Earned-run average isn’t the most precise measure of a pitcher’s performance over the course of a season, but it usually does a pretty good job of separating the best from the worst. Well, at least for starting pitchers it does. For bullpen guys, things are bit more complicated.
One of the primary roles of a reliever is to get his team out of jams. This entails coming into the game with runners already on base. (I’m blowing your mind here, I know. Bear with me.) A reliever’s ability to reliably escape these situations unscathed often dictates his role and his overall value in the ‘pen. Unfortunately, the only way ERA knows to account for inherited runners is to tack them on to the previous pitcher’s line — the reliever isn’t debited if they score nor credited if they don’t.
This is a rather big flaw.
Case in point: Fernando Salas had a pretty nice 2014 season by ERA, turning in a 3.38 mark in 58.2 innings. What those numbers completely overlook is that Salas was awful at getting the Angels out of jams, allowing nine of the 12 runners he inherited on the year to score. If we add even half of those runs to Salas’ season line, it increases ERA to a far less impressive 4.06.
I bring this up not to dump on Salas — he’s been much more successful with inherited runners (3 of 10 have scored) this season — but to ponder what Scioscia’s thinking is in regard to inherited runners (IR) this season. Last year, once Scioscia figured out Salas wasn’t cutting it in tight situations, Mike Morin (43 IR) and Kevin Jepsen (40) became the go-to guys with runners on, with Joe Smith (22) coming in a distant third.
This year, Jepsen’s gone and Morin’s been relegated to mostly low-leverage duty for reasons I can’t figure out. In their stead Scioscia has turned to Cesar Ramos (19), who’s been pretty solid, and Vinnie Pestano (14), who has not. Completely abandoned in these predicaments has been Joe Smith. Through Sunday, Smith has appeared in 20 games for the Angels this season and not a single one has come with runners on base. Pestano, by contrast, has inherited runners in eight of his 15 appearances on the year. Part of this can probably be explained away by situational stuff: Smith doesn’t usually pitch when the Angels are behind, Pestano does; Smith is rarely called upon before the eighth, Pestano typically pitches the sixth or seventh.
But what isn’t explained is why Scioscia continues to turn to Pestano for escaping jams in any situation. He has allowed eight inherited runners to score this year, which is the third-highest total in baseball this year. If we do the Salas thing and add half those runs to his ERA, it balloons from 4.35 all the way to 7.84. What’s worse, even that might undercut how bad Pestano’s been, as more than once he’s been pulled after putting runners on but before he could allow an inherited runner to score. And yet, it’s now four straight appearances that he’s entered with runners on base. I don’t get it.
And it’s not as though the Angels don’t have something other than ERA with which to determine how reliable a pitcher’s been regardless of whether runners are on or not. The stat RE24, which calculates how many runs a pitcher saved compared to average (i.e. 0.0) given the current base/out situation, does a great job of pulling out the signal from the noise caused by inherited runners. Since the start of 2013, here’s where the members of Angels bullpen stand by RE24 through Saturday:
Hey, look at that. Smith and Huston Street are head and shoulders above the rest, as you’d expect, while Pestano is rather comfortably bringing up the rear. He’s been eight-plus runs worse than the average reliever would’ve been in the same situations the last three seasons, so can we please, please stop using him in anything other than mop-up duty? Thanks in advance.
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