Uncle Bonsai
It occurs to me that yesterday’s survey of Seattle nongrunge music left out Uncle Bonsai, a sort of cross between Tom Lehrer, Peter Paul and Mary and Boyz II Men. They produced such classics as Boys Want Sex In The Morning and Isaac’s Lament, in which a man commits suicide because Love Boat was cancelled. I’m not saying they’re Nirvana, but they’ve stayed together much longer. OK… that concludes my tour of obscure Seattle music.
Davey Johnson
Former Braves second baseman Davey Johnson passed away yesterday. The 1973 season in which he, Hank Aaron and Darrell Evans all hit 40 or more homers was a terribly frustrating season — their Pythagorean record was a full seven games better than their actual record (this year’s team is -5 at the moment) and they finished over 20 games out of first. But Davey’s 43 homers, something he never came close to before or after, was really memorable. He left for Japan in 1975, and eventually returned to be one of those classic managers who won ballgames but never got along with management. My late wife, uncharacteristically uncharitably, called him “Pizza Face” during the playoff series against his Reds team in 1995 because his complexion was not the best, and I’d just bought my first large screen television, an incomprehensibly gigantic 36″ CRT. RIP.
Bullpen Evaluation
Rob Copenhaver knows a lot about baseball. He called the Braves bullpen this season “hot dog water.” He has two primary sources for this opinion: first, his eyes and memory; and second, the execrable record this year in one run games.
I think he’s wrong, and I promised to write about that today, so here it is.
Bullpens are hard to evaluate for a lot of reasons. First, they are composed of pitchers who lack the repertoire (or stamina) to be starters. Consequently, they don’t get all that many innings and small sample sizes and natural variability matter a lot. In 2021, did Will Smith suck as a closer or was he one of the greatest closers in World Series history? The answer, of course, is both. Second, they are the players most affected by managerial whim — when they come into a game is probably the most important in-game decision managers make, and if they choose poorly, the hapless pitcher usually gets more blame than the manager who stuck him out there. Third, even where they get enough innings to be evaluated fairly accurately, the leverage of that usage matters a lot, and even closers are used in a lot of situations in which neither good nor bad performance matters all that much, and the results in high leverage situations are therefore even more magnified.
So I spent all day Friday developing a bullpen evaluation tool. It is not even close to perfect. I’m not even sure it’s any good. And it doesn’t disentangle most of the problems in bullpen evaluation I laid out above; at best, it is a joint assessment of a bullpen and the managerial decisions of whom to use when. But I hope to convince you that the Braves didn’t have a bad bullpen this year. If you want to read about thie game instead, skip down to the next section.
After some thought, I decided to use Win Probability Added Per Game. That’s what it is, but it needs a fancy acronym, so I call it Net Evaluation: Relievers, Innings, Situations, or NERIS. It is denominated in percentage points, so that a bullpen with a NERIS of 5 leaves its team 5 percent more likely to win a game on average each game.
Using NERIS gets at a number of things: by using WPA (which is just the difference in Win Probability for your team before and after each batter faced) we get at results (wins and losses), not things that lead to results, like WHIP and ERA. Leverage is accounted for automatically, since a homer yielded when up or down by 7 runs late in a game is meaningless, while a stolen base allowed might be crucial in the wrong spot. By calculating WPA per Game, you don’t get a counting statistic, you get an assessment statistic, so teams that use their bullpens more or less than other teams can be assessed fairly. What NERIS does not do is assess managerial strategy, except in the crudest sense ex post, as when a guy with a negative NERIS was in fact used in situations where he hurt the team’s chance on average. That may or may not be his fault — it could just be how he was used. While I think NERIS works really well for bullpens in aggregate across a season, squeezing out all the small sample problems, it is far more problematic to use for assessing an individual pitcher; it is particularly sensitive to a few really bad outings: a pitcher who gives up a walk-off two-run homer with a one run lead and two outs will get something like -90 WPA for that batter alone, so it will a lot of good games to make up for it on average. In fact Pierce Johnson’s walkoff homer to Matt Chapman on June 7th is indeed the single worst WPA in MLB so far this season: -90.9. [Tanner Scott in Baltimore tonight was a mere -72.9.] Pierce Johnson‘s NERIS for the season is 0.3. Without that single unfortunate pitch, he’d be around 2.0. And while NERIS includes position players relieving, their NERIS values are all close to zero, since their performance rarely moves Win Probablility very much: Luke Williams and Vidal Bruján have NERIS of 0.0.
One other issue: NERIS accounts for Grybos. If you let a run in that your teammate left on base, it’s on you! And if your teammate hs left you in a highly precarious position that you wriggle out of, you are rewarded. Tyler Matzek‘s 3 strikeouts with the tying runs in scoring position in the 7th inning against the Dodgers in Game 6 of the 2021 NLCS had a WPA of 29. His 1-2-3 inning in the eighth was a mere 8.
Finally, NERIS is highly correlated with WHIP, which makes sense, and has the advantage over WHIP that it adjusts for leverage and for power.
So, here are 2025 Team NERIS values, along with Relief WHIP
| NERIS | WHIP | |
|---|---|---|
| Team | ||
| HOU | 7.1 | 1.221 |
| SDP | 6.4 | 1.161 |
| CLE | 4.2 | 1.282 |
| SEA | 3.7 | 1.323 |
| KCR | 3.6 | 1.262 |
| DET | 2.8 | 1.288 |
| TOR | 2.6 | 1.294 |
| SFG | 2.5 | 1.198 |
| STL | 2.3 | 1.271 |
| BOS | 1.8 | 1.245 |
| MIL | 1.8 | 1.251 |
| MIA | 1.7 | 1.325 |
| ATH | 1.3 | 1.419 |
| CHC | 1.2 | 1.267 |
| ATL | 1.0 | 1.255 |
| PIT | 0.9 | 1.249 |
| BAL | 0.8 | 1.417 |
| LAA | 0.6 | 1.419 |
| NYM | 0.4 | 1.321 |
| PHI | 0.1 | 1.313 |
| TEX | 0.0 | 1.224 |
| NYY | -0.2 | 1.321 |
| LAD | -0.6 | 1.338 |
| TBR | -1.1 | 1.223 |
| WSN | -1.2 | 1.475 |
| CIN | -1.3 | 1.342 |
| MIN | -1.8 | 1.409 |
| COL | -2.9 | 1.513 |
| ARI | -3.1 | 1.397 |
| CHW | -3.2 | 1.385 |
The Braves rank 13th in NERIS: a middle-of-the-pack result. Teams with worse bullpens include the Phillies, Mets and Dodgers, teams reasonably certain to be playing in October. Sorry, Rob, but that’s pasta water, which I understand to be a critical ingredient in certain recipes.
By the way, none of this should be take to mean that the bullpen isn’t worthy of improvement — it obviously is, just like anything else. But it is neither hot dog water nor the squeaky wheel requiring lubrication — Michael Harris II‘s walk rate is squeaking a lot louder.
Here, for the season to date, are the Braves’ individual NERIS values:
| NERIS | |
|---|---|
| Pitcher | |
| Hurston Waldrep | 30.6 |
| Joey Wentz | 17.8 |
| Scott Blewett | 13.0 |
| Rolddy Muñoz | 12.5 |
| Craig Kimbrel | 8.6 |
| Tyler Kinley | 6.5 |
| Hayden Harris | 4.1 |
| Zach Thompson | 1.4 |
| Daysbel Hernández | 1.3 |
| Dylan Lee | 1.3 |
| Aaron Bummer | 1.0 |
| Grant Holmes | 0.6 |
| Davis Daniel | 0.6 |
| Wander Suero | 0.6 |
| Raisel Iglesias | 0.4 |
| Dane Dunning | 0.4 |
| Pierce Johnson | 0.3 |
| Kevin Herget | 0.3 |
| Michael Petersen | 0.1 |
| Luke Williams | 0.0 |
| Vidal Bruján | 0.0 |
| José Ruiz | -0.1 |
| Rafael Montero | -0.2 |
| John Brebbia | -0.2 |
| José Suarez | -1.0 |
| Enyel De Los Santos | -2.5 |
| Hunter Stratton | -2.5 |
| Dylan Dodd | -2.7 |
| Nathan Wiles | -2.8 |
| Austin Cox | -3.0 |
| Connor Seabold | -3.5 |
| Erick Fedde | -6.5 |
| Jesse Chavez | -13.3 |
| Héctor Neris | -22.8 |
Waldrep’s NERIS is based on his one relief appearance, which really wasn’t a relief appearance. Joey Wentz made just one bullpen appearance before being moved to the rotation. Everyone’s relief appearances in this list are only their appearances for the Braves this season. Iggy’s NERIS reflects his up-and-down season. His NERIS at the All-Star break was -2.9. Since then, it is 6.2. That is elite. Aroldis Chapman and Edwin Díaz lead current closers with a 6.6 NERIS.
The Game
The amazing Third took the mound against Bryce Miller. As I said last night, their Bryce has very similar numbers to our Bryce. Just like our Bryce, he’s from Texas. The Phillies’ Bryce is not worried about losing endorsement deals to either of them. (Actually, there have been 9 players named Bryce and 6 of them are currently active.) So of course this game started with a 2-run homer off Third and Bryce Miller started off like 2015 Shelby Miller.
Third got in trouble again in his namesake inning, but survived unscathed. Matty O made it 2-1 in the bottom of the fourth, but we failed to bring home the tying run with Ozzie on third and one out. Third survived the same situation in the top of the fifth, but at that point he had thrown 91 pitches including 5 walks and he was done. His ERA has now soared to 1.33. DFA him.
Snit proved he’d read this piece before I even posted it by bringing in Rolddy Muñoz, our highest NERIS reliever. He had a negative WPA game tonight, around a -4, dropping his NERIS to around 4 (small sample size!) but he was bailed out by Pierce Johnson to keep it 2-1.
Miller’s Crossing came in the 6th when he loaded the bases with one out and was removed for yesterday’s Braves hero, Gabe Speier. He gave up a sac fly to Michael Harris II to tie the game. Daysbel Hernández, just recalled, took the 7th. Not sure if he’s going to stay, as Julio Rodríguez hit his second two run homer to make it 4-2. Then Eugenio Suárez hit one to make it 5-2. For those WPAing at home, that’s a solid -30. Rookie callup Hayden Harris replaces him and gives up another run. Hayden Harris had a 0.56 ERA this year in the minors. His MLB ERA is now 6.75. Welcome to the bigs!
At this point, I assume I was the only guy watching this thing. (I did flip over to the Orioles game to see Jackson Holliday break up a no-hitter with a 2 out 9th inning homer.) A 3 run homer off John Brebbia made it 9-2. A Cal Raleigh homer in the 9th brought the Mariners to double digits.
Early start for the rubber game tomorrow: 12:05, on Roku. Luis Castillo against Spencer Strider Joey Wentz [thx Val],
I think there are 29 teams in the table, but I found it interesting that the bullpen has been a net negative for 7-8 teams. This is surprising because it always seems like bullpen games are effective and I have the idea that most relief pitchers must succeed due to not seeing the same batters twice and not having to pace themselves.
I didn’t mean to reveal to everyone that the Nationals have been kicked out of the league, so I have created a fictitious team called “WSN” and inserted them in the table. (This is also what happens if you mistakenly give them the abbreviation WAS when the WHIP data gives them the abbreviation WSN.) I have also updated the data in this table to include last night.
To your overall point, some bullpens are just bad. Also, don’t forget that there is a fundamental asymmetry here; one bullpen’s gains are not another’s losses. Bad bullpen outings usually lose more than good bullpen outings gain.
Wentz is starting today in place of Strider, who has been pushed back to Tuesday, per DOB. That means Elder starts against the Cubs on Monday.
I only watched the first inning last night. Waldrep looked more uncomfortable than I ever recall seeing him, like he knew he didn’t have his good stuff, but maybe that’s projection. Glav was also criticizing his pitch selection, justifiably, but how much of that was Murphy?
Anyway, it’s good that he wiggled out of some jams, I guess.
Fixed — thx
Spencer must experiencing some fatigue. The Braves say he’s not hurt.
Tough outing for Wentz, who went to sleep last night thinking he wasn’t going to pitch today.
I didn’t even realize we had started playing and then it was 10-0. Nothing a half dozen homers can’t fix.
Greetings from Virginia Beach…
Missed the Grunge Weekend. Looks like we’ve taken our lumps.
My Davey Johnson Memory: When I turned 10, I had a birthday at AFC Stadium, Braves vs. the Pirates.
I was disappointed that Henry Aaron wasn’t in the lineup that day, but I did get to see Dave Johnson hit a grand slam off Dock Ellis into the left-field foul pole, as the Braves defeated the Lumber Company 8-6.
Thanks to Retrosheet, I see that it was HR #36. As many of you know, he’d hit 7 more that year. RIP, Davey.
Recapped.