Monday Morning News and Notes

Published by on June 16, 2008 | 4 Responses

Good morning, I hope everyones day has started well. Pass me the coffee and I’ll be OK.

A few things in Giants news today

~ Keichii Yabu has been promoted to setup man. I wasn’t aware of this until I caught Schulman’s Notebook column on the Chronicle. The article talks about Pat Misch going back to AAA and this quote from Bochy popped out at me.

Bochy acknowledged he has no true long reliever now that Keiichi Yabu has been promoted to setup man, and said, “We’re going to have to get some multiple innings out of guys like Vinnie Chulk, Billy Sadler, Alex Hinshaw and Jack Taschner.”

Interesting, the 39-year-old Yabu has been a pleasant surprise this year. I would prefer to see someone like Sadler or Hinshaw work the 8th inning and get that late inning experience, but Yabu has earned his new role for now. By BP’s WXRL, relievers expected wins added, Yabu is 4th on the team behind Brian Wilson, Tyler Walker, and Jack Taschner.

~ The Giants have signed their 5th round pick RHP Edwin Quirarte for 193K. Quirate throws a low-90′s fastball, a slider, and a split-finger fastball. He profiles as a reliever.

~ So much for home comfort, the Giants have the worst winning percentage at home in the majors. Their current winning percentage of .371% at home is worse than both the Mariners (.388%) and the Nationals (.400%) home percentages. On the road the Giants are a game under .500.

~ I was looking at the Giants team SB% this morning — it sits at 71% currently — and I started to wonder, was the success rate of 71% good enough? If you believed the advertising campaign, the stolen base was going to play a large role in the Giants team success this year. Tom Tango of ‘The Book’ fame, has a quick and easy formula to calculate the break even rate for stolen bases in a given environment. In other words, at what point does stealing a base hurt or help your team?

The formula looks like this:

A very quick rule of thumb on the breakeven point is to do this:
1. take runs per game and divide by 2 (so, a 5.0 RPG gives you 2.5. That’s close to the breakeven of SB, 2.5, to CS, 1).
2. Figure the percentage (2.5/3.5 = 71.4%)
3. Subtract 3%
4. Breakeven is: 68.4%

In The Book, I said the breakeven point for 1999-2002 (5.0 RPG) was 68.7%.

So, a 4.0 RPG environment would give you: 2.0, which is .667, which becomes .637. This is why it really pays to play small ball against a great pitcher.

The current RPG in the NL is 4.55, so our formula should look like this.

4.55/2 = 2.275
2.275/3.275 = 69%
Subtract 3%
Breakeven is: 66%

So, in the current run scoring environment of the National League our breakeven point stands at 66%, meaning that if you’re going to steal a base make sure that you’re successful at least 66%+ of the time. By this formula, the Giants are doing a good enough job of stealing bases this year. Keep in mind that the current RPG of 4.55 will most likely change by the time the season is done and as a result, so will our breakeven point. From ’01 to ’07, the average RPG has been 4.61.

It goes to show that in a low scoring environment, such as facing a great pitcher as Tango stated above, the breakeven point for stealing a base is lowered, making it a more attractive option than swinging the bat — and most likely making an out. The lower the scoring environment becomes the lower the value of each out. Take for example the Chicago Cubs. Cubs’ pitchers have given up 3.99 RPG this year. Following the formula above, the breakeven point works out to 63%. The Giants would do well to try and steal bases when they play the Cubs, that is if the Cubs pitching stays at its current level of 3.99 RPG. But, for every Cubs there is an equally bad team when it comes to pitching, such as the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates hurlers have been giving up 5.23 RPG this season, making the breakeven point 69%. When the Giants play a poor offensive team such as the Pirates, they should just swing the bats.

Something to think about and watch for the next time the Giants try to steal bases against poor pitching teams like the Pirates or Colorado.

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Chris
Chris

Yup, WXRL is a past performance measure but it's also a usage measure. Yay, acronyms!

delorean
delorean

Ahhh, that makes sense. I didn't realize that leverage was factored into WXRL. So many metrics to keep track of!!

Chris
Chris

Thanks, Delorean. What helps Walker and Taschner get ranked over Yabu right now, is the type of innings they've tended to pitch in. Both Taschner and especially Walker have pitched in later stages of the game, which tend to be high leverage situations. Yabu has pitched in more of a long relief or mop-up role to this point. The higher leveraged situations add more to the WXRL score than throwing a scoreless inning in a 5-run blow out. Top 10 Leverage Scores out of the Bullpen <pre># NAME LEV 1. Brian Wilson 2.02 2. Tyler Walker 1.75 3. Jack Taschner 1.32 4. Tim Lincecum 1.30 5. Keiichi Yabu 1.20 6. Billy Sadler 1.14 7. Merkin Valdez 1.12 8. Brad Hennessey 1.09 9. Alexander Hinshaw 1.02 10. Vinnie Chulk 0.90</pre> Here's an easy definition of what leverage is from BP. 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 mopup 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). Ignore the Lincecum line, it's from that wacky game where he came out of the bullpen. If a leverage of 1.00 is of the same importance as the start of a game, then we can see that Bochy has used Brian Wilson -- his best reliever -- in the right spots. He's used Wilson in very high leveraged situations. I'm also guessing that because of our offense, that Wilson will be closing games out his fair share of 1-run leads, which will boost his WXRL and Leverage scores. Tyler Walker got a lot of work this year in the 8th inning and that's helped his WXRL. Same for Taschner. I think with Walker's struggles, I would have moved him out of 8th inning duties quicker, you can see that Bochy likes to give his bullpen pitchers a role and let them live or die in it. Yabu's leverage score is actually a little higher than I would have thought, but he's been getting into close games with more frequency in recent weeks. From the looks of our leverage scores, Chulk has been used mostly in blow out type situations. If Yabu pitches well in the higher leveraged role of setup man, he should climb the WXRL chart and eventually surpass Walker and Taschner.

delorean
delorean

Yay, Yabu! The guy has to be one of the best bargains/scrap-heap pickups ever. I'm frankly shocked to see him ranked behind Walker and Taschner in WXRL -- those two guys in particular absolutely confound me. They can be lights-out for a week or two, but then just implode out there. I'm always on pins and needles when one of those guys comes in. Good insight as always, Chris!