Why Emilio Pagan might be good in 2023 (in the right situation)

[Rik19753]

First of all, let me be clear that I'm not trying to justify the FO's decision to bring back Pagan for 2023. I was one of the people that was upset that he wasn't traded, and I would still rather not see him on the Twins this year. But since he is back and there is nothing we can do about it, we might as well find something to be hopeful about, and this piece of data gave me a slimmer of hope.

As we all know, at the end of last year, Pagan was relegated to lower leverage situations and he thrived. In September, he had easily his best month as a Twin, as he held opponents to a .567 OPS in 12.0 IP. This in itself is somewhat encouraging, as there may be a chance that he changed something in his repertoire/approach that led to this success. But I think the actual reason for his success was not because he changed how he pitches, but because he was in less stressful situations.

Pagan's career numbers in Low/Medium/High leverage situations

Low: 179.1 IP, 5.47 K/BB, 1.51 HR/9, 3.77 FIP

Medium: 95.1 IP, 3.71 K/BB, 1,60 HR/9, 4.05 FIP

High: 56.0 IP, 2.83 K/BB, 2.73 HR/9, 6.03(!) FIP

As we can see, Pagan has a history of thriving in low leverage and struggling in high leverage. While he seems to give up HRs no matter the situation, his 5.47 K/BB in low leverage is tremendous. This number would be a solid 6th out of 46 qualified pitchers in 2023, ahead of aces like Gerrit Cole, Yu Darvish, Max Fried and Shohei Ohtani. On the other hand, his 6.03 FIP in high leverage is beyond terrible, Of the 347 pitchers that had at least 50 IP in 2023, only 5 had a worse FIP. 

If this trend was seen for only a single season, it would be best to not read into it too much. But when the sample size is 300+ IP, it is hard to ignore. There are some players that wilt in stressful situations, and Pagan definitely seems like one of them. If the FO realizes this and deploys him in the right situations, Pagan could be a dependable arm in 2023.

[Twins_Fan_For_Life]

Sometimes even the mop up man ends up deciding the game. Remember Thornburg last year? Extra Inning game and Rocco just left him out there to die. You just know the same thing is going to happen with Pagan. Probably against Cleveland.

[JD-TWINS]

Agreed  - 100% on the inability to pitch well under any level of stress……have previously stated in forums that Pagan’s intestinal fortitude may never measure up! Lopez is probably there with him. Lopez pitched great for his first 3 months in Baltimore in ‘22 as a reliever for the first time. He was in a make it or get released position with a club that had low expectations…….even after getting to .500 in the East they sold at the deadline. I think they intentionally got rid of López who had 2 blown leads v. the Twins in July. In general, he had started to revert…….

It’s really difficult to carry 1 or 2 guys in the Pen you can only use if the team is up 2 or more runs or down 2 or more runs…..,,so they are more relaxed.

Hoping Pagan, with every other fan, doesn’t screw up 3-4 games in April. Crossing my fingers that López can be serviceable as well.

[Vanimal46]

It’s impossible to avoid medium and high leverage situations when you’re 1 of 8 1 inning specialists over 162 games. In this era relievers on average cover 11 outs per game. Teams can’t afford a 1 inning low leverage mop up guy in their bullpen. 

[umterp23]

Right situation is to be on another team

[jorgenswest]

if he can do well only on lower leverage why would that matter? How does that help the team win games? Who care if he gives up runs or not if the Twins are being blown out? This isn’t about Pagán having the appearance of good numbers. It is about winning games and they need pitchers that can pitch well in high leverage to win games.

Is it possible he has simply pitched poorly? Is he responsible for creating some of those high leverage situations by allowing runners on base? Perhaps he allowed them on base when the leverage index was medium only to have them score once it had become high leverage after he had put them on base.

 

[mrtwinsfan]

Margot Adler (pictured in 2004) published an early sociological study of Paganism in the United States      ????????????????????Maybe she can help

[Rik19753]

22 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

if he can do well only on lower leverage why would that matter? How does that help the team win games? Who care if he gives up runs or not if the Twins are being blown out? This isn’t about Pagán having the appearance of good numbers. It is about winning games and they need pitchers that can pitch well in high leverage to win games.

I'm pretty sure that blow outs aren't the only situations that qualify as low-leverage, given that the majority of Pagan's innings in his career have come in that situation. I think some more common situations are if you are down 2 or 3 runs in the 6th, or maybe up 4 runs in the 8th. If you were to think of a scenario in which the Twins are down 2 in the 5th, having a 3.00 ERA RP pitch the next 2 innings instead of a 5.00 ERA RP would result in a few more come-from-behind wins during the length of the season.

[mrtwinsfan]

    Pagan   please not again

[Doctor Gast]

Pagan is another player this FO stuck with to justify a bad choice. They are hoping that he can graduate from mop up to low/ medium leverage so they can say that "see it wasn't that bad". Maybe that'll happen but still it doesn't justify the damage that was done.

 

[jorgenswest]

1 hour ago, Rik19753 said:

I'm pretty sure that blow outs aren't the only situations that qualify as low-leverage, given that the majority of Pagan's innings in his career have come in that situation. I think some more common situations are if you are down 2 or 3 runs in the 6th, or maybe up 4 runs in the 8th. If you were to think of a scenario in which the Twins are down 2 in the 5th, having a 3.00 ERA RP pitch the next 2 innings instead of a 5.00 ERA RP would result in a few more come-from-behind wins during the length of the season.

If they are down 2 in the 5th that wouldn’t be low leverage. The win probability of the opposing team wouldn’t be that high. If the are up 4 in the 8th and he allows a few base runners the leverage changes and it is no longer low leverage by the time he gives up that three run home run.

I don’t believe the leverage splits data says anything about Pagán. Leverage is fluid and his own performance can dictate a change in leverage. I don’t think it is leverage that is driving the numbers. It is possibly a result from his poorer performance with a runners on base and in particular when a runner is occupying first base. His OPS against with an inner of first (or 12 or 13) is much poorer than his career numbers. In all of those occasions he is pitching from the stretch. Is that this issue? He is OK until a runner gets a base. Putting runners on base will also often change the leverage index where his own performance is skewing that data. Maybe it isn’t leverage that is the problem but rather pitching with runners on base.

Is there a valuable role in the bullpen for a pitcher who struggles with runners on base? Maybe. He could be an opener. He does have a reasonable rate of clean outings. He also has an unreasonable rate of outings greater than 1 run. The Twins would probably want to pull him as soon as he allowed base runners. 

[SanoMustGo]

Let him pitch in garbage time.  He can eat innings when it doesn't matter.

 

[howeda7]

On 3/26/2023 at 11:31 AM, Doctor Gast said:

Pagan is another player this FO stuck with to justify a bad choice. They are hoping that he can graduate from mop up to low/ medium leverage so they can say that "see it wasn't that bad". Maybe that'll happen but still it doesn't justify the damage that was done.

 

And all for $4 million.

[farmerguychris]

On 3/26/2023 at 10:16 AM, umterp23 said:

Right situation is to be on another team

Preferably Cleveland or the Sox.