As the Royals bullpen collapse continues to frustrate me, I have grown especially annoyed with two particular scoring rules in baseball which seem to cause relief pitchers to earn overrated reputations. (In particular, I’ve never understood why people think Jason Grimsley is a good pitcher, I seem to recall many games I’ve seen him blow or almost blow.) I’m curious to know what my fellow baseball fans on this board would think of the following changes to baseball scoring rules to make things a little more fair:
Earned runs (and therefore ERA) are pro-rated based on the number of bases a pitcher has allowed a runner to advance. In other words, if Picther A gave up a double, then Pitcher B relieved him and let that runner score, each of them would get charged half an earned run, rather than the first pitcher being wholly responsible. I think the stats of relievers who let other pitchers’ runners score should somehow be affected…heck, isn’t it their job to stop the runners on base from scoring?
If a reliever enters a game with his team ahead, then blows the lead, then his team re-takes the lead despite that (while the lead-blower is still pitching), he does not earn the win, but rather, the pitcher prior to him earns it. Why should a pitcher be credited with something positive on his record when it was a matter of his incompetence that put him in the position to earn a win in the first place?
I’m interested to hear…what do you guys think would be the drawbacks of such changes, that the current scoring rules make better?
#1 would be problematic because ERA is the average number of runs allowed per nine innings. If you start giving credits for doubles (or half-runs) and things, it would get weird.
In case #2, the pitcher who is on the mound when his team takes the lead gets credit for the win. That’s the way the system works, and though it’s counterintuitive that a pitcher who blows a save can get a win - and he does also get a blown save - he also has to pitch well enough to put his team in position to get that win. Besides, it doesn’t make much sense to give a (starting) pitcher credit for events (the runs scored) that happen after he’s off the mound and that are unrelated to him.
Not really. You only do the pro-rating for runs that are scored, not for every base taken. Awarding half a run to a pitcher would not lead to any more weird ERAs. As I write this, Smoltz could be about to blow his first save in about forever, but the starting pitcher, Reynolds, has an ERA of 6.43. I don’t see how that could be any more weird if fractional runs were used in the calculation.
Doesn’t a pitcher have to enter the game in a save situation in order to be tagged with a BS? A pitcher who blows a lead when he came in in a non-save situation and then his team regains the lead would end up with the win and no negative marks on him.
But it does make sense for “stolen prperty” - in this case, credit for the win, stolen by the pitcher who blew the lead he had worked up - to be returned to its rightful owner.
We already use fractional innings in the ERA calculation; fractional runs in and of themselves don’t strike me as too much of a problem.
Both proposals sound reasonable on the surface to me, but I don’t follow baseball closely enough to say for sure. There may be some subtle unintended consequences that I’m not seeing.
Yeah John! That’s mah boy! He hasn’t blown one since what, last August?
Yes Chris, I was talking about save situations in particular. Though some may keep track of blown leads and such leads, I don’t know. That pitcher does get negative credit: he gave up the runs that squandered the lead.
I suppose the principle at work is that, even though there are stats for runners inherited and scored, it’s still the new pitcher’s responsibility to keep that guy from scoring. After all, just because the old pitcher allowed the runner on base doesn’t mean he was going to score for sure. If you’re the guy on the mound, the buck stops with you, I guess.
The only problem would be the statistical disconnect in terms of comparing pre-change stats to post-change stats. I don’t think the impact would be that enormous on the whole, but let’s say Pedro Martinez, under the new rules, goes nuts and posts an ERA of 0.94 one year, setting a new record. You just know there will be a big controversy that under the OLD rules his ERA would have been 1.16, blah blah blah blah. Or if Roy Halladay up and wins 30 games in 2008, people will bitch that, no, it would have been 27 wins before, blah blah blah blah.
Changing the rules for individual pitcher wins and losses is pointless IMO because pitcher no more “win” or “lose” games than anyone else on the team.
But we insist on creating some sort of “mano a mano” battle in every baseball game. Mike Mussina was not facing Joel Piñeiro, he was facing the Seattle Mariners while playing for the New York Yankees.
Ah, Jason Grimsley, who played a couple seasons for our AAA team when he was in the Phillies system. Isn’t he the guy who stole Albert Belle’s corked bat out of the umpire’s room?
I think ERA is kind of a misleading statistic for relievers since they pitch so few innings. I think something new could be created along those lines, maybe runs per appearance or something.
ERA is a flawed stat. As are most stats, and if you’d like them to tell the whole story they never will. I think that instead of looking at ERA and wishing it changed, you should look at some of the more informative stats. WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched) and TBA (total bases allowed, especially useful when averaged over 9 innings like ERA).
As for the wins thing, well thats no more flawed than the starters chance at getting wins. Wins are also a somewhat over rated stat since they are as much a factor of the pitchers skill as the ability of the offense. You point out that the reliever shouldn’t get the win if he surrenders a lead which is subsequently regained. I ask, how if that different than the starter who gives up 6 runs in 5 innings but has an offense who puts up 8?
Its been said before, but the save is the most usesless stat there is. Why does the guy who comes in the 9th (or maybe even for the last batter) deserving of a save, while the 4 pitchers who combined to hold the opponent to 0 runs over 4 inning after the starter was bounced in the 4th get no share of it.
There’s alot of problems with stats in baseball, its best to just deal with them. There’s no doubt that there are cases where the guy with the 2.23 ERA and 15 wins might be more valuable than the guy with a 1.93 ERA and 20 wins. Then there’s the guy with 22 wins and a 4.93 ERA…whats a bigger deal, the 22 wins or the lofty ERA? You can never expect a stat to tell the whole story.
Currently your #2 "vulturing a win’ while customary is not required to occur. The pitcher that blew the save and then benefitted from a good offense doesn’t HAVE to get credit for the win. Another pitcher can be credited with the win if, in the official scorer’s opinion, he ‘pitched most effectively’.
Not that I’ve ever seen that invoked. But it’s in there.
As for assigned partial run credit for allowing inherited runners to score I think you’d just end up overcomplicating things.
Man on first, no outs. Relief pitcher come in.
Batter singles. Runner to third. New Relief pitcher.
Batter singles. Runner scores.
Suddenly you’ve got THREE pitchers all credited with 1/3 of an earned run? Good luck.
I’m too much of a traditionalist, so there’s definitely a concern related to changing how you’d compare ERA from one generation to the next.
And I always thought that a scorer’s decision was the least-evil way of deciding how to assign EVERY win. The starter is injured in the top of the fifth, with his team ahead 9-0. A series of relievers, one stinkier than the next, come in to give up a total of 9 runs. The home team’s slugger hits a one-run homer to win the game 10-9. And one of those relieving dogs gets the win? Feh. Of course, I can’t endorse the scorer’s decision scenario because I would develop a rash for having contributed to such a drastic change.
Another example of screwed up pitching rules: an Oriole pitcher got credited with a win Thursday night even though he didn’t throw a single pitch*. (He picked off a runner.) OTOH a starter has to pitch fives innings in order to qualify for a win.
*If throwing out a runner qualifies as a “pitch” then could a catcher get the win if he threw the ball? I don’t think so.
It does seem unfair that a pitcher can leave the game with 2 outs and a runner on first, and he’s the one who gets credit for that run if the relief pitcher gives up a home run. #1 wouldn’t make things fair, though. If the pitcher who came in was partially responsible for the runners on base (in terms of ERA), then it would be a big advantage to come into the game with nobody on. If you bring a pitcher in with the bases loaded and nobody out, then you can’t really blame him for giving up a run or two. To even things out, could you give a bonus to pitchers who come in with runners on & don’t let them score?
I agree that ERA and wins-and-losses are badly flawed when it comes to relief pitchers. But I’m not sure it’s possible to fine-tune them. I think an easier solution, given the frequency of mid-inning pitching changes, is to flip-flop the measurements used for batters. Judge a pitcher by his opponent’s batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging average.
My God, I don’t think the White Sox have ever hit a ball out of the infield against Grimsley. He must be blowing those games against someone else!
Not exactly. A subsequent relief pitcher can be credited with the win if a pitcher is ineffective but would be the winning pitcher of record. (Rule 10.19(4).) There is no provision for the previous pitcher, esp. the starting pitcher, to be credited with the win, and that’s specifically what cmkeller wanted.