2003 Cy Youngs

In an interview I heard with John Smoltz after the season, he was talking about how physically taxing being the closer was on the arm. He wants to go back to being a starter because it is shortening his career.

Important to consider:
Gagne pitches only one inning (if that) at a time. When Gagne was a starter, yes, he had a great first inning. Schmidt/Prior/Webb all have great one inning performances, ESPECIALLY IF THEY HAVE A 1-3 RUN LEAD!

Unfortunately, Schmidt/Prior/Webb all did something that Gagne could not do: pitch over 82.1 innings. In fact, all three of those guys pitched over 82.1 innings by the allstar break (and Prior could do that in 9 games with Dusty managing!).

Gagne's a good pitcher for one inning. He won his relief award, he does not belong in the Cy Young race because (and take a look at the stats) we all saw how positively mediocre (that's a very kind compliment) Gagne was as a starter.

Could you imagine Schmidt, Webb or Prior in a closer role? Don't you think they would be as dominant if not more than Gagne? But that's a complete waste of talent. A sprinter can't win a marathon and Gagne doesn't deserve the Cy Young.

Also, there is a very important reason why relief pitcher exist: they aren't good enough to start!

I think they are different skill sets.

It isn't like starting pitchers are horses anymore either...look at how many innings guys like Jenkins, Koosman, Seaver and others that pitched even in the 80s threw. They pull starters for every little nag or when they hit their "pitch count".

Gagne was #6 in NL MVP??? This closer overrating is getting way out of hand!

Tim Worrell did a great job for SF in the playoffs, no?

(Sorry, don't mean to pour salt in the wound...just making a point.)

Yet if Tim (or Gagne, Smoltz, Rivera) pitched 8-9 sold innings of sub 2.50 ERA for 30 starts, yeah I think he (they) and Schmidt would be pretty competitive, but as is... saves are a completely overrated stat and likewise the closer's role in the game.

gygax! : 8-9 innings of starting pitching :: geir hongro : melody

Eck also had his pitching improve because he quit hitting the sauce the same year he became a closer.

Smoltz became the closer because the Braves needed one, not because he couldn't cut it as a starter.

Righetti was neither as domininant as a starter or closer as either Eck or Smoltz.

If Rob Nen had been healthy this year, I think Florida would not be world champs.

I still believe that a top line closer is equivalent and important as a top line starter.

Gagne did his job at an extremely high level and deserved his award.

Schmidt had a very good year, but in his job it wasn't nearly as dominating as Gagne. Schmidt wins 22 with same stats, it is perhaps a different story. As it worked out, Schmidt won 17 games in 29 starts.

You sound like Joe Morgan with all this weighting on "Wins".

gygax!

There are plenty of pitchers that can get through five, but fall apart in the sixth and seventh and get no decisions, especially in this time of pulling at 100 pitches.

If you go just by ERA and K's Nolan Ryan's 1987 would have been one of his best years (8-16 2.73 ERA & 270 k's).

You have to get some support to win, no doubt, but a pitcher that has a good season pitching and gets 17 wins is alot different than a closer that gets 55 saves with an ERA of 1.20.

I just don't see why people are harping on Schmidt for Cy Young, he had a good season, but it wasn't over the top spectacular. 41% of his starts he either lost or got no decision at all. He did average a bit over 7 innings a start, so that is pretty good these days. (In Schmidts defense, I will say that it looks like the bullpen won a bunch of games for SF last year, so they must have pulled out a few of his victories late or in extra innings.)

Gagne was about perfect for the year and contributed to at least 57 or LA's 85 wins.

Most teams that win it all have a top flight closer. Getting by with a substandard pitcher to end the game is like a power hitting team that doesn't know how to manufacture one run, both are an achilles heel that gets most exposed when the stakes get high.

Of course the bottom part of the bullpen are the dregs lucky to be in the game, but the line between a #4 or 5 starter on some clubs (i.e. Reds) is perhaps as bad or worse than the bullpen.

The Reds for a strech early this past season and all but the last month and half of the year before were in the chase with atrocious starting pitching, mostly because their pen was deep and kept them in games. They came from behind and won a bunch of games until their starters got hurt and the pen got exhausted.

The Scott Williamson trade that the Red Sox did with the Reds could turn into quite a coup next year, especially being paired with Foulke, that should give them a good late inning tandum. When Williamson is healthy, he is a very good pitcher.

Detroit is a team that their lower starters and bullpen are pretty much equally terrible.

Wins are a bit misleading as a pitching stat, but they sure made Andy Pettite a bunch of money (3.94 career ERA, 149 wins in 9 seasons), although being a lefty helps him out.

As a starter in the 00-01 seasons, Eric Gagne could barely get through 6 innings (stats for those years: 10W - 13L with a 4.91 ERA). I saw him (in person mind you) get his ass smacked left and right all over Pac Bell Park. He was a worse pitcher than Shawn Estes (then pitching for the Giants), rated as the worst starting pitcher in baseball this year by Baseball Prospectus.

Shit, Gagne's record this year was 2-3 meaning he only won 40% of opportunities to affect the decision of the game.

I just don't see why people are harping on Schmidt for Cy Young, he had a good season, but it wasn't over the top spectacular. 41% of his starts he either lost or got no decision at all. He did average a bit over 7 innings a start, so that is pretty good these days. (In Schmidts defense, I will say that it looks like the bullpen won a bunch of games for SF last year, so they must have pulled out a few of his victories late or in extra innings.)

Like the Dodgers, the Giants' offense was fairly mediocre this year. Schmidt can only pitch so well (giving up less than 2.5 runs a game). A closer, mind you, can give up an average of 2.5 runs an inning and still get a save.

My point on the ILE thread was that Schmidt, Webb and Prior could be better closers than Gagne but that their talent would be wasted pitching just one inning every 3 games. Gagne was a below-average starting pitcher, that is why he's a closer. In my book, his performance was maybe the 8th-9th most valuable in the NL last year, maybe the 2nd or 3rd most valuable on the Dodgers last year.

If he was the most valuable pitcher in the League last year, wouldn't you want him to pitch more than 82 innings?

Derek Lowe was considered a failure as a closer and has had a couple of decent years as a starter.

Some starters like Glavine or even Schilling get much better a few innings into their start, as usually if you want to beat them, you have to get them early as they get better with more pitches. Smoltz got rocked a few times early in his run as a closer, but once he got into the groove has been fantastic.

Gagne may have also just figured out what he was doing wrong. There have been lots of pitchers suxors and then it clicks the next year. Comparing him to Shawn Estes is a bit harsh, the Cubs didn't even keep him around to fill in the bullpen for the playoffs (even though he had a great start near the end of the season).

It definitely goes against my nature to stick up for a Dodger, especially one whose name is close to Garvey.

Gagne pitched 82 innings in 77 games, so he was working nearly every other day and he got 55 saves and 2 wins. The amount of innings he pitched was about par for the course for his position.

entered game with 4 run lead (technically not a save situation)
gives up a single and a double to make it a 3 run game
1.1 IP, 1 ER, 2 H, 1 K

what a fucking crock.

cinniblount's win shares on that other thread were whack, no way those were the actual numbers. and judging by the replies on that thread someone needs to do some recruiting on ILE, i think a lot of those pansies are scared to post here cuz of the potential for "more wasted time" or some shit like that. just give it up already. (it being "your life as you'd like to know it" of course)

Pitching 220 outstanding innings is of greater benefit to a team than 80 brilliant innings.

Was he credited for a save for this? He shouldn't have because of the situation when he entered the game, which is the only thing that counts.

huh? shouldn't that be "not including relievers in the running is like not including corner outfielders in the GG awards" (since just as with SP and RP by and large the best outfielders are in center)?

"Pitching 220 outstanding innings is of greater benefit to a team than 80 brilliant innings."

well, it's not quite that simple though is it? since nearly every one of gagne's innings were not only of better quality than the starting candidates but more importantly, of very high value, the huge gap is bridged considerably.

fwiw, here's what WARP says:

gagne 8.3
schmidt 7.3
prior 8.8

The leading reliever by VORP so far is a middle guy, Kevin Gregg of the Angels, followed by Foulke, Rivera, F-Rod, Benitez. All over 16, compared to Gagne's 9.2.

would gagne's value be the same if he was brought in to pitch at totally random times, for example? if gagne's 80 innings last year all came with his team up or down by 3 or more runs, would his value for that season be the same? if you answered "no" to those questions then you believe that his innings shouldn't be taken at face value, and should be weighted in some way to account for their increased impact. as do the guys at baseball prospectus, apparently.

the cy young isn't a measure of "talent", it's a measure of "value". otherwise pedro would've won it each of the past 7 years.

Do you think Gagne's 80 innings could nearly be replicated by a Clemens or a Pedro if either of them had been morphed into a closer? I think so. Do you think Gagne could match their success as a starter? I think not.

I don't entirely understand the Pedro comment, but you can make a very decent case he should've won the Cy 6 of the last 7 years (excepting his injury year of 2001).

this is what i mean by the talent comment. it doesn't matter, because they're not. we're talking (or we should be talking) about rewarding what actually happened, and actual value, as opposed to hypotheticals. this is 100% red herring, and it's another example of mixing "GM value" with "season value". the cy young award is for the latter. a lesser reliever used wisely can be much more valuable to his team over a season than a greater reliever used poorly will be to his, even though his value as a baseball player is actually less. though pedro and clemens may be better pitchers than gagne, and may pitch more innings than gagne, they can still be less valuable to their team over the course of a season because the quality of their innings, in terms of dominance and impact, is less.

xpost

"Eric Gagne's season is the best relief season of all time, according to WARP, and I am not at all sure that I am giving it its proper due. As with position players, the duration of the performance counts--pitching more often means a better score. In addition to innings, I also consider how many decisions (wins, losses, and saves) the pitcher had, on the theory that a pitcher who participates in more decisions was more likely to pitch in close, and therefore higher-leverage, situations. Gagne's 82.3 innings pitched are treated by the system as if they were 128 innings, a 56% increase in "leverage," but I honestly don't know if that is high enough. I count a save as being 30% as valuable as a win or loss, in terms of counting up decisions; pushing that up to even .35 would give Gagne...my first-place Cy vote. The value of that is important not only for Gagne's season, but for the career ratings of players like Eckersley, Fingers, Sutter, and Gossage, and is an area I'd really like to attack in the off-season."

I buy the leverage concept partially -- but overcompensating for it strikes me as "a win in September means more than a win in April" logic. Kinda true, but not really.

i wonder if there's really a huge amount of variance in high-leverage innings. the dodgers surely had more than anyone last year and gagne probably "lucked out" to some extent in that, while he was used as a traditional closer, because the dodgers played in so many low-scoring games last year a lot of them were still 1 or 2 run saves (making the saves and gagne more valuable). but i'd guess an intelligent manager could've gotten similar value out of him on an "average" team. so again, i think actual value is more important than any hypothetical. the exceptions to that are probably quality of defense and offense behind starters (and to a lesser extent relievers) which should be given a major look at. "unfair run support", "unfair defensive support", that i understand. but "pitching in an unfair amount of close games"? nah. he's a reliever, and that's what he's supposed to do. and i maintain that any manager could've brough in their ace reliever in 80 close games last year. they didn't, and their relievers value suffered from it. so what you're saying still sounds like "give it to the guy who only pitched 45 innings in blowouts because he's actually more talented than the guy who pitched 80 innings in one-run games" to me.

btw, how much better has benitez really been?
benitez: 46 IP, 23 H, 15 BB, 4 HR 41 K
gagne: 40.1 IP, 22 H, 9 BB, 4 HR, 58 K

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/rrereport04.html

Danny Kolb, 35.1 IP, 1.53 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, .210 BAA, .250 OBPA, .264 SLGA, .514 OPSA, 12K/5BB = 2.40K/BB, 3.15 K/9
Mike Adams, 26.1 IP, 1.71 ERA, 0.80 WHIP, .174 BAA, .228 OPBA, .283 SLGA, .510 OPSA, 19K/5BB = 3.80K/BB, 6.49 K/9

*Nathan, among others, was traded by San Francisco to Minnesota for AJ Pierzynski. Some have noted it was due to his performance against the World Champion Florida Marlins in last year's NLDS when he blew a big lead in the 7th.

I bet the Giants mgmt. wishes they had a bonafide closer the likes of Nathan this year (Herges gives up 4 runs last night to blow the save in Colorado).

not sure what happens if you take away the worst outing of the year from mike adams.

kolb's k-rate is a little worrisome for a closer, i don't care how many groundballs he gets.

remember when y'all
were giving me ten tons of shit
for my team? ha-HAH!

my stance remains the same, dude. the park and ownership suck too much for me to really pull for the players, no matter how much i want to. but i'd probably rather they get second in the central than houston or chicago, the former for personal reasons, the latter because their ownership is equally fucked up as far as i'm concerned.

Kolb's ERA was under 1 before the Allstar game, I hadn't seen what he had done since.

Turns out the Astros had a 9-0 lead after 5 innings, but the Cubs frittered away at the lead, tied it with 4 in the 8th and won it with a run in the 10th (the only run given up by Dave Smith in 1.1 innings).

Funny how I thought I remembered that game so vividly, yet I had built it into something far more dramatic than it was.