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ShareThisLowest WHIP for middle relievers, 2005-2007
I see that David Riske got a nice fat contract from the Brewers and I was curious to see how he came out on this fairly arbitrary search for the best relievers from the last 3 years.
The criteria are at least 80% of games in relief, at least 100 IP total over those 3 seasons, and no more than 20 saves (to eliminate closers.) You'll notice that some players qualified with just 2 of those 3 seasons.
Here are all the guys meeting those criteria with WHIPs under 1.2:
Cnt Player **WHIP** SV IP From To Ages G GS CG SHO GF W L W-L% H R ER BB SO ERA ERA+ HR BF IBB HBP BK WP Teams BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ SH SF 2B 3B GDP SB CS Pk +----+-----------------+---------+---+------+----+----+-----+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+-----+----+----+----+----+----+------+----+---+-----+---+---+---+---+-----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+---+---+---+---+---+----+---+---+ 1 Pat Neshek 0.932 0 107.1 2006 2007 25-26 106 0 0 0 23 11 4 .733 67 34 32 33 127 2.68 163 13 416 5 2 0 2 MIN .181 .248 .323 .571 50 4 6 12 1 4 4 4 0 2 Rafael Soriano 0.962 11 139.1 2005 2007 25-27 131 0 0 0 46 4 5 .444 97 43 41 37 144 2.65 163 18 547 2 5 0 2 SEA-ATL .193 .255 .343 .598 58 1 2 15 3 8 14 4 0 3 Rafael Betancourt 0.967 7 203.2 2005 2007 30-32 172 0 0 0 44 12 8 .600 160 61 58 37 201 2.56 173 16 792 10 0 0 0 CLE .214 .250 .330 .580 52 3 4 37 1 7 15 10 0 4 Russ Springer 1.040 0 184.2 2005 2007 36-38 210 0 0 0 46 13 6 .684 136 75 70 56 166 3.41 128 22 743 5 10 0 5 HOU-STL .205 .274 .349 .623 64 6 6 20 5 10 13 4 0 5 Justin Speier 1.065 0 168 2005 2007 31-33 174 0 0 0 53 7 5 .583 131 55 52 48 158 2.79 162 21 684 5 8 1 7 TOR-LAA .211 .276 .366 .642 66 6 2 27 3 4 13 6 1 6 Bobby Howry 1.069 16 231 2005 2007 31-33 241 0 0 0 82 17 16 .515 195 82 77 52 191 3.00 150 20 927 8 5 0 2 CLE-CHC .229 .275 .345 .620 62 12 6 27 6 13 10 6 0 7 Matt Capps 1.088 19 163.2 2005 2007 21-23 165 0 0 0 62 13 8 .619 150 61 56 28 123 3.08 143 17 660 15 7 0 5 PIT .246 .285 .384 .669 76 11 4 31 1 14 6 3 1 8 Justin Duchschere 1.097 14 157.2 2005 2007 27-29 135 0 0 0 43 12 8 .600 137 52 48 36 149 2.74 159 14 637 6 3 0 5 OAK .233 .279 .349 .628 65 6 4 20 3 12 14 3 3 9 Aaron Heilman 1.128 6 281 2005 2007 26-28 208 7 1 1 62 16 15 .516 232 113 102 85 242 3.27 129 19 1147 7 14 1 8 NYM .226 .292 .327 .619 66 15 5 37 5 25 26 5 0 10 Peter Moylan 1.133 1 105 2006 2007 27-28 95 0 0 0 21 5 3 .625 83 35 26 36 77 2.23 192 7 427 13 7 0 2 ATL .221 .299 .323 .622 66 5 4 13 2 13 11 2 1 11 Scot Shields 1.139 11 256.1 2005 2007 29-31 223 0 0 0 47 21 23 .477 198 99 89 94 259 3.12 142 20 1046 6 7 0 26 LAA .212 .288 .317 .605 60 7 5 36 1 21 19 3 1 12 Manuel Corpas 1.151 19 110.1 2006 2007 23-24 113 0 0 0 49 5 4 .556 99 33 31 28 85 2.53 191 9 442 4 4 0 2 COL .243 .298 .356 .654 67 2 1 17 1 15 3 4 0 13 David Riske 1.154 5 186.1 2005 2007 28-30 164 0 0 0 72 5 10 .333 156 67 63 59 128 3.04 148 25 766 5 8 0 0 CLE-TOT-KCR .228 .294 .390 .684 78 8 6 32 2 16 9 3 0 14 George Sherrill 1.166 4 104.2 2005 2007 28-30 174 0 0 0 24 8 7 .533 71 43 42 51 122 3.61 120 7 433 7 2 1 1 SEA .195 .292 .294 .586 56 9 7 15 0 5 4 2 2 15 Jon Rauch 1.174 6 208.2 2005 2007 26-28 188 1 0 0 49 14 13 .519 177 86 81 68 180 3.49 121 23 861 12 3 1 8 WSN .229 .289 .371 .660 78 4 12 33 4 9 17 5 0 16 Joel Zumaya 1.179 2 117 2006 2007 21-22 90 0 0 0 19 8 6 .571 79 36 34 59 124 2.62 174 9 492 4 3 0 7 DET .187 .288 .277 .565 48 3 5 7 2 3 7 1 0 17 Cla Meredith 1.183 0 132.2 2005 2007 22-24 128 0 0 0 29 10 7 .588 130 51 44 27 96 2.98 136 10 545 7 6 3 4 BOS-SDP .256 .300 .353 .653 79 2 3 15 2 18 11 3 0 18 Darren Oliver 1.183 0 145.1 2006 2007 35-36 106 0 0 0 30 7 2 .778 128 64 58 44 111 3.59 124 18 606 4 4 1 2 NYM-LAA .234 .292 .385 .677 77 4 8 26 1 10 6 1 0 19 Tony Pena 1.190 3 116 2006 2007 24-25 100 0 0 0 19 8 8 .500 99 57 50 39 84 3.88 121 14 479 4 5 1 4 ARI .231 .300 .402 .702 80 3 4 19 6 12 1 1 3 20 Josh Hancock 1.196 1 103.2 2005 2007 27-29 81 0 0 0 24 4 4 .500 95 47 43 29 64 3.73 118 12 433 2 1 1 4 CIN-STL .242 .293 .410 .703 84 6 4 26 2 12 4 0 1 21 Scott Linebrink 1.197 4 219.2 2005 2007 28-30 217 0 0 0 39 20 11 .645 193 81 74 70 188 3.03 133 25 897 10 2 0 11 SDP-TOT .235 .296 .373 .669 83 3 2 28 5 17 22 5 0
Riske makes the list at #13, and he's definitely posted some good numbers. Frankly, I didn't realize just how well the late Josh Hancock would stand up to such a set of criteria, but he makes it too at #20.
Scott Linebrink squeaks in there too, although his numbers have been trending very badly over the last 2 seasons. I suspect that Chicago greatly overpaid for him, and time will tell.
By the way, I hear a lot of people ask why middle relief pitchers aren't better. The answer is pretty clear: if they were good, they'd eventually become either a closer or a starter, roles upon which more emphasis is placed. Middle relievers tend on average to be the worst major league pitchers, with numerous exceptions.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 8:33 am and is filed under Season Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
December 6th, 2007 at 11:24 am
I wonder if there has ever been a list of 21 pitchers pulled from the P-I that had only 2 lefties.
December 6th, 2007 at 11:32 am
I guess this list is slightly biased against lefties because of the 100 IP requirement, since many lefties are used for fewer batters overall.
December 6th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Hi Andy
I thought about that too, but I did a quick informal study of run of the mill lefty relievers; Orosco, Groom, Embree, Stanton, Villone, Rincon, Eure and they seemed to have no problem meeting the 100 IP threshold.
December 6th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
I duplicated your study and restricted it to lefties and found 34 qualifiers with the median WHIP being 1.409. Doing the same survey for righties gave me 102 qualifiers withe a medium of 1.368
Using the top 15th percentile cutoff I found the lefty cutoff to be 1.256, and the righty cut off to be 1.179
Using the top 85th percentile cutoff I found the lefty cutoff to be 1.563, and the righty cut off to be 1.521
I don't know waht to draw from this, perhaps the scarcity of lefties causes a manager to give chances to less effective left handers, or perhaps this simply reflects left-handers being at a platoon disadvantage more than right handers.
I guess that's a topic for another day.