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Tuesday, October 10, 2006
The 2006 Winners of the Worst-Used Relievers of the Year
Congratulations Hector Carrasco! How did he achieve such a great accomplishment?
Hector pitched for the Angels, and had a great year, pitching 86 innings in relief (plus 3 starts!). He had a fabulous 62 K to 21 BB ratio, with a 3.02 ERA. With a pitcher like that, it looks like a great setup situation for K-Rod. Nope, that went to Scot Shields, who himself had a fine season, and is a worthy setup guy. Ok, maybe he’s third in the chain? Nope, Brendan Donnely, who also had a fine season, and would be a worthy setup guy on most teams, but is #3 on this team. Ok, how about #4? That’s J.C. Romero, who didn’t have a good season, but that’s what you expect from your #4 guy.
Hector Carraso had a Leverage Index of 0.54, which puts him 141st in a group of 150 relievers in the league. That is, in terms of being given an opportunity to do have an impact, he was in the 6th percentile. K-Rod was at #3, Shields at #28, Donnelly at #90, Romero at #129. I’m not faulting the Angels for using him this way, since he had quite a field to compete with, and the Angels pretty much used the rest of the relief corps the way they should have. But, in terms of linking his performance to the number of stressful innings he’s pitched, they are the most lopsided in the league.
A congratulations to the Cubs for the most mis-managed bullpen in the league!
The team leader in Leverage Index was Ryan Dempster, with one of the worst relief performance in the league! Will Ohman pitched particularly well, and had only a 0.57 LI to show for it. Bob Howry and Scott Eyre had to get pulled game after game to hand the ball off to Dempster. Why? Dusty Baker is building himself quite a resume.
Dishonorable mention to Jason Isringhausen, who had a terrible season for an ace, but still kept earning the faith of his manager. Equal disdain for Derrick Turnbow, who had the polar opposite season this year, as he had last year. The Brewers however turned to the once-ace reliever of the Rangers, Francisco Cordero, who some tough outings this year with the Rangers, before being saved into Milwaukee, and re-establishing his dominance in the ace role.
And a final kick in the ass to Rudy Seanez, who managed one of the worst WPA in the league, even though he was used mostly in low-leverage situations! Twice with his new Padres he was used in high-leverage situations, and twice he failed miserably and totally, including that famous multi-HR game against the Dodgers. He was the trailer on the Redsox relief corps in WPA, and also with the Padres, even though he pitched only 6 innings with them!