Daily Archives: September 21, 2007
In regards to a post at MetsBlog earlier today, MetsBlog reader Jamie wrote…
After reading an article about Ned Yost’s bullpen usage, I wanted (naturally) to check out Willie’s. The following info is the Leverage of each of the Mets bullpen appearances. Leverage is defined thusly:
Leverage measures how important the situations a reliever has been used in are. A leverage of 1.00 is the same importance as the start of a game. Leverage values below one represent situations that are less important than the start of a game (such as mop-up innings in a blowout). Leverage values above one represent situations with more importance (such as a closer protecting a one-run lead with bases loaded in the 9th inning).
Mathematically, leverage is based on the win expectancy work done by Keith Woolner in BP 2005, and is defined as the change in the probability of winning the game from scoring (or allowing) one additional run in the current game situation divided by the change in probability from scoring (or allowing) one run at the start of the game.
Now, are you ready for this? Think you know how it’ll shake out? Maybe you’ll be surprised…
Games/Innings pitched/Leverage (min. 20 IP)
1. Billy Wagner 63/ 65.3 /1.69
2. Aaron Heilman 75 /79.0/ 1.41
3. Jorge Sosa 38 /109.3 /1.35
4. Pedro Feliciano 72/ 59.7 /1.18
5. Joseph Smith 49 /41.7/ 1.11
6. Scott Schoeneweis 65 /54.7 /1.05
7. Guillermo Mota 48/ 53.3 /0.95
8. Aaron Sele 32 /51.0/ 0.62In other words, these guys appear in the same order that most of us would rank the ability of each arm in the pen. The best reliever (Wags) has been used in the situations with the highest leverage, and the worst (Mota and Sele) have been used in situations with the lowest leverage.
…great work jamie…
Tagged Mike Nichols |
Check out Joe’s Mets Today for a perfect, visual metaphor of Willie Randolph essentially playing Jenga with the Mets.
Equally creative, It’s Mets for Me runs the following title to a post: ‘Choke Sandwich, Hold the Malaise.’
…witty…i miss my sense of humor…i think it got hidden by the Phillies at shea the other weekend…ugh…
If the Mets play just .500 baseball over their final 10 games, the Phillies must go 6-3 to tie for first place in the National League East.
…this essentially means splitting their series with the Marlins this weekend, losing two of three in their remaining series against the Nationals and Marlins, and defeating the Cardinals in their makeup game next week at Shea Stadium…
If the Phillies go 7-2 over their final nine names, i.e., simply winning each of their final three series, they would overtake the Mets for first place.
…that’s not going to be so easy for the Phillies, as the may face both Tim Hudson (16-8, 3.33 ERA) and John Smoltz (14-7, 2.97 ERA) next week at Citizens Bank Park in their three-game set against the Braves…
Tagged Mike Nichols |At his blog for the Daily News, Adam Rubin writes that 26–year-old RHP Carlos Muniz will join the Mets for tonight’s game in Miami.
Muniz was 2-4 with a 2.45 ERA with 23 saves in 44 games for Double-A Binghamton, during which right-handed batters hit .191 against him, while lefties hit .213.
In three appearances during the Triple-A playoffs, Muniz allowed no runs and four hits while striking out four in 5.2 innings.
On The MetsBlog Podcast, B’Mets beat-writer Brian Moritz had the following to say about Muniz last month…
“He’s got a good fastball, and good movement on his pitches. He’s a very confident late-game pitcher…He hasn’t been as overpowering as say Henry Owens was here last year, but for about a two-month span he was about as good of a closer as there was in the Eastern League.”
…might as well…people kept yelling for Willie Collazo to be promoted, but he has allowed four runs and 13 base runners in just five innings…so, let’s give muniz a shot…
In the Journal News, John Delcos provides a variety of quotes from players and management about Willie Randolph, such as Jose Reyes, John Maine and David Wright.
According to Delcos, Mets GM Omar Minaya has never once thought that Randolph’s job should be in jeoprady.
Reyes, on Randolph, as quoted by Delcos…
“He’s always the same. He wasn’t different at all (last week). He’s still the same. That’s good for a player. It would be confusing if he changed.”
Be sure to check out Delcos’s blog for the Journal News, especially in the moments prior to each game.
Tagged Willie Randolph |Yesterday, the Mets told reporters that Shawn Green will miss tonight’s game because of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur.
He will not be in uniform, but at the team’s hotel fasting.
Green is hitting .419 during September.
…odds are he would not have started tonight anyways, because they are facing a left-handed starting pitcher…nevertheless, given this situation, i really hope Carlos Delgado can return to action, as it seems like he can, because Jeff Conine is not hacking it…
Tagged Shawn Green |…you know, i’m sitting here, quietly lamenting the bullpen, when it hits me that a three-run lead was not just blown up in the ninth last night, a three-run lead was also squandered in the fifth inning, and so why am i letting Tom Glavine off the hook…
Over the last five games, during which the Mets are 1–4, the starting pitchers have allowed 60 percent of the 43 runs scored against the Mets.
Last night, Glavine tossed 107 pitches through five innings, while allowing 14 base runners.
In the previous three starts, by Mike Pelfrey, Brian Lawrence and Oliver Perez, the starting pitchers allowed 31 base runners with nearly 280 pitches through just 13 innings.
…i tend to ride the bullpen, but i truly believe they are doing the best that they can…i mean, these guys get run out there every day, every night, over and over again, in pressure-packed spots, and yet i expect them to be perfect every time out, which is totally unfair and unrealistic…meanwhile, the starting pitchers have five days to rest, focus and prepare…
…from what i can gather out of friends in the locker room, these guys are just totally exhausted…they’re not using it as an excuse, not by a long shot, but it is what it is…on one hand, i want to just say, ‘well, suck it up,’ but if they’re burned out they’re burned out…what are you going to do…
…i have not been one to advocate using Philip Humber or Willie Collazo, or breaking Aaron Sele from his once-a-month role…but, with a three-run lead, instead of running out the same tired guys, maybe it is time to lean on these three so to give a guy like sosa a few days off…if humber, sele or collazo stumble, sosa and company can always still come in…but if these three guys do well, even for just one inning, it’s one less inning, and one less pitcher that needs to work…
…look, i understand that it is a pennant race, and this is not exactly the time to be experimenting with young pitchers in new roles, and i agree with that…however, i’m not suggesting that humber pitch in a tie game during the eighth…i’m saying, in situations like last week, when the team has sizeable lead to start a new inning, use these guys to take some weight off the other pitcher’s workload, that’s all…
…the bullpen stinks…however, i believe the team’s starting pitchers are the true culprits in all of this…
…and so, if Rick Peterson is going to get all the praise when these guys do well, he has to get some of the blame when they struggle…it has to work both 
ways…rick has shown the ability to get inside his pitchers heads…so, if this is truly the case, get crawling, rick…climb up in their minds, man…use that jedi-mind stuff you do so well…because if these guys cannot start minimizing damage and maximizing their efficiency, not even the greatest bullpen of all time will be able to skirt disaster after disaster, night after night, like this group of relief pitchers is being asked to do…eventually, it’s going to catch up with this team, if it hasn’t happened already…
Following the game, Billy Wagner told reporters that he is day-to-day with spasms in his upper back, adding, “There’s not much you could do about spasms, I can wish and hope and pray and that’s about all I can do.”
Wagner, on when and why he left…
“I got here, tried to play catch, went through treatment, played catch in the fourth or fifth inning, I felt fine, I told Willie I thought I could go, I sat around, and when I got back up for the ninth to throw it locked up again and I just couldn’t do anything…
“It’s my job. I should be the one out there, either getting it done or not getting it done. So, they sent Sosa out there, and, you know, after pitching two innings yesterday, he’s back out there battling, and it sucks.
“I mean, I should be the one doing it.”
…so, there was a lot of moaning last night about how if willie knew wagner was unavailable that he should have operated differently…but, it sounds more like willie didn’t really know until the ninth, as so they ran sosa out there, despite him having thrown two inning the day before…
…jeez, i mean, i just can’t fathom this bullpen right now without wagner…i really can’t…
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