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NLCS pitching

Posted by Andy on October 15, 2009

Some tidbits about the Phillies and Dodgers pitching:

First, check out this table for relief pitching in 2009 (regular season):

Rk ERA G SV IP
1 WSN 5.09 532 33 523.0
2 FLA 3.89 530 45 543.1
3 SDP 3.75 528 45 571.2
4 LAD 3.14 526 44 553.0
5 MIL 3.97 512 44 544.0
6 NYM 3.89 511 39 501.2
7 TBR 3.98 510 41 457.1
8 HOU 4.13 497 39 534.1
9 ATL 3.68 489 38 476.2
10 OAK 3.54 488 38 559.1
11 BAL 4.83 484 31 551.1
12 COL 4.53 484 45 467.0
13 ARI 4.61 483 36 480.0
14 STL 3.67 481 43 437.0
15 CHC 4.11 480 40 484.1
16 MIN 3.87 480 48 518.1
17 CIN 3.56 478 41 495.2
18 BOS 3.80 463 41 479.0
19 NYY 3.91 461 51 515.0
20 PHI 3.91 459 43 492.0
21 SFG 3.49 457 41 461.0
22 PIT 4.61 456 28 466.1
23 CLE 4.66 445 25 519.0
24 TOR 4.08 445 25 487.0
25 DET 4.34 439 42 491.0
26 TEX 3.95 436 45 485.0
27 LAA 4.49 434 51 483.1
28 KCR 5.02 426 34 477.0
29 CHW 4.06 415 36 469.2
30 SEA 3.83 410 49 491.1
TOT 4.08 14239 1201 15014.2
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 10/15/2009.

Dodgers relievers appeared in the 4th most games this year, which is pretty odd for a playoff team. The Phillies' relievers made 67 fewer appearances than the Dodgers' and all the other playoff teams are well below the Dodgers as well. (Rockies are 12th, Cardinals are 14th, Twins are 16th, Red Sox 18th, Yankees 19th, and Angels 27th.)

When I think about how-off playoff teams are, I always look at the bullpen status. These guys get tired and can often be less effective in the playoffs than they were in the regular season.

Now here are the save stats for the 2009 regular season:

Tm SVOpp SV BSv SV%
TEX 58 45 13 78%
CIN 53 41 12 77%
NYY 67 51 16 76%
STL 57 43 14 75%
OAK 51 38 13 75%
MIN 64 48 16 75%
COL 61 45 16 74%
LAA 70 51 19 73%
SFG 58 41 17 71%
CHC 58 40 18 69%
BOS 59 41 18 69%
PHI 65 44 22 68%
LgAvg 60 40 20 67%
CHW 54 36 18 67%
SDP 68 45 23 66%
MIL 67 44 23 66%
TBR 63 41 22 65%
NYM 60 39 21 65%
FLA 69 45 24 65%
ARI 55 36 19 65%
SEA 77 49 28 64%
DET 66 42 24 64%
LAD 70 44 26 63%
ATL 60 38 22 63%
PIT 45 28 17 62%
TOR 41 25 16 61%
KCR 56 34 22 61%
HOU 66 39 27 59%
CLE 43 25 18 58%
BAL 53 31 22 58%
WSN 58 33 25 57%
1792 1202 591 67%
Tm SVOpp SV BSv SV%
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 10/15/2009.

Much has been made of Brad Lidge's poor performance (and Ryan Madson's bad stint as closer in Lidge's absence) but the Phillies ended up about average in save conversion percentage. It was the Dodgers' 26 blown saves that was 3rd most in baseball. Again notice that the 6 other playoff teams are all above average. (This isn't too surprising...if a team blows a lot of saves, it's hard to get a lot of wins and make the playoffs...therefore playoff teams should, on average, have fewer blown saves.)

I also wanted to point out something that happened in the Phillies-Rockies NLDS that shows why the National League is so much more interesting.

In the bottom of the 7th inning of Game 4 Raul Ibanez made a huge error, dropping a fly ball (lost in the lights) and allowing Seth Smith to reach second base. At the time, the Phillies were up by 1 run with one out in the inning.

Why would I label this error as huge? The Rockies ended up not scoring in the inning and the error seemed to have no effect on the game. But...it did. After Clint Barmes flied out for the second out, pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez's spot came up in the lineup. With the tying run on second base, Jim Tracy had no option but to pinch hit for Jimenez. Ryan Spilborghs made out, but nobody would argue with Tracy's decision.

Up to that point, Jimenez had pitched very well, allowing just 6 hits and 2 walks in 7 innings while striking out 7. The runs came on two gopher balls.

In the 8th inning, the Phillies nearly scored off the Rockies' bullpen. Perhaps if Jimenez had still been pitching, he would have breezed through another inning, saving the Rockies' relief pitchers for the 9th. Instead, they used up guys because they had to.

Weirdly, Ibanez's two-base error actually seems to have helped the Phillies win the game! Isn't it amazing how an error by one team's fielder can get the other team's pitcher out of the game? This is the beauty of the National League and makes NL games so much more interesting than AL games.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying two things:

  • In the NLCS, keep your eye on when each manager decides to lift the starting pitcher, especially if you are a relatively new fan of baseball. It's one of the most fascinating things about the National League playoffs.
  • The designated hitter concept really stinks, in my opinion. We've had some great DHs over the years, but personally I feel it's time to get rid of it. The MLB players union does not want to allow this as it would cost roster spots for players who fit only as DHs, such as David Ortiz, Hideki Matsui, Jim Thome, etc. In my opinion, the DH should be eliminated, effective in 2014. This would give teams 5 years to change their rosters, etc, to compensate for the coming change.

5 Responses to “NLCS pitching”

  1. JDV Says:

    Can anyone incorporate further information about 'game result' here? That would show how many times a team overcame a blown save and still won the game. I'm guessing the rankings would change a little.

  2. Andy Says:

    Good call, JDV.

    See here:

    http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/kbzek

    Those are the games in 2009 in which the team won but also had a blown save. The Dodgers had a whopping 15 such games!!! The last time a team had such a high total was in 2003 by the Reds.

  3. JohnnyTwisto Says:

    I'd guess there is a correlation between the Dodgers using so many relievers and having so many blown saves. Presumably they were bringing relievers into games earlier. Any close leads they then lost are considered blown saves, whereas if the starter remained in the game for another inning and lost the lead himself, it would not be a blown save.

    Sure enough, you can see here the Dodgers were below average in innings per start. (I hope this works...)

    Tm IP/GS ▾
    STL 6.2
    SFG 6.1
    ATL 6.1
    TOR 6.0
    TBR 6.0
    COL 6.0
    CHW 6.0
    CHC 6.0
    ARI 6.0
    TEX 5.9
    SEA 5.9
    PIT 5.9
    PHI 5.9
    LAA 5.9
    KCR 5.9
    DET 5.9
    CIN 5.9
    BOS 5.9
    LgAvg 5.8
    NYY 5.8
    NYM 5.7
    MIN 5.7
    LAD 5.7
    WSN 5.6
    FLA 5.6
    CLE 5.6
    OAK 5.5
    MIL 5.5
    HOU 5.5
    SDP 5.4
    BAL 5.4
    Tm IP/GS
    Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
    Generated 10/15/2009.

  4. JohnnyTwisto Says:

    Sorry that's not very legible. I tried to "SHARE" by entering the table code, but it wouldn't post, presumably because it had too many links, so I just copied and pasted. What is the best way to put these tables in our comments, if you know?

  5. DoubleDiamond Says:

    I don't think any of Brad Lidge's 11 blown saves this year came in a Phillies win. For one thing, almost all of them (something like 9 or 10 of them) came in road games, which probably resulted in walk-off wins. While it's true that a blown save in a road game may just tie the game, and bring on extra innings, Lidge seemed to be especially bad in giving up multiple runs in each save.

    Someone has already pointed out that a lot of blown saves are by pitchers who come into the game before the ninth inning, who aren't the actual "closers" for their teams. At such a point, there's still enough time for their own team to take back the lead and hold onto it (or walk off with it).

    When a closer blows a save in the 9th, all is still not lost if it was the home team's closer doing this in the top of the inning or if the immediate result is a tie ballgame heading for extra innings. The momentum change may be tough to overcome, but I've seen teams recover from this and still win later.

    A road team's pitcher may also get a chance to pick up a save in the bottom half of an extra inning, and the same things I've said above apply here regarding a game that has become tied again.