Lowest WHIP for middle relievers, 2005-2007
Posted by Andy on December 6, 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.
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.