From: josh@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (joshua.h.rosenbluth)
Subject: Re: Clemens wins his fourteenth!
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 21:01:34 GMT

In article <92230.233811IO20456@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> IO20456@MAINE.MAINE.EDU (Ryan Robbins) writes:
>tedward@cs.cornell.edu (Edward [Ted] Fischer) writes:
>
>     I'm curious about how people feel on this. Suppose Clemens
>     finishes with a 20-9 record and 2.25 ERA, and Eckersley
>     finishes with a 6-1 record, 54 saves, and a 2.00 ERA on a
>     division-winning team. (These are both conceivable outcomes,
>     I would say.) Who would you vote for Cy Young?
>
>For relief pitchers, especially closers, earned run average means
>little, if anything. An Eckersley with an ERA of 2.00 cannot be
>said to be better than a Clemens with an ERA of 2.25. Why? Because
>Eckersley would not have pitched at least half as many innings as
>Clemens. Besides, a closer's effectiveness is gauged by how many
>base runners inherited do not score. For that, I'd give my vote to
>Clemens.

I think a case can be made for Eckersley.  Through August 9 (source,
Baseball Weekly):

Clemens was 13-7 in 23 starts, 180 1/3 innings pitched and 2.55 runs/9 innings
allowed.  The Sox scored 3.99 runs/game for him.  The Pythagorean Method
predicts a .710 winning percentage, so that over his 20 equivalent games
pitched, Roger is 20*(.710-.500), or 4.2 wins better than average.  With
a normal offense in front of him (AL average is 4.38, park-adjusted to
Fenway at 4.56), he is 20*(.762-.500) or 5.2 wins above average.

Eckersley appeared in 46 games, saving 36 of 37 opportunities, going
4-0 with the A's winning *all* 46 games, and allowing *0* of 17 inherited
runners to score.  The average save % of AL relievers with at least 10
saves, excluding Eckersley, was 82%.  Thus replacing Eckersley with an
average closer would have resulted in an expected 6.7 blown saves.
Assuming that two-thirds of these blown saves would be defeats (just guessing,
but it has to greater than one-half), leaves 4.4 losses that Eckersley didn't
have.  Even without attaching a value to Eckersley's contribution in the
9 victories without a save opportunity, we have an estimate of his worth
that puts him near enough to Clemens, given the accuracy of the modeling,
to give credence to his Cy Young candidacy.

I want to stress that the above modeling leaves much unmeasured,
(Like, what is the Sox record in Roger's 3 no decisions, and if the
overall record in his 23 starts is less than 4.2 wins over .500, why?
Because of a lousy bullpen, or because Roger has lost too many close
games, or something else?  And, what about park effects for Eckersley.
And his worth in the non-save opportunities. And where do I get a number
like 2/3 of blown saves go onto losses.  And maybe Eckersley's save
opportunities were easier/harder than the typical save opportuntities.
And the A's sure have a better record than the Sox.  And a lot of other
stuff too.)  No one should use these numbers to decide the Cy Young.
But, it is clear that when a reliever has a year as awesome's as Eckersley's,
it would not be a travesty to chose him over a top-flight starter.

Josh Rosenbluth (attmail!jrosenbluth)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball