As baseball junkies we are always looking at ways to compare players to one another and see who is better. WAR is a commonly used stat, but I've heard many of us suggest that it is not an accurate way to describe bullpen pitchers. I've spent some time with this and I have decided that this is true. I also have an idea for a new better stat to rate bullpen pitchers. 

The Problem with WAR for Relievers

WAR is a statistic that measures wins above replacement that is based on playing time, so for pitchers this is calculated on innings. WAR counts every inning as if it the same, but we know it is much more difficult to get out the heart of the order then the bottom. For starting pitchers this is not a problem because they pitch ~200 IP so they end up facing 800-1000 batters. Also, they typically go through the order a couple times so they face good and bad hitters  equally. Relief pitchers, on the other hand, pitch 40-70 IP and will face 200-400 batters per year, but what are the quality of those batters? In addition some pitchers are specialists that only face righties or lefties and some relievers are called on to face any handed batter. Are Pedro Feliciano's 60 innings the same as Brain Sock's 70 innings? Using WAR there is no way to tell. Additionally relievers are at the mercy of their managers to bring them into favorable or unfavorable match ups. There are too many variables to compare relief pitchers innings. 

                            A Potential Solution

There has to be a way to normalize relief pitchers statistics to determine how well they really did in a season. One potential answer to this is to actually measure the quality of the hitters faced. You can measure the OPS vs. handedness for hitters the pitcher faces (I don't know if you would use yearly or monthly stats) and divide the success the batter has versus that pitcher by the previous number (actual OPS vs pitcher/OPS vs handedness of pitcher). This statistic could be used in two ways, first it would tell you which relievers face the best hitters or threw the hardest innings during the season and second it gives you a normalized scale to measure all relievers on. In this statistic numbers lower then 1 would be good and numbers over 1 would be bad.

Discussion

Is OPS the best stat to use to measure hitter quality?

Should yearly stats be used for the hitter or monthly stats?

Is there a stat already like this that exists?

How could you collect this data , Linux script?

Is it appropriate to take hitter split stats?

How should park effects  be taken into account?

This topic came up in the applesauce today in regard to Moyer being named the Phillies 5th starter. Moyer at age 46 is the active wins leader with 258. If he can pitch as a starter for four more years he has a shot, but I think we would agree that it may be a rather long shot. I'd arbitrarily give him a 10% chance. 

Are there any other pitchers that have a chance? I've found two that may have a legitimate chance.

The first is another Phillie, Roy Halladay. He currently has 148 wins, 152 shy of the elusive 300. In order to reach that milestone he would have to average roughly 15 wins for another 10 seasons. At age 32, he turns 33 at the start of the season, this doesn't seem unreasonable especially if he has some big win totals the next couple of seasons, the MSM seem to think he will win 50 games this year. He seems to have the dedication to the game and the endurance to pitch that long. I'd give him a 40% chance.

Another guy who has a potentially greater chance to get that number is C.C. Sabithia. He turns 30 this year and has already amassed 136 wins. He would need to average 16 wins for the next ten years to eclipse 300, but given that he is still 29 that puts him around 40. He seems to have the durability to pitch that much but I don't know if he has the desire. I remember reading something in the NY newspaper quoting C.C. saying he didn't want to pitch till 40. I'd put his chances around 50%.  

These are the two most serious guys who could reach that total, partially due to their durability, but they both play for teams that have high-powered offenses that win lots of games. 

Some other notable guys that may reach 300, but I consider long shots

Andy Pettitte    -- 229 wins -- age 37 -- 5 seasons of 15 wins 

Mark Buehrle  -- 135 wins --- age 31 -- 10 seasons of 16 wins

Johan Santana -122 wins --- age 31 -- 10 seasons of 18 wins

Young guys with a shot. 

It's really tough to project what young players may be able to reach the spartan number, but there are three guys that may have an outside chance.

The one with the best shot, as you have probably guesses is King Felix. He is about to turn 24, but already has 58 wins. If he can pitch another 16 seasons and average 15 wins he could get there., if he can average more like 20 wins a season he can do it in 12 years.

Justin Verlander has 65 wins and just turned 27. If he could average 15 wins a year it would take him about 16 years. 

The last contender is Jenrry Meija as long as Omar doesn't get his way. 

In conclusion, winning 300 games is a rare feat, and is an accolade that we may never see happen again, but there are a few pitchers with an realistic shot. By no means am I advocating for wins being an important factor for Cy Young awards or Hall of Fame ballots, but in my opinion 300 wins should guarantee entrance to Cooperstown even if a 50 year old Moyer with mediocre career numbers gets in. 

Preamble - Too often the Mets management have made lots of moves that really don't make much sense for the long run or really address the team needs. All of the moves I am trying to make fall under the general scheme of plug holes with better players without giving up the farm system in trades or signing people to long bad contracts.

With the pitching staff I have a very specific goal, increase our starters IP/start. This has been the problem with the Mets since 2006. We have considerably over worked our bullpen every year. The only pitcher in our staff next year that can average over 6 IP per start is Santana, 6.6. Last year Big Pelf averaged 5.9 ip/start, Maine 5.4 and Ollie 4.7. Those were all down years granted, but oliver's best year was 6.1 and Maine's was 5.9. With a starting staff that can barely get through 5 there is no way to have a bullpen that stays strong throughout the season. We can expect more top 5 IPs per season from our bullpen if this trend continues. We know that during the Mets 2006 season the bullpen had a ridiculous WAR, there was a post on here awhile ago that showed this. By signing pitchers that can pitch over 6 and closer to 7 innings per game and stock pilling pitching depth we can save wear on our bullpen.

With the hitting I will attempt to improve our weakest positions without taking on too much payroll. Let's get too it. 

Catcher: Last year our platoon of catchers provided little to no offense. Omir santos had a -7.3 hitting component to WAR and Schneider was even worse with a -15.3 hitting component to WAR. We can improve our hitting the most by getting a good hitting catcher. This year there are tons of freeagent catchers, but I want a trade. Ryan Doumit of the pittsburgh Pirates can be an all-star catcher. His 2008 season was phenomenal where he posted a 4.0 WAR and +15.3 hitting. Also Doumit can play first and some outfield and is due 3.5 mil in 2010 and 5.3 mill in 2011. He will not block T-Hole and can you imagine in June Doumit and Thole as our two catchers. The great thing about Ryan is that we can get him for relatively cheap. A trade that has super sub-Dan Murphey and Chris Carter I think could get it done. We could replace carter with Parnell or even throw in Omir in the trade if we need too. Lets say we trade Murp, Carter and Parnell, though I think this is a little more then it would take. 

Doumit-3.5Mil

Santos-.4mil Thole will be called up in June on this team

First Base- This is another huge hole for us last year. Ike is our guy here, which is why we could trade carter, so we don't want to block him. He may be ready sooner rather then later as a platoon player so LETS RESIGN DELGADO. When healthy he should still be good for 30Hrs and 100RBIs. We can get him cheap and if he gets hurt we have Doumit, Ike/Nick Evans platoon or money left to make trades.

Delgado 1yr-5mil-8mil

Second base- Stuck with Louie nobody really wants him. Every other plan has some unrealistic trade for Overbay or Roy Hallady but I think we are stuck with him. Hopefully Jose's defense can make up for his lack of range. If Castillo gets on base like he did last year he will score a ton of runs in the 2010 Mets lineup.

Castillo 6mil

SS- I miss you so much Reyes please make my dreams come true by playing awesome in 2010 and winning an MVP.

Reyes 9 mil

3rd Base.  Wright and Reyes back again. Side note on Wrights power decline, he had NO PROTECTION IN THE METS LINE-UP with all the injuries. We saw what Holliday did in oakland with no protection then had Pujous in Stl and that made a huge change in his numbers.

Wright-10 mil 

CF-Only the best in the game, but I wouldn't mind moving him to a corner spot if the knees can't take it. 

Beltran-18.5mil

RF- Bring back MIke Cameron, We can get him cheap he has great defense he can play center if Beltran can't. Cammy got pop and walks .340 OBP. Holliday was going to cost at least 20 mil everyone saying they are signing him for 17 is crazy it may take 21 or 22 mil to get him over 6 years I don't want that contract, although it is much better then some of the other contracts Omar gives out.

Cameron-1yr-5mil (Beltran better wear a helmet)

LF Pagan/Evans Platoon- Angel proved he can hit righties effectively last year. Evans mashes lefties lets put them together. Pagan has great defense. Imagine a defense of Beltran, Pagan and Killa Cameron.

Pagan-.6mil (i couln't find his contract info for 2010 but we signed him) 

Evans-.4mil

Backups Adam Everett 2 year 4 mil Endy Chavez 3mil and Craig Counsell 2-mil

Offense payroll-65.4 Mil

On to the pitching staff

Santana -Best in baseball on second thought maybe second best, but still great.

21 mil

John Lackey- There are a lot of people hating on Lackey saying he is not worth the price. Lackey is still a very good pitcher who has the potential to earn a contract of 18 mil per year. Lackey has averaged 6.8, 6.8, 6.5 ip/start. He only walks 2-3 batter per start. Everyone is saying that he is declining and he is injury prone. He was mildly injured in 2008 and 2009, but last year he still made 27 starts and pitched 176 inning with a 3.9 WAR. That season alone was worth a 17.6mil contract. His last fully healthy years 2005-2007 he was a 5-6 WAR pitcher. His K/9 is steady at 7.2 and he doesn't walk people. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect a 4-5 WAR season from him. I think we can sign him for 5 years 86 mil. Now a smart GM will do things to make this contract more palpable for the team in the long run. I will be way under the 150 mil payroll which I will talk about later, so we could front load Lackeys contract giving him 20 mil the first year it makes the later years of him contract much easier to deal with and trade later. The last four year of his contract he will only be making 16mil. A smart GM would front load this deal for future flexibility.

Lackey-20 mil

Ben Sheets- He is an injury risk but when healthy he is one of the top pitchers in baseball. He has averaged 6-7ip/game many years when healthy. He can be had for cheap with an option for next year if he turns out be be a true baller. Sign him to a 1yr contract for 5mil a year with a 2011 option for 8mil.

Pelfrey-.5Mil - with reyes back and his slider (fast spinner/change-up) developing expect his numbers to improve.

Perez-12 mil worst contract in baseball, he can't consistently go five innings and he sucks, but he can't be worse then last year at least I hope. 

Starting pitching = 58.5mil

Bullpen- First we need to move John Maine (2.5mil) to the bullpen. He can't pitch deep into games so the pen makes sense. He can start if we have injuries to Sheets, Lackey, or Perez is ineffective. We also will have Neise and Nieve in the minors to make starts if necessary. I am hoping that he could be the "set-up man"

Sign Darren Oliver 1yr 3mil/ option for 2011 at the same price. He was the key to 2006 we never should have let him go. Kelvim Escobar-2mil 1yr, this is another guy that maybe could start if we get hit with the injury bug. feliciano(1.9 mil) K-rod(11.5mil) green (.5mil) stokes (.4mil)

Bullpen 19.5mil

Total payroll 143.4 mil.

By keeping our payroll under the limit it gives us option during the year to trade for a bat or sign pitching if the circumstance presents itself. Too many people spend the entire payroll before team needs are really known. This payroll should give us flexibility to be a player in the 2011 freeagent market.

2010 mets line-up

1-Pagan

2-Reyes

3-Beltran

4-Wright

5-Degado

6-Doumit

7-Cameron

8-pitcher

9-Castillo

Pitching staff

Santana

Lackey 

Sheets

Pelfrey

Perez

Bullpen 

Maine

Escobar

Feliciano

Stokes 

Green

K-rod

I was recently reading about U.Z.R. I think it is a good stat but it is flawed.

My main criticism is that it does not account for the quality of the balls that are hit to you,  I'm interested if to know if there are others that agree.  

There is a way to correct this problem and make four dimensional plots, (x,y,z,t) of defensive players range. This is possible if all balls hit are recorded as vectors. We would only really need two data points, for fly balls, to achieve this goal. First distance traveled on a 2-D map and second time traveled in the air. We could also use the velocity of the ball off the bat and the angle to calculate the same info, I don't know which statistics are easier to get or even where to get either of them. From this data we could diagram average player range and more accurately determine a players worth defensively. One problem is ground balls, the physics of that is much different than fly balls, any suggestions are appreciated.

I posted this because I think with some help this algorithm could easily be generated and you guys are the best group to run it by before actually wasting time to try to do this. 

Seeing Dan Murphy play got me thinking, is he mentally retarded. Who is the dumbest player in baseball in your opinion? To me it has to be Papelbon. He looks like pretty ricky doing an Irish Jig in his underwear. Oh and Shelly Duncan just looks dumb and probably is also. 

This may be a lame post, but hopefully we can have some fun discussion or just diss me in the post. Either way it should be cool and worth a good laugh. 

P.S. Upon previewing this message I had how instead of who in the title, luckily I didn't post it like. Although it would have been hilarious.

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Forgive my sudden optimism, but I really like what I've seen in the last two games including the blow-out. 

Although the loss to Atlanta 5/12/09 sucked I saw a couple signs that looked like the choke artist Mets of the last two years are gone. 

The last two games, and to a lesser extent the rest of the year, I've noticed

1) The Mets have stayed patient in the count. Even in the game they lost, the Mets  took pitches and worked deep counts. In the blow out versus the Braves the Mets had base runners and scored in the 9th. Last year the Mets would have been happy to have a 1-2-3 ninth and get ready for tomorrows game. 

2) The Mets look confident late in games even if they are down. 3-0 comeback late in a game versus the hated Braves. Maybe I'm an optimist, but I felt the Mets could and would rally the entire game. Last year I rarely felt like that in any game. 

3) Jerry has done a nice job keeping a deep bench motivated. I think Jerry has done a great job keeping his bench prepared for game action. Santos, Reed, Tatis, Cora and other have been used well this year. This should allow Castillo and Castro to stay fresh throughout the year. Last night Castillo, Church and , Reed were well used. 

Hopefully Jerry can apply this philosophy to the bullpen. Lets go Stokes. 

4) Its nice to have a consistent bullpen that can throw gas and strikes. K rod and Putz are saviors. Too bad Jerry is still trying to learn not to pitch Feliciano against righties? 

5) Beltran may finally win an MVP

This is just two games, really more like 10, but these signs make me hopeful about the rest of the season. I know this is a stat site and this post is void of statistics, but this is my impression of the season so far. 

Remember not every hit counts the same.