The Stats: Stretching Nathan Out - Part II

by PhoenixV on Aug 9, 2008 4:45 PM EDT Comment 3 comments

A couple of days ago I made a half-assed attempt at evaluating Nathan's abilities with regards to pitching in the eighth and pitching more than one inning. As both BeefMaster and Johnny Safron correctly pointed out (I like to refer to this as the "Saffron Beef Critique"), simply grouping Nathan's performances by the length of his outings gives false impressions. For example, a (rare) appearance in which he gives up a walk-off HR after having gotten just one out in the 9th ought to be considered as the same type of outing as his trademark 1-2-3 9th innings.

Thus, I decided to run the numbers one more time, but this time I parsed the Retrosheet event files from 2004 to 2007 (Nathan's four full seasons as a Twin) in order to break down his pitching line by the situation in which he entered the game (the entry point).

I use the following abbreviations:

#P: Number of pitches thrown (may only be 98% correct I guess)
SO%: Strikeouts per batter faced
BB%: Walks per batter faced
#P/BFP: Pitches per batter faced

You will notice that I do not list Nathan's ERA below. In order to calculate that, I would not only have to look at Nathan's own pitching events but also the events for preceding and subsequent pitchers (due to the twisted nature of the earned run), and the mere thought of this programming exercise made my brain melt a little bit.

Now, without further ado, here are the...

Stats

Basic breakdown

Entry point	G	IP	BFP	#P	oppAVG	oppOBP	oppSLG	SO%	BB%	#P/BFP
Somewhere in the 8th inning	14	11.0	75	284	.203	.297	.234	26.7%	10.7%	3.79
Somewhere in the 9th inning	224	133.2	874	3346	.186	.239	.290	32.4%	6.2%	3.83
Extra innings	36	19.0	156	612	.168	.265	.198	33.3%	11.5%	3.92

Fine-grained breakdown

Entry point	G	IP	BFP	#P	oppAVG	oppOBP	oppSLG	SO%	BB%	#P/BFP
8th inning, 0 outs	5	4.0	27	98	.320	.333	.360	22.2%	0.0%	3.63
8th inning, 1 or 2 outs	9	7.0	48	186	.128	.271	.154	29.2%	16.7%	3.88
9th inning, 0 outs	215	131.0	854	3269	.184	.238	.288	32.7%	6.2%	3.83
9th inning, 1 or 2 outs	9	2.2	20	77	.263	.300	.368	20.0%	5.0%	3.85
Extra innings	36	19.0	156	612	.168	.265	.198	33.3%	11.5%	3.92

Conclusions

I guess the first conclusion is that when you become too fine-grained, you get down to ridiculously small sample sizes so most of the last table above must be thrown out the window.

Nathan is an absolute beast when entering the 9th with 0 outs. Look at that SO/BB ratio. It sends shivers down your spine. It is clear that Nathan is better at pitching in the usual 9th inning save situations - but not better by much. He tends to lose control a bit in extra innings, possibly due to nerves, but the resulting batting line doesn't really reflect this.

Also, I think that the almost constant value in the #P/BFP column shows that Nathan doesn't alter his approach much in terms of "nibbling" with the strikezone.

There. I guess we didn't learn a whole lot. We knew that he was good. We all have a feeling that he will be good in the 8th inning as well.

Anyway, I promise that it will take a while before I start spamming the forum with stats once again. ;)

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Read More: Joe Nathan (P - MIN), Minnesota Twins, The Stats: Stretching Nathan Out(Twinkie Town)

Comments

For one thing -

- looking through game logs is a lot of ‘effin’ work, even if you’re getting paid, so congrats for investing the time. But that kind of effort does usually paint a picture, and in this case confirms what most of us believed, and that is that old Horse Snort is damned good in these one-inning outings and he’s been good replacing pitchers mid-inning, and it seems as though he could pitch two innings now and then without dire results.

It does not tell us how he would be entering the 7th as his one inning, or with two outs in the seventh, and then pitch the 8th, if that’s when he was needed. But over on the SABR-listserve there has been considerable research posted that pretty well confirms that if managers used their hammer early in tight situations, and saved the Matty G’s of the world for the ninth, the world would not quit spinning – or would not quit spinning for those of you who subscribe to this whole earth-spinning thing.

by Johnny Safron on Aug 9, 2008 6:11 PM EDT reply actions

Strong disagreement

Great work (and, as Mr. Safron said, a lot of work), but there is one part of your post that I take issue with:

I promise that it will take a while before I start spamming the forum with stats once again.

UNACCEPTABLE

"There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein

by BeefMaster on Aug 10, 2008 11:28 AM EDT reply actions

This is lame as --

using a Greg Maddux double to prove that pitchers should get to bat, but Aaron HeilmanHitler of the Mets just pulled off a 2-inning save, and went out the next day and did the unthinkable. He pitched another inning and got another save.

DA OP W L ERA G SV IP

8/08 FLA 0 0 5.43 1 1 2.0
8/09 FLA 0 0 5.34 1 1 1.0

by Johnny Safron on Aug 10, 2008 12:25 PM EDT reply actions