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Thursday, December 08, 2011
Where have the Scot Shields of the world gone?
This is the number of relievers that have faced more than 400 batters, by season. We see that through 1989, there was an average of between half and one pitcher who faced that many batters per team.
From 1990-1999, that number was cut substantially. It was cut even further from 2000-2006.
And, since 2007, no reliever has faced more than 400 batters.
2004 was the last season that the true relief-warrior was used in a meaningful role. Scot Shields faced a whopping 454 batters, on his way to a fine career with the Angels.
1974 16
1975 15
1976 22
1977 28
1978 24
1979 16
1980 27
1981 1
1982 24
1983 27
1984 23
1985 22
1986 23
1987 24
1988 15
1989 18
1990 8
1991 10
1992 9
1993 7
1994 0
1995 5
1996 5
1997 7
1998 5
1999 11
2000 3
2001 2
2002 1
2003 3
2004 3
2005 0
2006 2
2007 0
2008 0
2009 0
2010 0
2011 0
• Sabermetrics
• History
Earl Weaver said about starters that it’s easier to find four good ones than five. There’s some corollary of that for relievers too. The trend is for more relievers, and not using your best relievers as much as they can take it, and not just the closers. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, either. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have the closer, a setup man whom you plan to have face 400+ guys over a year, the LOOGY, and then a couple of swing men and maybe another specialist reliever?
It even makes the game more watchable since you don’t have all this switching to crappy pitchers just to get them work.