but consider the Angels’ situation. They had the tying run 90 feet away, with nobody out. They had the winning run 270 feet away, with nobody out. Beginning with that situation, about two out of every three times, the Angels end up winning.
The Angels lost, and they lost after just two more batters. The first batter Blevins faced was Kendrys Morales, and the lefty Blevins got Morales swinging from the right side. On the one hand, Morales is a good deal less effective from the right side. On the other hand, Morales has a lower strikeout rate from the right side, and Blevins has shown considerable platoon splits. This looked good for the Angels right up to when Morales struck out swinging.
In a 1-and-1 count, Blevins just blew a fastball in the zone right by Morales’ bat, which couldn’t catch up.
That put Blevins in front, and it enabled him to try a low-away changeup out of the zone. Morales had just swung through an outside fastball. A low-away changeup would look a lot like an outside fastball, and Morales would know that he had to protect.
The strikeout dropped the Angels’ win expectancy to about 44 percent. That brought up Howie Kendrick, who I could’ve sworn was for a time going by Howard Kendrick, which never felt right. The Oakland infield had been conceding a run; now it shifted into double-play formation. Kendrick is a groundball hitter like few others, and for his career he’s hit into more double plays than the average. Oakland had a chance. But then, Blevins is not a groundball pitcher, and especially not against right-handed batters. There was no taking anything for granted.
There was especially no taking pick-off attempts for granted. The Angels had pinch-run Peter Bourjos at first base, and Bourjos almost got to run for a while.
The narrative at the end of the game was about how Blevins and the A’s just have ice in their veins, and they’re unafraid of anything, even as underdogs. The narrative was very nearly the complete opposite of that, which I suppose would be Blevins and the A’s having fire in their veins. Blevins would slam the door. Blevins almost threw a ball away that would’ve put the Angels in position to complete a massive last-minute rally.
Anyhow, Kendrick, and Blevins. There was a ball, and then there was a foul, and then there was another foul. Ahead in the count, Blevins came low and inside with a sinker. He got exactly the result I assume he was looking for.
I didn’t .gif the whole thing, but that’s a grounder to third base. Josh Donaldson threw to Cliff Pennington, retiring the fast Bourjos, and Pennington threw to Brandon Moss, retiring the fast Kendrick. Earlier in the game, Donaldson had committed a throwing error. One year ago, Donaldson was a catcher. One month ago, Pennington was a shortstop. One year ago, Moss was an outfielder. Go back to a year ago and describe to yourself this future sequence of events. The old you will probably shake his head and punch you in the face.
Blevins was given credit for a save — just the second save of his career — but that seems to understate things. Blevins did basically save the baseball game, but based on win expectancy this seems like a save/win hybrid. Blevins protected Oakland’s lead, but he also entered with the Angels as two-to-one favorites. Blevins was given one thing in the box score, when it feels like he should’ve been given multiple things. Blevins entered last night with his team having a 36-percent chance of winning, and he was given a save. Hisashi Iwakuma entered on May 30 with his team having a ~100-percent chance of winning, and he was given a save. All right.
Now, finally, for what the headline is referring to. Blevins finished yesterday with a Win Probability Added of 63.7 percent. Here are the top five 2012 relief appearance WPAs:
- Luis Perez, 75%, 4/5
- Jerry Blevins, 64%, 9/11
- Joe Kelly, 63%, 8/19
- Fernando Rodney, 54%, 9/1
- Javier Lopez, 53%, 5/8
Perez comes out on top, but in Perez’s relief appearance, he threw four innings, facing 14 batters. Blevins threw one inning, facing two batters. Blevins just had the most valuable short-relief appearance of the entire 2012 season, which probably doesn’t come as a real surprise. That doesn’t even take into consideration the significance of the game itself in the playoff race.
Additionally, throughout baseball history, Blevins had the seventh-most valuable two-batter relief appearance. On April 17, 2000, Todd Erdos inherited a one-run lead with the bases loaded and nobody out, and he slammed the door. Just over a month later, Kerry Ligtenberg did the same thing. Blevins’ appearance doesn’t quite match up to those. But it nearly does, and more importantly, this isn’t what’s important. Jerry Blevins doesn’t care where his appearance ranks all-time; Jerry Blevins just cares that it’s over, and that it ended with a smile.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Are you paid by the word or something?
I come here for the graphs, not the words. Where are the graphs?!
We come bearing GIFs.
that’s not my point, i’m saying that Jeff is a terrible writer, and I get that it’s partially intentional, for the sake of his sense of humour, but it’s overbearing at times. For starters, you can usually throw out the entire first paragraph of any Sullivan article.
Steve, dude, who crapped on your breakfast?
Steve: If you say Sullivan is a horrible writer, you have to contend that Posnanski is a worse writer, evidently, because much of what he writes does not pertain directly to the subject. Horribler and Horrible-ist?
Fangraphs is here for a broad spectrum of readers. If you don’t like a particular writer, just skip the article.
Nota bene: There is a name beneath each article title. Memorize that name if you don’t like that writer. The next time you see that name, skip that article.
As for the typical ‘skip his article responses’, the info is usually good and worth the read, but the approach is seriously poor. Why is every fangraphs article above criticism?
It’s not that it’s above criticism, it’s the dickishness with which you critiqued him. I, like many, happen to enjoy the hell out of Jeff Sullivan. It’s cool if you don’t, but there are better ways to criticize without drawing the ire of all of Jeff’s fans (this is an open forum, so be prepared to get your head bitten off).
I’m even an A’s fan and I actively go to Lookout Landing to read his recaps because they’re hilarious. I suggest to any Sullivan fans to read the one about Eric Sogard’s glasses from a year or two ago, it had me in tears.
http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2011/8/2/2310883/seattle-mariners-oakland-athletics-eric-sogard
This one is comic gold. Give that man the 10,000 dollars.
Nice trolling. We have no idea who you are, so you can just sit behind your keyboard and type garbage to get a rise out of people. I guess it worked because it’s pissing me off.
lol aww, muffin
Angels fan?
Are you paid by the being-a-douchebag?
He’s paid by the red arrow, and doing very nicely out of it
So this means Blevins had a 10% Playoff Probability Added in his 2 batter appearance. That has to rank pretty highly all time for games not played in the last week of the season. It’s not Bobby Thomson, but it’s pretty clutch.
awesome, awesome article
Why would Fangraph readers not be A’s fans? Is there a correlation that I missed?
There are 30 baseball teams, only one of which is the Marlins. Chances are, if you’re a fan of a team, it isn’t Oakland.
Disagree. Firstly, I think you can be a fan of multiple teams…which would raise the chances of a reader being an A’s fan. Secondly, a statistical analysis website about baseball would probably be frequented by a higher ratio of “Moneyball A’s” fans then other teams.
I for one am an A’s fan.
This is basically true, but the odds that someone reading an article about Jerry Blevins is an A’s fan is somewhat higher than the odds that a generic Fangraphs reader is an A’s fan.
i like that sneaky bash on marlins fans. even though i am kind of a marlins fan myself. i guess that’s probably what all marlins fans consider themselves.
You don’t think this site swings slightly in Oakland’s favor, given the front office they’ve had for the last 10+ years?
The odds are still that the average reader is not an A’s fan. I think this is being taken a little too seriously.
Woo-hoo! I beat the odds!
Truth is, it’s the first time in years when it’s actually been fun to be an A’s fan.
But… enough about that. I just went and read the Eric Sogard piece that degolas recommended, and I admit that I when I got to “It was the cutest little thing” I pretty much lost it.
That was fine stuff, but when I think of “Jeff Sullivan,” what always comes to mind for me is a piece you did a few years back when you “recapped” a game by showing your own reactions to the various atrocities being committed by the Mariners at the time. I found it because folks at Athletics Nation were linking to it while ruefully wondering why this Jeff Sullivan type had to be a Mariners fan instead of one of us.
I can’t remember enough about that one to be able to Google it up from the large swamp of Lookout Landing material. So how about doing me (and yourself) a favor and give us the URL. Even Steve might find his heart expanding 3 sizes and becoming a fan. That would be good, right?
“As a gas station patron, you’re probably not from Wisconsin. Well, you see, since there are 50 states, the chances that you’re form Wisconsin is very slim”
What the hell kind of statement is that?
Watching Balfour self-destruct in the events leading up to Blevins’ opportunity to almost painful to watch. It was like a feedback-loop leading to the eventual mini-breakdown of Balfour. I didn’t have pitchFX turned on, so I don’t know whether the calls were just close or whether they were truly bad, but he was basically got getting a called strike. Which lead to him getting clearly upset, and then making more borderline pitches called balls, which lead to him getting even more upset, and so on.
As I don’t get older I don’t get too worked up watching sports anymore. But considering it was a regular season game between 2 teams fighting for 2nd place, it was pretty fun to watch.
I had pitchFX on. And indeed, the upper part of the strikezone shrunk significantly. you can see here: bit.ly/TIQjnY
From what I saw it really only looked like there were two missed calls from a pitch fx graph someone posted after the game.
He overreacted.
You may not be an A’s fan, sir, but that was an especially poetic and well-written recap of the clutchiest clutch performance by an A (A’s?) this year.
Mr. Sullivan, myself and the rest of the Tarp Talk crew take offense to your first sentence!
But really, great stuff, per usual.
Blevins does care, however, that he didn’t get any pie.
So sad 🙁
I dont get that sentence: “The Oakland infield had been conceding a run; now it shifted into double-play formation. ”
How did they play with 0 outs? If they are in double play depth they are conceding a run, but you say they shifted only after the out.
If they played in, they are defending against that run.
later on, with 1 out playing double play depth is not conceding a run.
I think I must have misheard the announcers.