Clean Sheets in the Bullpen

[jorgenswest]

Years ago my son had a soccer coach from Tanzania that called a shut out by a goalie a clean sheet.

I was thinking about that reading @Riverbrian’s comment in the Jorge Alcala topic. How often do our relievers enter the game do their job? A clean sheet. I will define a clean sheet as no runs scored whether their own or inherited or ghost.

I went to baseball reference to count and below is the data.

• Varland 21/30
• Duran 23/28
• Jax 20/28
• Sands 17/27
• Topa 15/21
• Alcala 14/20
• Coulombe 18/19
• Stewart 13/17
• Funderburk 4/8

Clean sheets is a measure of opportunity like WPA. If Varland comes in with the bases loaded and no outs his opportunity for a clean sheet is pretty remote. Some sheets are easier to keep clean than others. Some relievers come in to put out fires more often. Some are asked to pitch across multiple innings more often. Some see the top of the line up more often. Some leave a big mess on those sheets more often than others. This reflects how often they have done their job acknowledging that not all jobs are the same.

I am not sure what it means other than I appreciate how often the Twins relievers have come in and done their job this year.

 

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

I agree. The eye test says they have done well. I would not trade Duran for anyone right now.

I think they stack up just fine against — I hesitate to say this — the better bullpens in the AL Central, Detroit and Cleveland.

[Riverbrian]

2 hours ago, jorgenswest said:

Years ago my son had a soccer coach from Tanzania that called a shut out by a goalie a clean sheet.

I was thinking about that reading @Riverbrian’s comment in the Jorge Alcala topic. How often do our relievers enter the game do their job? A clean sheet. I will define a clean sheet as no runs scored whether their own or inherited or ghost.

I went to baseball reference to count and below is the data.

• Varland 21/30
• Duran 23/28
• Jax 20/28
• Sands 17/27
• Topa 15/21
• Alcala 14/20
• Coulombe 18/19
• Stewart 13/17
• Funderburk 4/8

Clean sheets is a measure of opportunity like WPA. If Varland comes in with the bases loaded and no outs his opportunity for a clean sheet is pretty remote. Some sheets are easier to keep clean than others. Some relievers come in to put out fires more often. Some are asked to pitch across multiple innings more often. Some see the top of the line up more often. Some leave a big mess on those sheets more often than others. This reflects how often they have done their job acknowledging that not all jobs are the same.

I am not sure what it means other than I appreciate how often the Twins relievers have come in and done their job this year.

 

Beautiful work as usual. 

Can you hang a zero and how many can you hang? 

One bad appearance where you give up 4 runs in one third of inning. Is one bad appearance that is going to stain him for months. 

I have no complaints with the Twins bullpen as a whole. The pitching staff has been top of the line this year. 

[jorgenswest]

I looked at last year’s team and they weren’t nearly as clean. I found three over 70% in Jax at 75% followed by Alcala(72%) and then Duran(71%).

I wondered about Alcala and his propensity this year to give up crooked numbers. The Twins team numbers pitching overall have virtually the same OPS against whether there are runners on or not. That isn’t true about Alcala over his career and particularly in the last few years. His OPS against with the bases empty is much lower than his OPS against with runners on base. I am not sure if it is meaningful. Could it mean that he has poorer command either shown by walks or hard hit balls when pitching from the stretch?

 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

73% clean sheets as a bullpen team

looking at runs per relief appearance, because I don’t have the time to look at the game logs 

SFG .36

TBR .405

MN .407

KC .412

I like the clean sheet metric. It paints a more vivid picture. On average 59.3% of their bullpen appearances result in zero runs scored, but with the sample size so small, average doesn’t mean a lot.

[Brandon]

Alcala has clean sheets 70% of the time which is really good.  Just on the other 30% he uses too many sheet for all that 💩 poop he slings.