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Thursday, October 13, 2011
Relieving in high-leverage and low-leverage situations
Rivera did better in low-leverage situations. (Look at tOPS+ if you need one number, not that I’m limiting this to one number.)
Hoffman did the same in both.
Wagner did much better in low-leverage.
Percival did a bit better in low-leverage.
These are the first four I picked out.
This writer picked out some names… randomly, or just the exceptions?
Valverde did better in high-leverage situations. Papelbon did better in high-leverage as well.
The right thing to do is pick out a large enough list of relievers. Fangraphs makes it easy enough. That’s all relievers with at least 300 IP, from 1993-2011. Sort by WPA/LI to get the best relievers on top (that’s your unbiased list ordered).
The “clutch” column tells you if he pitched better in high-lev or low-lev situations. A negative number means he pitched better in low-lev. So, a mix of some closers who pitch better in low-lev and some who pitch better in high-lev.
For every Mariano Rivera who got better numbers in low-leverage situations than he did in high-leverage situations, you have a Joe Nathan who was better in high-lev than low-lev.
Basically, you can prove anything with numbers if you are allowed to cherry-pick your players. BR.com and Fangraphs.com make the presentation of numbers so ubiquitous, it makes some bloggers dangerous.
Look hard enough, and you’ll find splits that can support any theory you want, especially if you can pick and choose the data points you want.