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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Are relievers being used optimally, compared to 1980?
This is a followup to this post.
***
Guy, thank you. I prefer being lazy when I can, so thanks.
Ok, this is how it works, and I’m going to have to recalibrate things a bit so it works out to zero. It’s possible for example that David doesn’t give out WPA to pitchers on baserunning events (SB, CS, etc). Not important at the group level.
My first adjustment is to divide all the LI by 1.04 for 1980 and 1.02 for 2011.
The WPA has to be baselined as well. I have to remove 3.87 wins in 1980 and 19.71 wins. It’ll be weighted by IP x newLI.
Anyway, this is Guy’s data, recalibrated:
Year IP.... RA9 WPA LI Role
1980 11210 3.99 23.52 1.05 Relief
2011 14228 4.02 49.11 1.07 Relief
1980 26651 4.42 -23.52 0.98 Starter
2011 29299 4.44 -49.11 0.97 Starter
1980 37861 4.29 0.00 1.00 Total
2011 43527 4.30 0.00 1.00 Total
Next thing is to figure out how many runs above average each group was. That’s easy to do as the league average minus the particular group, divided by 9, times IP. We now have this:
Year IP.... RA9 WPA LI RAA Role
1980 11210 3.99 23.52 1.05 377 Relief
2011 14228 4.02 49.11 1.07 447 Relief
1980 26651 4.42 -23.52 0.98 -377 Starter
2011 29299 4.44 -49.11 0.97 -447 Starter
1980 37861 4.29 0.00 1.00 0 Total
2011 43527 4.30 0.00 1.00 0 Total
We then need to convert the runs into wins. Since both have the same run environment, we’re going to use the same multiplier. I have a quick estimator that is simply RPG+5. Which in the above case would mean 9.3 runs per win. If I use PythagenPat, I get 9.4.
Anyway, dividing the RAA by 9.3, and we get:
Year IP.... RA9 WPA LI RAA WAA Role
1980 11210 3.99 23.52 1.05 377 40.54 Relief
2011 14228 4.02 49.11 1.07 447 48.06 Relief
1980 26651 4.42 -23.52 0.98 -377 -40.54 Starter
2011 29299 4.44 -49.11 0.97 -447 -48.06 Starter
1980 37861 4.29 0.00 1.00 0 0.00 Total
2011 43527 4.30 0.00 1.00 0 0.00 Total
Finally, we apply the LI, to get leveraged wins. So:
Year IP.... RA9 WPA LI RAA WAA levW
1980 11210 3.99 23.52 1.05 377 40.54 42.57
2011 14228 4.02 49.11 1.07 447 48.06 51.42
1980 26651 4.42 -23.52 0.98 -377 -40.54 -39.73
2011 29299 4.44 -49.11 0.97 -447 -48.06 -46.62
1980 37861 4.29 0.00 1.00 0 0.00 3
2011 43527 4.30 0.00 1.00 0 0.00 5
LevWins is what we’d expect of their WPA, if those pitchers pitched at those exact levels in every situation.
Instead, what do we find? Well, let’s subtract WPA by LevWins:
Year IP.... RA9 WPA LI RAA WAA levW Diff
1980 11210 3.99 23.52 1.05 377 40.54 42.57 -19
2011 14228 4.02 49.11 1.07 447 48.06 51.42 -2
1980 26651 4.42 -23.52 0.98 -377 -40.54 -39.73 16
2011 29299 4.44 -49.11 0.97 -447 -48.06 -46.62 -2
1980 37861 4.29 0.00 1.00 0 0.00 3 -3
2011 43527 4.30 0.00 1.00 0 0.00 5 -4
I’m not going to make the final adjustment to zero it out, because the point is about to be made.
We see that in 2011, the relievers and starters have a WPA exactly matching what we expected. This would point to having no “matching” of talent to situation. Or, if there was matching (like Rivera) that was undone by bad matching.
But, look at 1980. Relievers were terribly used, getting very little win benefit. Basically, not only was there no matching, but there was severe mismatching. This points to really good relievers being used in really low LI situations.
So, back to 2011. For all the obvious Mo and Papelbon situations, we also have plenty of situations that the managers simply undid those leveraged situations.
Therefore, while they could stand to improve their 2011, they were simply abysmal in 1980.
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