How are middle relievers best measured?

[CAYanksfan]

Greetings,

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I have been wondering about how to best judge a middle reliever, if not all relievers. ERA seems to be a bad measure, because if a reliever comes into a game and gives up a single with runners on base, the runs don't count against him, even though he failed to do his job. At the same time, ERs should always count because any time a pitcher gives up runs, it matters. A reliever that enters a tie game with no one on base and gives up a home run failed again as well.

Percentage of inherited runners that score makes sense, as it reflects whether or not the reliever did his job. (Quick question - what is generally accepted as a good percentage for this statistic?)

However IMO, not all inherited runners that are allowed to score should be treated equally. For example, the reliever who comes in with no outs and a runner on third should be penalized less for allowing that run to score on a ground ball out to 2B than for a hard hit single that scores the runner from 2nd with two outs. Does this make sense?

Thanks for your feedback.

[NJASDJDH]

Originally posted by CAYanksfan
Greetings,

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I have been wondering about how to best judge a middle reliever, if not all relievers. ERA seems to be a bad measure, because if a reliever comes into a game and gives up a single with runners on base, the runs don't count against him, even though he failed to do his job. At the same time, ERs should always count because any time a pitcher gives up runs, it matters. A reliever that enters a tie game with no one on base and gives up a home run failed again as well.

Percentage of inherited runners that score makes sense, as it reflects whether or not the reliever did his job. (Quick question - what is generally accepted as a good percentage for this statistic?)

However IMO, not all inherited runners that are allowed to score should be treated equally. For example, the reliever who comes in with no outs and a runner on third should be penalized less for allowing that run to score on a ground ball out to 2B than for a hard hit single that scores the runner from 2nd with two outs. Does this make sense?

Thanks for your feedback.

Hope this helps:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/rrereport04.html?PHPSESSID=ccc2fe7b4545c8ec94bc4f793f2274b8

[CAYanksfan]

Originally posted by NJASDJDH


Hope this helps:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/rrereport04.html?PHPSESSID=ccc2fe7b4545c8ec94bc4f793f2274b8

Wow, thanks. There's a ton of good stuff there.

[pacewon]

Originally posted by NJASDJDH


Hope this helps:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/rrereport04.html?PHPSESSID=ccc2fe7b4545c8ec94bc4f793f2274b8

Thanks for posting that. I was actually gonna start a thread recently about our bullpen allowing inherited runners to score, though based on those stats it seems that Quantrill and White are the only ones who have a problem with it (now that Osborne is gone). Do you know how often they update that list?

[NJASDJDH]

Originally posted by pacewon


Thanks for posting that. I was actually gonna start a thread recently about our bullpen allowing inherited runners to score, though based on those stats it seems that Quantrill and White are the only ones who have a problem with it (now that Osborne is gone). Do you know how often they update that list?

I'm pretty sure that it's updated daily.

[pacewon]

Originally posted by NJASDJDH


I'm pretty sure that it's updated daily.

You're right, it's updated. Thanks again for posting that.