Blown Lead Percentages, 9th-inning Relievers, 1954-2008
Reliever performance when starting the ninth inning with a lead of three runs or fewer, 1954-2008, minimum 100 leads:
Player Leads Blown %BL
Gagne, E 172 10 5.8%
Hiller, J 110 8 7.3%
Quisenberry, D 194 16 8.2%
Nathan, J 189 16 8.5%
Rivera, M 446 40 9.0%
Gossage, R 252 23 9.1%
Valverde, J 131 12 9.2%
Miller, S 120 11 9.2%
Rodriguez, F 193 18 9.3%
Smoltz, J 144 14 9.7%
Papelbon, J 112 11 9.8%
Lidge, B 170 17 10.0%
Hoffman, T 507 51 10.1%
Bedrosian, S 165 17 10.3%
Carroll, C 106 11 10.4%
Stanley, B 122 13 10.7%
Wohlers, M 121 13 10.7%
Urbina, U 223 24 10.8%
Wilhelm, H 167 18 10.8%
Benitez, A 269 29 10.8%
Jones, T 306 33 10.8%
Jenks, B 111 12 10.8%
Farr, S 119 13 10.9%
McGraw, R 154 17 11.0%
Foulke, K 189 21 11.1%
Ryan, BJ 117 13 11.1%
Hernandez, W 108 12 11.1%
Gordon, T 142 16 11.3%
Beck, R 256 29 11.3%
Face, R 123 14 11.4%
Williams, Mike 131 15 11.5%
Eckersley, D 337 39 11.6%
Wagner, B 384 45 11.7%
Smith, D 179 21 11.7%
Fuentes, B 119 14 11.8%
Thigpen, B 178 21 11.8%
Hennigan, M 176 21 11.9%
Olson, G 184 22 12.0%
Perrnaoski, R 133 16 12.0%
Percival, T 348 42 12.1%
Wickman, B 273 33 12.1%
Montgomery, J 280 34 12.1%
Henke, T 288 35 12.2%
Graves, D 178 22 12.4%
Myers, R 302 38 12.6%
Mesa, J 317 40 12.6%
Lyle, S 173 22 12.7%
Harvey, B 156 20 12.8%
McDowell, R 147 19 12.9%
Abernathy, T 100 13 13.0%
Fingers, R 297 39 13.1%
Nen, R 319 42 13.2%
Franco, J 393 52 13.2%
Marshall, M 165 22 13.3%
Plesac, D 135 18 13.3%
Smith, L 441 60 13.6%
Rojas, M 117 16 13.7%
Guardado, E 195 27 13.8%
Campbell, B 101 14 13.9%
Tekulve, K 158 22 13.9%
Bottalico, R 113 16 14.2%
Wetteland, J 308 44 14.3%
Shaw, J 203 29 14.3%
Knowles, D 126 18 14.3%
Reardon, J 327 47 14.4%
Koch, B 166 24 14.5%
Jones, D 262 38 14.5%
Russell, J 158 23 14.6%
Looper, B 103 15 14.6%
Williams, Mitch 171 25 14.6%
Howell, J 157 23 14.6%
Jimenez, J 109 16 14.7%
Isringhausen, J 288 43 14.9%
Cordero, C 140 21 15.0%
Sutter, B 279 42 15.1%
Brewer, J 105 16 15.2%
Brantley, J 170 26 15.3%
Hernandez, R 320 49 15.3%
Jackson, M 130 20 15.4%
Righetti, D 213 33 15.5%
Alfonseca, A 135 21 15.6%
Worrell, Todd 211 33 15.6%
Cordero, F 198 31 15.7%
Borowski, J 134 21 15.7%
Aguilera, R 305 48 15.7%
Davis, R 100 16 16.0%
Sasaki, K 130 21 16.2%
Orosco, J 122 20 16.4%
Timlin, M 146 24 16.4%
Baez, D 127 22 17.3%
McDaniel, L 132 23 17.4%
Julio, J 107 20 18.7%
Garber, G 192 37 19.3%
Lavelle, G 122 24 19.7%
Street, H 100 20 20.0%
Minton, G 133 28 21.1%
This does not include games where the reliever came into the game in the middle of the ninth. It does include games where the reliever came in earlier than the ninth, as long as he started the ninth.
One thing that strikes me about this list is how good closers of recent vintage have become. Of the 11 guys below 10%, five are current closers and two others are still active pitchers.
The other thing that strikes me about this list is how Rivera stands out. No one, except for Hoffman, is anywhere close to his combination of opportunity and efficiency.
Mike Emeigh
Posted: December 07, 2008 at 08:46 PM |
53 comment(s)
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1. RepozReardon-Russell-Aquilera.
Too bad Mike Stanton doesn't qualify...
I wonder what the %'s are for starters in the same situations.
Also, what is the difference between this and raw save percentage?
What saves don't meet the criteria? Saves where the pitcher did not start the 9th, saves of > 3 runs (thus, 3+ IP?), saves for games shorter or longer than 9 innings...did Gossage and Quiz have that many of these types of saves?
I must be missing something.
Player PointsHoffman, T 410.13
Rivera, M 369.59
Smith, L 329.16
Wagner, B 299.27
Franco, J 295.88
Percival, T 269.07
Eckersley, D 263.51
Jones, T 243.56
Mesa, J 242.05
Nen, R 240.53
Reardon, J 239.76
Myers, R 230.78
Hernandez, R 229.50
Wetteland, J 226.29
Fingers, R 224.12
Henke, T 222.25
Aguilera, R 216.55
Montgomery, J 216.13
Benitez, A 214.13
Wickman, B 210.99
Isringhausen, J 208.42
Gossage, R 208.10
Sutter, B 201.32
Beck, R 201.29
Jones, D 191.51
Urbina, U 177.58
Quisenberry, D 163.32
Rodriguez, F 158.68
Nathan, J 158.35
Gagne, E 152.58
Righetti, D 152.11
Worrell, Todd 150.16
Foulke, K 149.33
Shaw, J 149.14
Guardado, E 144.74
Olson, G 142.63
Cordero, F 140.85
Smith, D 139.46
Thigpen, B 138.48
Lidge, B 137.70
Graves, D 136.72
Hennigan, M 136.51
Wilhelm, H 132.94
Bedrosian, S 132.75
Lyle, S 131.80
Garber, G 125.13
Williams, Mitch 124.65
Marshall, M 123.93
Brantley, J 121.98
McGraw, R 121.88
Koch, B 121.47
Harvey, B 118.56
Smoltz, J 117.36
Tekulve, K 117.06
Russell, J 115.35
Howell, J 114.37
Gordon, T 111.80
McDowell, R 111.46
Valverde, J 108.10
Perrnaoski, R 102.92
Williams, Mike 102.72
Timlin, M 101.95
Plesac, D 101.40
Cordero, C 101.15
Miller, S 99.01
Stanley, B 97.39
Face, R 96.59
Wohlers, M 96.40
Alfonseca, A 96.27
Borowski, J 95.29
Hiller, J 94.58
Farr, S 94.42
Jackson, M 93.08
Fuentes, B 92.65
Knowles, D 92.57
Ryan, BJ 92.44
Sasaki, K 91.39
Papelbon, J 91.08
McDaniel, L 90.01
Jenks, B 88.30
Rojas, M 87.19
Baez, D 86.81
Hernandez, W 85.33
Orosco, J 85.28
Carroll, C 85.14
Bottalico, R 83.27
Minton, G 82.89
Jimenez, J 79.35
Lavelle, G 78.72
Abernathy, T 75.69
Brewer, J 75.44
Looper, B 75.18
Campbell, B 74.94
Julio, J 70.74
Davis, R 70.56
Street, H 64.00
Not overwhelmingly. The correlation between the percentage of leads that were 1-run leads and blown lead percentage is positive but quite small (r-squared of 0.017), and the correlation between the blown lead percentage and the percentage of 3-run leads is negative but also quite small (r-squared of 0.009). Gagne and Papelbon have a very high percentage of 1-run leads (43.6% for Gagne, 42.9% for Papelbon), as did Stu Miller (45%) and Gossage (42.5%).
The average ratio, among these pitchers, is about 39% one-run leads, 34% 2-run leads, and 27% three-run leads. FWIW, Roger McDowell had the highest percentage of 3-run leads entering the ninth; Brian Fuentes the lowest.
In addition to the reason noted in comment #5, this isn't exactly raw save percentage because many of these guys (especially the pre-1990 relievers), were starting the ninth with a lead that they didn't have when they came into the game, and wound up being the winning pitcher when they didn't blow the lead.
-- MWE
What saves don't meet the criteria? Saves where the pitcher did not start the 9th, saves of > 3 runs (thus, 3+ IP?), saves for games shorter or longer than 9 innings...did Gossage and Quiz have that many of these types of saves?
Saves where the game was closer before the 9th, but the lead was >3 by the time the ninth started.
The other side of the coin is the difference between career blown saves and blown leads above. The additional blown saves would be leads blown before the ninth (which hurt setup guys a lot, as they can get blown saves in situations where they're not really going to get saves), and blown saves where the guy entered after the start of the ninth.
Also saves earned in extra innings.
Sutter was 13/105 (12.4%) in St. Louis, 19/125 (15.2%) in Chicago, and 10/49 (20.4%) in Atlanta. Sutter was working with smaller leads on average in St. Louis, too.
As for the list being dominated by more recent relievers, there are a variety of reasons, chief being that relivers today are brought in to start the ninth and that's it. This greatly increases their save percentage. Hiller at #2 is interesting. Very underrated. I did a scan of his baseball reference entry and it's clear this guy was pitching two to three innings every time he came in, and he was being brought into games that were either tied or even when the Tigers were behind by a run or two to keep it close. No top-flight reliever would EVER be used like that today, but they should. He pitched before I really was watching the game, but it's clear that guy was earning his money.
Of the 446 times Rivera had a lead to start the 9th, he came into the game before the 9th in 99 of them. 13 of his 40 blown 9th-inning leads came in games in which he entered before the 9th.
Rivera has the highest before-9 entry percentages among recent relievers, as I have noted before. Contrast that to Hoffman, who hasn't come into a game before the 9th in a save situation in several years, and Nathan, who has come into the game before the ninth and carried a lead forward into the ninth just eight times in his career.
This isn't save percentage, though; this is blowing a lead in the ninth when you start the ninth with one. There had been several studies (one by Dave Smith at SABR a couple of years ago) which showed that percentage not moving much at all over the years.
Yes, indeed.
You'd burn them out pretty quickly in today's game if you used them like that - or you'd find yourself in situations where you had to have an alternate closer more often for those occasions where the #1 guy wasn't available.
-- MWE
Of course, the list is what it is. Still, if someone wanted to take this to the next level and adjust for the size of the initial lead, I'd suggest they also take into account whether the other team pulled ahead.
Another possible reason for the difference between old and new is that there was much more platooning in those days and it was, generally, much easier to gain the offensive platoon advantage in the late innings.
When starting the 9th inning?
Quisenberry, D 194 16 8.2%
Gossage, R 252 23 9.1%
Sutter, B 279 42 15.1%
I REALLY wish this list was being circulated before Sutter's induction- this IS the type of thing that might have persuaded some of the knuckleheads who voted for him.
Yes. Time and again in recent years I've ground my teeth as the Giants send up a Pedro Feliz or a Mike Matheny or a Jose Castillo against a right-handed closer, but with a 4-man or a 5-man bench, you just don't have many pinch-hitting options, let alone the capacity to full-on platoon.
Nothing funky about the rule, just random noise- a spike in Save situations- kind of like K-Rod in 2008.
There is something slightly funky about the rule. In 1974 it was significantly tightened (hallelujah!) but then reverted to its previous status in '75 (boo!).
More like, something funky about how Hiller was used in 1973. Under Martin (mostly) in 1973, Hiller appeared in 17 games with a one run lead, 15 with a two run lead and 9 with a three run lead, but only 8 when his team was tied (and 13 more when the Tigers were trailing). But under Houk in 1974, Hiller was used only a total of 27 times when his team was up leading by three runs or less. (11 by 1 run, 10 by 2 runs, 6 by 3 runs) but he came in 20 times when the Tigers were tied (and ten more when they were trailing). Hard to get saves if you don't come in to protect them. Of course, he pitched 25 more innings in 1974, so you can decide for yourself which season was more valuable.
Hiller and Quiz were teh awesome back in the day, so I'm happy to see them get their due (same thing to a lesser extent for Farr, Carroll and especially Steamer Stanley).
Rollie Fingers.....201
Rich Gossage.......193
Bruce Sutter.......188
Lee Smith..........169
Dan Quisenberry....160
Jeff Reardon.......152
Sparky Lyle........134
Mike Marshall......127
Gene Garber........127
Hoyt Wilhelm.......120
Dave Righetti......108
Mariano Rivera.....107
Ron Perranoski.....107
Doug Jones.........106
Dennis Eckersley...106
Steve Bedrosian....105
Tug McGraw.........104
Kent Tekulve.......100
Stu Miller.........100
Not quite true.
From 1969-1973, the official rule was that any finishing pitcher who maintained a lead got a save - IOW, if you pitched the ninth inning with a 15-0 lead, you got a save. In 1974, the rule was tightened to almost what it is today, requiring that the pitcher either come in with the tying run on base or at the plate, pitch at least one full inning with a lead of three or fewer runs, or pitch three effective innings. In 1975, the rule was loosened slightly to allow a pitcher to earn a save if the tying run was on deck when the pitcher entered.
-- MWE
Hernandez, R 320 49 15.3%
Jackson, M 130 20 15.4%
Borowski, J 134 21 15.7%
Orosco, J 122 20 16.4%
Baez, D 127 22 17.3%
Julio, J 107 20 18.7%
I think I speak for Indians fans everywhere when I say ouch. It's like a list of our recurring nightmares, though I must say I'm shocked to see Mike Jackson and Jesse Orosco on the worst-list and Bob Wickman in the middle of the pack.
*Sigh*. Eckersley DIDN'T define the art of the one-inning save - Tom Henke and Gregg Olson did. What LaRussa did with Eckersley is use him exclusively with a lead - and even that was the culmination of a trend that began with guys like Reardon, Lee Smith, and Aguilera before him. But Eckersley came into a LOT of games in the eighth inning until 1994, by which time the trend toward single-inning saves that began with Henke and Olson in 1991 was well on the way to becoming universal.
It would - if the rates of games being lost in the 7th and 8th innings were going up. But they aren't.
-- MWE
I'm not sure that it's appropriate to expect that the impact of a change to earlier usage patterns would be a likewise return to the older levels of success and failure - you could make arguments either way.
More Hahaaha!!
table 93 232
Much of what I see is speculation, from people who don't like the disruptions to the flow of the game that pitching changes cause, and who want to see fewer of them. I would certainly LIKE to see fewer pitching changes. I hate it when a team runs a succession of lesser pitchers out there while the closer sits idle waiting for a lead. But what I'm trying to understand is why usage evolved in this particular way, why usage patterns have been essentially stable for the better part of the last 10-15 years, and why there is little pressure for a change in the way that pitchers (starters and relievers) are being used. I don't think it does us a lot of good to say "teams should do things differently" without understanding how they got here in the first place and the forces that led to usage patterns changing as they have. It's not all about LaRussa's ego.
-- MWE
Well, not entirely.
I understand your motivations and largely agree with your approach and stance on this issue, just thought I'd nitpick one line.
Curious if you can break this list out into its component leads (1, 2, and 3 runs). While this is rather specialized pitching data, it really ought to be supplied as part of the B-R site (some kind of special table for pitchers, if you're reading this, Sean, under the rubric "Situational Pitching"). It should look at sixth, seventh, and eighth innings as well, if for no other reason that this would produce a more complete picture of "lead protection" over the time frame you're covering (and fill in the blanks for earlier-era relievers who came into games much earlier).
It would tricky to figure out the format for this, though, because you'd have to deal with some base-out segregation. Might work best "starting inning" vs. "others."
Is there a difference in "blown lead" percentages when a closer doesn't start the ninth (i.e. comes in with men on base)? And how has the distribution of these type of appearances changed over, say, the past 5-10-15-20 years?
And just out of curiosity (and <u>only</u> if you have it handy), what is the percentage of games where:
a) the team that scores first never trails and goes on to win;
b) the lead changes hands before the sixth inning (WPCT for overtaking team);
c) the lead changes hands in the seventh and eighth innings (same WPCT breakout);
d) the overall ninth inning "blown lead" percentage?
The "win expectancy" figures as listed in Tom T. etal for trailing when entering a ninth inning (<u>The Book</u>, p. 41) vary a good bit by how many runs a team is behind. Crudely averaging that data together (both halves of the ninth) gives teams about an 11% chance of winning in what are defined as "save situations". However, teams trailing by one run have more like a 19% chance of winning. Does the "blown lead" data here refer to all such cases, including those instances where the team for whom the reliever is pitching manages to win anyway? Again, if you have it handy, how often does this scenario happen?
I think that's enough questions for now... :-)
win expectancy, by inning, score
win expectancy, by game state
***
It's not surprise that Mo had a disproportionate number of blown saves in games he started prior to the 9th inning: those were probably really close games to begin with.
Thanks, close enough, but not quite what I asked.
What I was trying to get at was to what extent the differences in blown 9th inning leads between newer and older relievers is (potentially) due to entering the game earlier. So Joe Nathan has blown 8.5% of his 9th inning leads and, given how rarely he comes in before the 9th, he might blow only 8.4% of those when he comes in for the 9th. Gossage blew 9.1% 9th inning leads but maybe he blew only 8.2% when the 9th was his first inning of work.
But what I'm trying to understand is why usage evolved in this particular way
Maybe you could take a look at one of my pet theories. I think one reason it evolved was a reaction to the heavy platooning that was going on through much of the 70s and 80s. Lefty starter, you get the righty PH late in the game, manager counters with RHP, a batter or two later, here comes the lefty PH and the LHP.
I think the main reason it evolved was fear of injury -- reduced starter workloads led to heavier reliever workloads but not that many guys could handle 100 IP of relief a year (especially for very long). That doesn't necessarily lead to the particular pattern of usage nor the stability of that pattern of course, but it gets you to big bullpens and short relievers. And, of course, I'm not sure it's actually reduced the injuries.
I suspect that if the new trend was to use your best relief pitcher (aka "closer") in the 7th and 8th inning.......all of a sudden there'd be a lot more blown saves in the 9th inning by lower caliber relievers.
- Brock Hanke
Entirely agreed.
Rollie Fingers.....201
Rich Gossage.......193
Bruce Sutter.......188
Lee Smith..........169
Dan Quisenberry....160
Jeff Reardon.......152
Sparky Lyle........134
Mike Marshall......127
Gene Garber........127
Hoyt Wilhelm.......120
Dave Righetti......108
Mariano Rivera.....107
Ron Perranoski.....107
Doug Jones.........106
Dennis Eckersley...106
Steve Bedrosian....105
Tug McGraw.........104
Kent Tekulve.......100
Stu Miller.........100
Interesting how the top three on that list are the only ones in the HoF, other than Rivera and two others (Eck and Wilhelm) who were either starters, or frequently used in game situations with no save opportunity.
Also, has someone quantified all that platooning somewhere? It's clearly got to have declined, but by how much? Some of that roster attrition has to be attributable to the third catcher, now an almost decadent luxury. Is there a simple way to measure it (number of players with more than, say, 400 PAs)?
Regarding the blown leads and multiple inning appearances, I looked at the 2008 data for games where relievers had 1.3 IP or more and came in during the seventh or eighth innings (thus garnering a "save situation"). The difference between the seventh and eighth inning was pretty stark: of the 52 instances where pitchers came in during the seventh, 39 (or 75%) resulted in blown leads. There were nine "blown wins"--which brought the overall won-loss record for these games to 20-19. Overall ERA for this group was 4.88. In the thirteen saves (which were all 2.3 IP or more), the ERA was 1.91. Pitchers in this group ("long saves") included the following: Chan Ho Park, Salomon Torres, J.P. Howell, Kyle McClellan, Joel Pineiro, Trever Miller, Jason Grilli--and, as you'd imagine, none of these games had a score differential of less than 4 runs.
Of those who came in during the eighth and pitched at least 1.3 innings, the results and the overall quality was much, much higher. The blown lead percentage was 19% (not 75%). In those 25 "blown" situations, the team won-loss record was 10-15. Overall, of course, teams did quite well with this group, recording 106 saves with an overall W-L record of 116-15. The ERA of the pitchers who had "blown" appearances was 4.23. The pitchers who recorded multiple inning saves (including, as you'd expect, a high preponderance of closers) had an ERA of 0.67.
It's a little trickier without some advanced programming queries to get the exact percentage of ninth-inning blown leads, but a fairly reasonable estimate would be right around 14%. Relievers who successfully converted saves of exactly 1 IP had an ERA of 1.07 during 2008.
While by no means an all-inclusive or exhaiustive study, it does seem to support Tom T.'s conclusions (in <u>The Book</u>, p. 230, about using closers in the eighth inning. It also suggest that Harris's suspicion may be well-founded.
This distribution gets skewed by spot starts and by injuries. There is a lot of churn in the back end of rotations, especially in recent years. I limit this by looking at starts by Top 3 starters, distinguished by (1) a start in the team's first five games of the season and (2) at least 20 starts for the team.
Basically, Don's correct in the timing of events, although off by an inning. Until 1975, Top 3 starters were getting into the ninth inning or later about a third of the time; since then, the percentage has declined almost every year, down to 3.4% in 2008. The descent curve away from the eighth inning started in about 1995. We haven't yet seen a descent curve for the seventh inning yet, at least among the top starters.
I'm working on this one.
-- MWE
You know, it might be worth doing a "dual-track" distribution on this, one for the Top 3 and another for everyone else. I suspect that these will diverge significantly enough to make for an interesting contrast.
It would also be interesting to look at some of the individual pitchers whose careers are long enough (Clemens, Maddux, Moyer...) to see how their percentages have shifted over time, and then compare those results with other long-career pitchers from earlier in the "Retroset."
It is the complete list of relievers with 100 such opportunities in the Retrosheet event file data since 1954. Some teams (notably the Cubs, Braves, and Pirates) have a lot of games pre-1970 that don't have event data, so there may be some guys who played primarily for those teams who aren't on the list.
It didn't appear to be as a result of the DH, surprisingly - it happened in the NL, too, and it started around 1967.
-- MWE
Mariano Rivera......107
Trevor Hoffman.......55
Keith Foulke.........55
Jason Isringhausen...44
Armando Benitez......42
Billy Wagner.........35
John Smoltz..........35
Todd Jones...........33
Troy Percival........32
Derek Lowe...........30
Eric Gagne...........30
Francisco Cordero....27
Byung-Hyun Kim.......26
Tom Gordon...........24
Danys Baez...........24
Dave Weathers........22
Mike Timlin..........22
J.J. Putz............22
Jonathan Papelbon....22
B.J. Ryan............21
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