As every St. Louis Cardinals fan already knows so well, one of the major disappointments of the 2008 club was its relief corps.
There are plenty of reasons assigned to the problem, including the collapse of Jason Isringhausen, the struggles of the left-handers, relievers being used out of their roles, late-season fatigue, rookie inconsistency and many more.
I have no reason to argue about any of them, yet I wondered whether the starters might have been putting more pressure on the bullpen by not going as deep into games. Here are basic numbers for the starting pitchers over the last six seasons.
| Games | Total IP | Starters IP | IP/start | |
| 2008 | 162 | 1454 | 955 | 5.9 |
| 2007 | 162 | 1435.7 | 889 | 5.5 |
| 2006 | 161 | 1429.7 | 941.7 | 5.8 |
| 2005 | 162 | 1445.7 | 1048 | 6.5 |
| 2004 | 162 | 1453.7 | 996.3 | 6.2 |
| 2003 | 162 | 1463.7 | 979.3 | 6.0 |
While the Cardinals starters last season fell just short of six innings per outing, that mark was actually better than achieved in either of the prior two years. Not surprisingly, the high water marks in recent years of well over six innings were established by the triple-digit win clubs of 2004 and 2005.
There seems nothing obvious that can be pinned on the starters so let’s look at the relievers themselves. The most frequently-quoted measurement is their 31 blown saves, tied for worst in the majors. Here are the other traditional measures.
| Save opps | Saves | Blown | Holds | |
| 2008 | 73 | 42 | 31 | 115 |
| 2007 | 45 | 34 | 11 | 82 |
| 2006 | 57 | 38 | 19 | 90 |
| 2005 | 65 | 48 | 17 | 86 |
| 2004 | 73 | 57 | 16 | 102 |
| 2003 | 71 | 44 | 27 | 77 |
Those looking for the bright side in the pen’s performance can point to the 115 holds, which is the top number in recent years. That offers the major difference between 2008 and 2003, the season closest to last in terms of bullpen ineffectiveness.
Despite all the troubles, the 2008 bullpen was presented with 73 save opportunities, tied for the most during this period. (Though not material, I couldn’t help but notice that 2008 and 2004 would have been almost identical if 15 blown saves last season could have been moved to the saves column instead. Of course, had that happened, the team could have won as many as 101 games and everything would have been different!)
Here is where I decided to dig a bit deeper with the help of the stats available from Baseball-Reference.com.
One of the many splits available is starters vs. relievers. Every pitch, every at-bat all season long was made by one or the other, right? The next split is between relievers in a save situation (SS) and those not in a save situation (NSS). Again, every relief appearance has to be one or the other.
To look at the difference in results achieved between these two situations, I selected one traditional measurement, ERA, and another newer one, OPS+ of the opposing hitters facing the Cardinals relievers.
| Save sit ERA | SS OPS+ | Non-save sit ERA | NSS OPS+ | |
| 2008 | 5.01 | 132 | 3.83 | 101 |
| 2007 | 3.28 | 88 | 4.25 | 95 |
| 2006 | 3.94 | 92 | 4.09 | 96 |
| 2005 | 2.59 | 98 | 3.41 | 90 |
| 2004 | 1.96 | 55 | 3.48 | 81 |
| 2003 | 5.20 | 132 | 4.65 | 115 |
A couple of things stand out. Most obvious is the increase in ERA and OPS+ in save situations in 2008 over previous seasons and the disparity between the 2008 results in the non-save situations vs. the save situations. In only 2003 and 2008 were the numbers worse when there was a small lead to protect.
Another observation is that the size of the 2008 gap based on the situation is larger than in any of the other years in this study. Why was that? Why did this pen do ok except when the game was on the line?
| Relief IP | Rel appearances | Save situations | SS IP | Non-save situations | NSS IP | |
| 2008 | 499 | 506 | 189 | 156.3 | 317 | 342.7 |
| 2007 | 546.7 | 516 | 113 | 104.3 | 403 | 442.3 |
| 2006 | 488 | 469 | 127 | 109.7 | 342 | 378.3 |
| 2005 | 397.7 | 436 | 158 | 118 | 278 | 279.7 |
| 2004 | 457.3 | 469 | 164 | 142 | 305 | 315.3 |
| 2003 | 484.3 | 461 | 146 | 128 | 315 | 356.3 |
The 2008 bullpen made over 500 total appearances for the second consecutive season, but what really catches my eye is the extraordinarily high number of save situations presented the pen at 189.
I initially wondered if that 189 number could have been increased by many short, ineffective appearances that required additional relievers to be deployed. Yet, the high number of innings pitched under those conditions, 156 1/3, tends to discount that.
Next, let’s look at the percent of the save situations and save situation innings compared to the total workload of the bullpen.
| Relief IP | Rel appearances | Save sits | SS % appearances | SS IP | SS % IP | |
| 2008 | 499 | 506 | 189 | 37% | 156.3 | 31% |
| 2007 | 546.7 | 516 | 113 | 22% | 104.3 | 19% |
| 2006 | 488 | 469 | 127 | 27% | 109.7 | 22% |
| 2005 | 397.7 | 436 | 158 | 36% | 118 | 30% |
| 2004 | 457.3 | 469 | 164 | 35% | 142 | 31% |
| 2003 | 484.3 | 461 | 146 | 32% | 128 | 26% |
Not only were the absolute numbers large, but the 37% of pen appearances occurring in save situations was substantially greater than in either 2006 or 2007. Same with innings pitched.
Could that mean that the 2008 relievers just weren’t able to handle the frequent pressure situations they were placed in? As crazy as it first sounds, would their overall results have been better if they had been presented with fewer save situations to protect?
The 2008 percentages at least did not vary much from 2004 and 2005, though the results in the win column between 2008 and those seasons were quite different.
My final step is to put this together. Remember that inherent in the definition of a save is that at most only one can be had per win. For example, during last season, Cardinals relievers pitched 189 times in save situations over no more than 73 different games. Of those 73, 42 saves were converted and 31 were blown (42%).
(Not to overly complicate, but there could be multiple blown saves in a single game if the bullpen loses the lead more than once.)
That 42% blown save rate in 2008 is the highest in this six-year period. Yet when considering the total number of pitchers that were put in a save situation, the blown save rate of 16% across all of them does not stand out nearly as much compared to other years.
Of course, none of these gymnastics change the bottom line.
| Save situations | Save opps (~games) | Blown saves | Blown save % – opps | Blown save % – situations | |
| 2008 | 189 | 73 | 31 | 42% | 16% |
| 2007 | 113 | 45 | 11 | 24% | 10% |
| 2006 | 127 | 57 | 19 | 33% | 15% |
| 2005 | 158 | 65 | 17 | 26% | 11% |
| 2004 | 164 | 73 | 16 | 22% | 10% |
| 2003 | 146 | 71 | 27 | 38% | 18% |
I am going to stop there and ask you, the readers, what you think. Does this work say anything to you? What do you conclude? What if anything might be missing?
Addendum: At the request of DD17 in the comments that follow, I factored out Jason Isringhausen’s 2008 stats. Interestingly, he appeared in an equal number of save and non-save situations. I guess it is not surprising that his removal helped the club’s save situation ERA, but he actually had a positive impact on the non-save ERA.
What I did find interesting is that Izzy’s save conversion rate of 63%, while not very good, was still better than the rest of the club with him excluded (56%).
| In save sits | G | W | L | S | BS | Sv % | IP | ERA |
| Team 2008 | 189 | 5 | 13 | 42 | 31 | 58% | 156.3 | 5.01 |
| Izzy | 21 | 1 | 4 | 12 | 7 | 63% | 17.7 | 10.70 |
| Team w/o Izzy | 168 | 4 | 9 | 30 | 24 | 56% | 138.7 | 4.28 |
| In non SS | G | W | L | S | BS | Sv % | IP | ERA |
| Team 2008 | 317 | 17 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 342.7 | 3.83 |
| Izzy | 21 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 24 | 2.16 |
| Team w/o Izzy | 296 | 17 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 318.7 | 3.95 |
While I redid the team totals, I am not comfortable with them. To do it properly, it would have required me to make an assumption about whether or not another reliever could have converted the saves that Izzy couldn’t. Instead, I just took out his numbers.
| Save sits | Save opps (G) | Blown | Blown Sv % | Blown save sit % | |
| 2008 total | 189 | 73 | 31 | 42% | 16% |
| 2008 w/o Izzy | 168 | 73 | 24 | 33% | 14% |
Well, the difference between save situation ERA and non save situation ERA would indicate that the wrong relievers were used to close, for sure.
Nutlaw, my reply is “hello, Russ Springer!”
Another factor to consider is the rate at which inherited runners were allowed to score, since some of those earned runs are pinned to the starter. I have the total data, but it is not separated out by which runs inherited were starter runs and which were reliever runs nor is it broken out into save and non-save situations. After awhile, it gets pretty complicated.
I wonder what the 2008 numbers would like like compared to other years if Izzy’s 2008 numbers were backed out.
Brian,
I’m not sure this is completely in sync with your data (which is excellent, BTW), but here goes. I think you were on to something when you were calculating SS innings / SS. In most years, save the disastrous 2007, TLR uses pitchers to get individual outs or a pair of outs quite frequently. That’s why the SS innings / SS is less than 1 on average. We know this to be LaRussa’s style from tons of experience and his ubiquitous postgame comments about “match-ups.”
For 2008, it was .82. This number was lower than any other year except 2005, which was .75. What this tells me is that Tony made more substitutions than average. Probably he was simply employing his match-up strategy, but perhaps he was also running guys in and out in an effort to keep them from being “exposed.” (If this was the case, it perhaps may have had the opposite effect, by failing to allow the rookies to get some flow before they were yanked.)
The normal match-up approach might have worked had the bullpen been able to do what he expected of it. But when you fail to account for the fact that Flores can no longer get out lefties, Isringhausen can no longer get out anybody, Villone (contrary to TLR’s understanding, I suppose) isn’t effective against righties, and so forth…your “playing the percentages” stuff falls apart.
Diz, see the addendum above on your Izzy question. (I put it up there so the tables would be formatted properly.)
Brian, Perez at 3/36 certainly suggest Boras will hold cards and stand a few raises. It also reflects poorly on the assumed health of Sheets. I hope the numbers seem familiar to you.
If the Cards can roll the dice for a year, Sheets is obtainable. For crying out loud, $8 million plus appearance incentives. If the guy pitches, he’s worth at least three wins over Pinata.
Compared to Lowe at 4/$60, I think the Mets got a decent deal. Sheets doesn’t have much leverage. Some club may get a nice bargain.
Thanks for running the additional data, Brian, although your list chart still includes Izzy’s chances among the total. There were 54 save chances, not including his 19.
it shouldn’t surprise that his percentage of saves per chances is higher than the team’s rate. One of my pet peeves has always been that a blown save is considered a save opportunity for all pitchers, when in reality the guys that give up the lead in the seventh or eighth inning and are charged with a blown save never really had a save opportunity. They were going to give way to the “closer” regardless of what they did. I would rather that MLB drop the category of save opportunities and just go with blown saves as a category. It bothers me to listen to some wet behind the ear announcer blather on about how poor a middle reliever’s percentage of saves is, compared to the team’s closer.
DD, it is all in how one decides to back Izzy out. My view was that the Cards as a team still would have had 73 save chances. It is just that someone other than Izzy would have been given the op. Think of it this way. In every game with a save op, an average of between two and three relievers appeared. But I can see doing it the other way, too. As I said above, I was uncomfortable either way in trying to back his totals out.
Regarding his number of save opp appearances, it is 21, not 19. I see how you got 19 (12 saves plus seven blown), but he must have had two other games where he entered in a save situation, didn’t do anything badly, but was followed by another reliever who nabbed the save (or took the blown save), leaving Izzy with neither outcome.
Brian–
You’ve just illustrated why the save is a poor metric. Bullpen FIP and OPS+ (which you have) are probably much better. I hate to lay much of the problem at TLR’s feet, but he did insist on trotting out the same rotten relievers over and over. Interesting question: WWD? (What would Whitey do?) I think he definitely would have moved Perez up earlier, maybe Motte, too.
RedC, I was also frustrated with TLR sticking with Izzy and Franklin. On the other hand, McClellan’s results declined pretty much every month and Perez did not do well his first time up. Bringing Motte up earlier as well as giving Worrell another chance were options not taken. I also believed that Springer could have been used later in games.
Of course, a trade for bullpen help could have been very doable, too. I don’t buy for a minute that spin that every one of the other 29 teams wouldn’t trade a reliever without getting Rasmus or Motte or … in return. Doesn’t come close to passing the sniff test.
Good call Brian. I think everyone believes we will have Motte and Perez up at the same time. I don’t think thats in the Cards. Ha ha………… My profile suggests that they are playing PR games, not baseball. I would love to see Motte as an 8th inning buy who you might run into the ninth if his pitch count was down and he was smoking. They will separate them to elongate or delay a period in which trading up and down leaves a bad taste in the publics mouth. Hopefully all other expensive scenarios will be gone by that time. I hate to say that, but I fear its true. This about money, not baseball.
I received an email from a friend tonight regarding this topic that is worth sharing:
My reply:
I appreciate your point, but it doesn’t explain to my satisfaction why the 2008 season offered so many more save situations over 2007 and 2006. I buy the big run differential in 2004 and 2005, but it doesn’t jibe in the subsequent two seasons.
New email reply from my bud:
My reply:
Seems plausible. I will nose around a bit, but I think I would stop before having to go though all the game logs to get the number of scoreless outings by reliever. Have you ever seen that data? Going that route would also take me into looking at inherited runners scored. I have that by player, but not by situation by player.
One could also look at clutch stats (2 outs, RISP, late and close, …) by inning, pitch count, time through the order, etc. One of those might help unlock it, but at a macro glance of the team stats, nothing jumped out other than the pen’s OPS+ in extra innings was a hideous 147!
That just reinforced what I already knew: Last season, the Cards lost 12 contests in extra innings, worst in MLB and they were defeated in walk-off fashion an astonishing 13 times, also worst of the 30 teams in the majors.