Dispelling a Myth: Perfect Relief Innings

There’s an odd thing that happens whenever a pitcher not named Andrew Miller comes out of the Indians bullpen: panic! This has probably existed for all of baseball history for all teams as high leverage relief situations are very volatile, that’s why they’re high leverage, but it wasn’t apparent to the world before social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook allowed everyone to know what everyone else was thinking all the time.

Looking at the Indians bullpen this year, they’ve either been the best in baseball or among the best. They rank third in fWAR, but that’s largely because they’ve pitched more than 25 fewer innings than the top two teams and they rank first in ERA and FIP with a reasonable BABIP that would seem to show that a huge regression isn’t immanent.

Even more incredibly, the current Indians bullpen ranks 10th in Indians history in fWAR, a counting stat that is largely based on innings pitched. In a half of a season, the 2017 bullpen has been better than 107 of 116 other Indians bullpens were over a full season. Among bullpens with at least 200 innings, they rank fourth in FIP behind 1955, 1915 and 1976 and fourth in ERA behind 1954, 1976 and 2005.

As a unit, there’s little to complain about, but let’s to look into a specific issue, the perfect inning. One of the primary complaints about Bryan Shaw and Cody Allen specifically is that they never come in and get three consecutive outs.

To start, since the Indians started using relievers in a more modern fashion in the 1950’s, they have had 3,239 perfect relief appearances with at least three outs recorded. Incredibly, Miller already has 26 of these out of 63 appearances (41%). That seems a pretty good high water mark to compare the rest of the Indians relievers since 1950. The chart below took an incredibly long time to put together, so please enjoy thoroughly:

First	Last	RGP	Perfect Appearances	Perfect%
Bob	Howry	116	41	35.3%
Chris	Perez	274	91	33.2%
Danys	Baez	129	41	31.8%
Vinnie	Pestano	192	58	30.2%
Cody	Allen	352	103	29.3%
Bob	Wickman	255	74	29.0%
Mike	Jackson	212	59	27.8%
Rafael	Betancourt	371	97	26.1%
Jose	Mesa	293	71	24.2%
Tony	Sipp	248	60	24.2%
Joe	Smith	303	72	23.8%
Bryan	Shaw	341	79	23.2%
Steve	Karsay	160	36	22.5%
Zach	McAllister	148	32	21.6%
David	Riske	287	61	21.3%
Steve	Olin	194	41	21.1%
Paul	Shuey	361	75	20.8%
Doug	Jones	291	59	20.3%
Steve	Mingori	121	24	19.8%
Derek	Lilliquist	161	31	19.3%
Nick	Hagadone	143	27	18.9%
Steve	Reed	171	32	18.7%
Rafael	Perez	338	59	17.5%
Jensen	Lewis	161	28	17.4%
Jesse	Orosco	171	28	16.4%
Gary	Bell	250	39	15.6%
Dave	LaRoche	135	21	15.6%
Ray	Narleski	182	28	15.4%
Tom	Waddell	104	16	15.4%
Eric	Plunk	373	57	15.3%
Victor	Cruz	116	17	14.7%
Don	McMahon	140	20	14.3%
Marc	Rzepczynski	145	20	13.8%
Ricardo	Rincon	207	28	13.5%
Ernie	Camacho	141	19	13.5%
Julian	Tavarez	105	14	13.3%
Scott	Bailes	113	15	13.3%
Don	Mossi	188	24	12.8%
Paul	Assenmacher	309	38	12.3%
Ed	Farmer	100	12	12.0%
Kyle	Crockett	106	12	11.3%
Tom	Buskey	161	18	11.2%
Phil	Hennigan	144	16	11.1%
Frank	Funk	112	12	10.7%
Bob	Allen	204	19	9.3%
Sid	Monge	253	23	9.1%
Dan	Spillner	234	17	7.3%
Jim	Kern	189	12	6.3%
Don	Hood	103	6	5.8%
Jamie	Easterly	138	8	5.8%

The chart above shows the top 50 relievers in Indians history in games played after 1950 and the percentage of their appearances where they retired at least three batters and didn’t allow any to reach. This is the absolute best result for any reliever and what many fans apparently demand of all relievers. From July 1st, when Cody Allen pitched an inning in relief, struck out two and walked one:

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And these could go on and on. Hopefully, Allen doesn’t like to search his name on twitter, because it isn’t pretty. Despite that, as the chart above shows, Allen has literally had more perfect appearances than any Indians pitcher ever (by 12). Of course, he’s also had more appearances than all but three pitchers in Indians history, but the percentage of perfect outings ranks fifth behind only Bob Howry, Chris Perez, Danys Baez and Vinnie Pestano. Because this particular split doesn’t count outings of less than three outs, LOOGY’s are likely undervalued, but that can’t take anything away from the fact that these pitchers all had perfect outings in 29% of their outings or better (Boone Logan has just 6 perfect outings out of 36 appearances this year, but he’s only had 10 appearances with at least 3 outs recorded and has been perfect in 13 of his other 26 appearances).

This isn’t outings without a run or blown saves, this means that 30% of the time, two of the most hated Indians ever (Perez and Baez) as well as Pestano and Allen, who are incredibly underrated, didn’t allow a base runner. If you are having a heart attack over a pitcher who is regularly perfect, I’m not sure what you have been watching over the past half century.

While not at the level of Allen, Bryan Shaw is also on this list at 23%, right next to Joe Smith who is much more highly considered among Indians fans. Zach McAllister is also on the list right below that. While there’s much more to pitching in relief than a perfect outing and how often they occur, it’s not surprising that what will likely end up being the best bullpen in Indians history includes three of the Indians all time greats in perfect outings. Add into that Andrew Miller’s 41%, Dan Otero‘s 28 of 93 from 2016 through 2017 (30%), Nick Goody‘s 8 of 31 (26%) and Shawn Armstrong‘s 10 of 34 from 2015 through 2017 (29%) and you have an entire bullpen that can be trusted to pitch a perfect inning more than anyone outside of about 10 pitchers in Indians history.

When you say:

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Who do you think will replace them?

Since 1950, there have only been 10 pitchers better at recording perfect outings for the Cleveland Indians. While this is far from a real measure of value, it is what gets commented upon most socially. People want a perfect pitcher every time out and those on the team now are about as good as any ever.

Looking up this information was extremely tedious and will only really help those who don’t trust Allen and Shaw for some reason, but thanks to Baseball Reference’s Play Index, it’s possible. While it would be extremely unnecessary to look up every pitcher ever in this fashion, it doesn’t take too long to look up one.

Mariano Rivera pitched in relief 1,105 times. An incredible 405 times he finished at least one inning without allowing a hit, walk or run. That equates to 36% of his appearances, just ahead of anyone on the Indians all time list and with far more appearances, but below what Miller has done in the last two seasons. If you really think the Indians should cut/trade/demote/replace any of their top relievers realize that, in this aspect, even adding the greatest reliever in MLB history would only be a slight improvement.

If you want more concrete, overall numbers: since 2013, Andrew Miller is #4 in reliever fWAR and Cody Allen is #12. Since Kenley Jansen, Aroldis Chapman, Craig Kimbrel and Dellin Betances are unlikely to be available in the trade market, improving on those two pitchers would seem an impossibility. In addition, Shaw ranks #51 and McAllister #75. The current Indians bullpen is not only great this year, but has been great for a really long time. Please stop publicly defaming them.