Actual Stats & Relievers’ Contracts

So I posted a link to a The Hardball Times story before about middle relievers.  That one was good, though certainly just full of the author’s guesses and conjecture.  Turns out that there was another (better, more fully researched) article (using “numbers” and “stats”) on THT, by Dave Studeman, detailing the relative value of long vs. short contracts for relief pitchers:

[L]et’s look at the Net Win Shares Value of relievers only, broken into groups of different contract lengths:

   Years  Contracts    Sum of Net WS Val     Average
     1         59           $3,683,410       $62,431
     2         22            -$758,941      -$34,497
     3         12         -$16,414,954   -$1,367,913
     4          2             $745,055      $372,528
     5          1          -$4,760,281   -$4,760,281
  Total        96         -$17,505,710     -$182,351

Keith Law is right. Relievers broke the general pattern last year; the most valuable relievers were those with one-year deals. In fact, were it not for the four-year deals (Billy Wagner and Justin Speier), there would have been a consistent downward trend in average Net Win Shares Value from short- to long-term contracts.

As bullpen usage has grown from year to year, bullpen success has become a more important contributor to team success. But bullpen success if fleeting and enigmatic. To make the point statistically, I looked at the runs allowed per nine innings for all pitchers who started at least 15 games in both 2006 and 2007 (96 in all), and found a correlation between the two of .38. Then I looked at the same stat for all pitchers who relieved in at least 30 games both years (113) and found a correlation of .20. Bullpen performance is going to vary a lot, even if the underlying skill of the pitcher doesn’t change.

So teams are in a trap. Because of evolving game strategies, they’ve become more dependent on something that is inherently inconsistent. When they fail, the tendency is to panic by signing relievers to relatively rich, long-term deals. As more money flows into the game, the situation intensifies. Teams without young arms pay more and more (in dollars and length) for more questionable talent.

Last year, Kenny Williams took a rational approach to his bullpen. He built around closer Bobby Jenks by signing up some power arms like Mike MacDougal and Matt Thornton to relatively inexpensive three-year contracts and brought some other viable candidates into camp (Andy Sisco, Nick Masset, etc.), hoping to catch lightning in a bottle. It didn’t pan out, and Williams is now showing signs of panic by signing relievers like Linebrink to four-year deals.

That’s too bad. GM’s who try to buy consistent bullpen excellence in the free agent market are setting themselves up for disappointment.

I think the most interesting piece about this article, and therefore The Loogy Lounge, is that relief pitchers do not follow any typical trends in baseball contracts.  The better players didn’t necessarily get the better (longer/richer) contracts.  But don’t worry, John Stevens and I are not your typical bloggers.  We’re better looking. And have real, full-time jobs.  We’ll figure this out before long…