Thursday, June 28, 2007
A Little Exercise about Reliever Utilization (plus Playoff Odds through June 27)
One of my favorite sabermetric researchers, Tango Tiger, has done a lot of research about reliever usage. He came up with the statistic Leverage Index, which uses win expectancy to determine the most crucial situations in a given game.Let's look at two situations in particular.
Situation 1: Two teams, we'll call them NYY and BAL are playing in BAL. They are tied heading into the bottom of the ninth. In this situation, the win expectancy for the visiting team (NYY) is
Situation 2: The same two teams are playing again, but this time BAL is leading NYY 4-0 heading into the bottom of the eighth. In that situation, the win expectancy for NYY is .027.
So in situation 1, NYY had a 36.6% chance of winning the game, and in situation 2, NYY had a 2.7% chance of winning the game. In that spot, preventing the winning run is the most important thing that NYY could do. So which situation should their best reliever have been used in?
But what if your best reliever had thrown 20 pitches over 1.2 innings in a game four days prior? Well in that case, you could use arguably your second best reliever, since he had only thrown 22 pitches in that same game, plus 40 pitches in the next game. You could even watch while he walks three batters, including one with the bases loaded to lose the game.
Anyway, the Yankees' recent skid has had a dramatic effect on their already fading playoff chances. When I ran my playoff odds exercise on June 18, the Yankees had a 9.3% chance at the division, and a 59.7% chance at the wild card. And after going 1-7 in their last eight games, here's where they are now after simulating the rest of the season 1000 times using projections weighted 80% on 2007 projections coming into the season and 20% on current performance.
| American League | W | L | RF | RA | DIV | WC | DIV% | WC% | PO% | High | Low |
| East | W | W | |||||||||
| Bos07 | 101.2 | 60.8 | 888 | 701 | 977.5 | 17.0 | 97.8% | 1.7% | 99.5% | 113 | 90 |
| NYA07 | 88.3 | 73.7 | 847 | 706 | 22.5 | 336.0 | 2.3% | 33.6% | 35.9% | 102 | 76 |
| Tor07 | 80.7 | 81.3 | 802 | 782 | 0.0 | 45.5 | 0.0% | 4.6% | 4.6% | 95 | 69 |
| Bal07 | 71.7 | 90.3 | 755 | 821 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 86 | 59 |
| Tam07 | 67.2 | 94.8 | 787 | 960 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 82 | 55 |
| Central | |||||||||||
| Cle07 | 92.8 | 69.2 | 883 | 761 | 592.0 | 162.0 | 59.2% | 16.2% | 75.4% | 107 | 76 |
| Det07 | 90.9 | 71.1 | 902 | 777 | 363.0 | 220.0 | 36.3% | 22.0% | 58.3% | 105 | 78 |
| Min07 | 83.7 | 78.3 | 782 | 748 | 45.0 | 75.5 | 4.5% | 7.6% | 12.1% | 97 | 71 |
| ChA07 | 72.7 | 89.3 | 740 | 838 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 86 | 61 |
| KC07 | 66.2 | 95.8 | 746 | 889 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 77 | 52 |
| West | |||||||||||
| LAA07 | 93.0 | 69.0 | 805 | 711 | 868.5 | 25.0 | 86.9% | 2.5% | 89.4% | 104 | 76 |
| Sea07 | 83.8 | 78.2 | 793 | 803 | 71.0 | 71.5 | 7.1% | 7.2% | 14.3% | 97 | 72 |
| Oak07 | 82.8 | 79.2 | 738 | 705 | 60.5 | 47.5 | 6.1% | 4.8% | 10.8% | 96 | 65 |
| Tex07 | 70.0 | 92.0 | 825 | 908 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 84 | 55 |
So they've gone from an already meager 9.3% shot at the AL East to an even more scant 2.3%. More concerning is their wild card chances have plummeted, from 59.7% to 33.6%. I guess it still means they have a chance.
Peter Abraham reported yesterday that the Angels will be DFA'ing Shea Hillenbrand by Friday and that he could be a Yankee by the weekend. Hillenbrand might be better than Cairo, but he won't be a difference-maker, and he'll be awfully tough for me to root for. I'd rather not see him in pinstripes.
And what happened to the pledge to get Andy Phillips some playing time? Phillips was called up on June 19, and in the 8 games since he's gotten one start and 8 AB. Meanwhile, Miguel Cairo has started six games and hit .238/.304/.286. I have no expectations for Phillips, but odds are he cannot be any worse than Cairo has been, and he'd be a hell of a lot easier to root for than someone like Hillenbrand.
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