Matt Belisle's 2017 Season

[Otto von Ballpark]

I think I noted that twice in the original post.

I don't think you noted that specifically, no. The point of your lost seems to be that the exercise might have some meaning for Belisle, no?

 

I would guess Belisle has one of the bigger spreads, but other relievers will benefit massively too. Just picking a name randomly from the ERA list near Belisle, Tyler Clippard's ERA improves from 4.27 to 1.87 when you drop his 4 worst games. And he was dumped by the Yankees to neutralize salary in the Frazier/Robertson deal...

 

Joaquin Benoit, 4.40 to 1.90.

[Seth Stohs]

 

I don't think you noted that specifically, no. The point of your lost seems to be that the exercise might have some meaning for Belisle, no?

I would guess Belisle has one of the bigger spreads, but other relievers will benefit massively too. Just picking a name randomly from the ERA list near Belisle, Tyler Clippard's ERA improves from 4.27 to 1.87 when you drop his 4 worst games. And he was dumped by the Yankees to neutralize salary in the Frazier/Robertson deal...

Joaquin Benoit, 4.40 to 1.90.

 

My main point... he's been good 43 out of 47 times (or at least limited it to one or less runs)... he's been pretty good MOST of the time, and so many chose to dwell on what he did in a very bad stretch that had four really, really, really bad games.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

I don't think you noted that specifically, no. The point of your lost seems to be that the exercise might have some meaning for Belisle, no?

I would guess Belisle has one of the bigger spreads, but other relievers will benefit massively too. Just picking a name randomly from the ERA list near Belisle, Tyler Clippard's ERA improves from 4.27 to 1.87 when you drop his 4 worst games. And he was dumped by the Yankees to neutralize salary in the Frazier/Robertson deal...

Joaquin Benoit, 4.40 to 1.90.

I agree that using these kind of filters can be misleading but Belisle hasn't posted an ERA close to 2.00 (a good reliever ERA) if you remove the worst 8% of his starts, he has posted an ERA under 1.00 (an outstanding reliever ERA). That's above and beyond what you will see from most "mediocre" relievers.

 

And games are singular entities. That means if you remove the worst 8% of his games where he either lost or helped lose the game for the team - he's giving up roughly one run per nine appearances in the rest of his games.

 

I'll take four bad appearances if the other 43 look like that.

[Craig Arko]

ERA represents a mean value. Look at the median value instead.

[lecroy24fan]

Nice jinx Seth

[jun]

Well one more bad game to the list now.

0.1 inning 2 earned runs allowed a blown save

He has no closer stuff and he cannot be overused.

[USAFChief]

He shouldn't have been sent out for the 9th today. It was obvious in the 8th he had nothing.

[Mr. Brooks]

Is this one that doesn't count, or does it?

[rghrbek]

Was it me or was his velo way down tonight?

[Willihammer]

 

Is this one that doesn't count, or does it?

Depends. How'd he do?

[drjim]

He shouldn't have been sent out for the 9th today. It was obvious in the 8th he had nothing.

Huge boner by Molitor holding back Kintzler in a one run game.

[USAFChief]

Huge boner by Molitor holding back Kintzler in a one run game.

They have an 8 man pen. It didn't have to be Belisle.

[drjim]

They have an 8 man pen. It didn't have to be Belisle.

It was him or Busenitz. The wages of starting someone like Enns, followed by very disappointing starts by Gibson and Berrios.

[Danchat]

 

It was him or Busenitz. The wages of starting someone like Enns, followed by very disappointing starts by Gibson and Berrios.

Rogers was warming up in the 9th, so it could have been him.

[DJSim22]

The wouldn't have even been a save situation if they wouldn't have pitched Hildenberger in the 8th inning.  Two inherited runs, one earned run and Belisle finished the inning for him.  Then Belisle gives up a homer to the Tigers best hitter, the first runs he's given up in about a decade and this board wants to blame him.  Baffling to say the least. 

[Seth Stohs]

 

John Smoltz, 2002, gives up 8 earned runs in his second relief appearance of the year in 2/3rd of an inning. It takes him until the end of July to lower his ERA below 4 despite giving up a mid-.500 OPS during that time.

 

Sam Clay gave up 6 ER in 0.2 IP in his first outing with the Miracle this year... Had 2 stretches of 20+ scoreless innings, and he stiil was over 2.00 for the year. (I believe until recently) 

[Platoon]

ERA's for RP are not the same as ERA's for SP. And with scoring as it is ERA's are twisted stats to start with. One could look at Belisle as being 43/47. That's actually not bad. But this doesn't make me a believer in MB as a closer, or even an 8th inning guy on a winning team. That's always the difference. A good end of the rotation guy will shut routinely shut down good lineups and bad. I don't think that's in MB profile anymore. He has had a nice streak, but will always be an accident waiting to happen. Belisle's burp last night aside, the bigger issue is the Twins offense is masking an awful pitching staff. That can't go on forever. Short starts, and over use of a mediocre pen will eventually bite you in the posterior. As one wise commentator noted, BP ERA's are SSS. Very true. But MLB seasons are not.

[Otto von Ballpark]

I agree that using these kind of filters can be misleading but Belisle hasn't posted an ERA close to 2.00 (a good reliever ERA) if you remove the worst 8% of his starts, he has posted an ERA under 1.00 (an outstanding reliever ERA). That's above and beyond what you will see from most "mediocre" relievers.

 

Belisle also has 4 unearned runs allowed (the 3 run HR after an error mentioned earlier). His RA9 outside his 4 blowups was actually 1.65 before last night's game, and now it is over 2. As of yesterday, Clippard had only allowed 1 UER, and Benoit 0.

 

Belisle did a good job for awhile there, but I really don't want my club to rely on him as much as they are right now. Remember Belisle had great ERAs the past 2 seasons too, but it was lower leverage work... I suspect there was a reason for that.

[ashbury]

ERA represents a mean value. Look at the median value instead.

<not_sure_if_serious.jpg>

But seriously, I have always found it interesting that baseball is full of averages (means) like BA and ERA, but statisticians in other walks of life use additional measures like variance or root-mean-square (not to mention kew and skurtosis etc) to answer exactly the question we're asking here.

 

If pitchers always pitched 9 innings, then we could easily distinguish two 4.00 ERA pitchers, one who always pitches 4-run complete games, the other who alternates between shutouts and 8-run debacles - one has a RMS of 0 while the other has 4. (Which pitcher I'd rather have depends, perhaps on whether my offense averages more like 3 runs a game or 5, but the information seems worth having in its own right.)

 

But I don't even know what computation to suggest for the actual case where starters pitch unequal numbers of innings from one game to the next, and where a 0.1 inning disaster by a reliever is to be weighed against several clean outings of exactly 1 inning each. Is Belisle's performance typical or not? I don't know of a handy dandy measure anyone's ever come up with for that.

 

My own view would be to move away from ERA, and toward OPS-against, as a starting point for pitching effectiveness. Might have a better shot at comparing and correlating groups of games using that. Belisle's season OPS-against is .715, which is better than league average. Last night's outing was somewhat higher though.

[USAFChief]

Was it me or was his velo way down tonight?

86-87.

[Craig Arko]

<not_sure_if_serious.jpg>

But seriously, I have always found it interesting that baseball is full of averages (means) like BA and ERA, but statisticians in other walks of life use additional measures like variance or root-mean-square (not to mention kew and skurtosis etc) to answer exactly the question we're asking here.

 

If pitchers always pitched 9 innings, then we could easily distinguish two 4.00 ERA pitchers, one who always pitches 4-run complete games, the other who alternates between shutouts and 8-run debacles - one has a RMS of 0 while the other has 4. (Which pitcher I'd rather have depends, perhaps on whether my offense averages more like 3 runs a game or 5, but the information seems worth having in its own right.)

 

But I don't even know what computation to suggest for the actual case where starters pitch unequal numbers of innings from one game to the next, and where a 0.1 inning disaster by a reliever is to be weighed against several clean outings of exactly 1 inning each. Is Belisle's performance typical or not? I don't know of a handy dandy measure anyone's ever come up with for that.

 

My own view would be to move away from ERA, and toward OPS-against, as a starting point for pitching effectiveness. Might have a better shot at comparing and correlating groups of games using that. Belisle's season OPS-against is .715, which is better than league average. Last night's outing was somewhat higher though.

I'm always serious. Except when joking, of course. Math, and its illegitimate stepchild Statistics, are always serious business.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Sounds like some are arguing to judge Belisle's season more on WPA/LI -- that way he won't get excessively penalized for blow-ups.  He's at 0.21 WPA/LI right now -- which is a tick above average (zero), but it's only 7th on the Twins, behind Kintzler, Rogers, Duffey, Pressly, and even Hildenberger and Gee:

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=0&type=3&season=2017&month=0&season1=2017&ind=0&team=8&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=12,d

 

Another measure would be Fangraphs shutdowns (SD) vs meltdowns (MD).  There he has an argument for being the 3rd best Twins reliever in 2017, behind Kintzler and Rogers, but nothing particularly special in a league-wide context -- useful to keep around, but not necessarily worth promoting or relying on further.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Sounds like some are arguing to judge Belisle's season more on WPA/LI -- that way he won't get excessively penalized for blow-ups.  He's at 0.21 WPA/LI right now -- which is a tick above average (zero), but it's only 7th on the Twins, behind Kintzler, Rogers, Duffey, Pressly, and even Hildenberger and Gee:

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=0&type=3&season=2017&month=0&season1=2017&ind=0&team=8&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=12,d

 

Another measure would be Fangraphs shutdowns (SD) vs meltdowns (MD).  There he has an argument for being the 3rd best Twins reliever in 2017, behind Kintzler and Rogers, but nothing particularly special in a league-wide context -- useful to keep around, but not necessarily worth promoting or relying on further.

And that's fair. Belisle, overall, has been good. Not great, just good... and his peripherals aren't the kind that give you faith in his continuing down that path.

 

But his promotion seems to have opened the door for Hildenberger and Pressly, which might actually improve the bullpen in a more consistent, projectable way.

 

Of course, all of that could have happened without the loss of Kintzler but to that I'll simply reply "Molitor".