Dellin Betances Exposes Baseball

I'm going to go out on a limb and opine that Dellin Betances is awesome. The gigantic, Brooklyn-raised Yankee reliever sports a career ERA of 2.16, a WHIP of one, and 400 strikeouts in 254 innings. Those numbers put him in the company of the two best relievers in baseball -- Aroldis Chapman and Kenley Jansen.

What makes Betances especially valuable is what you might call Andrew Miller Syndrome: Betances is Joe Girardi's Swiss Army Knife, heading to the hill whenever he's needed. In three years, he's made 217 appearances -- mostly in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. He's entered games with no days' rest about as often as he's pitched with days off. And half his pitches are thrown in high-leverage situations.

A mere 22 saves belie his prodigious value to the Bronx Bombers.

The Betances Arbitration Debacle
You might have heard that Betances took the team to salary arbitration, requesting a tenfold raise to $5 million, citing projections that put his financial worth at about $15 million to the team. The Yankees countered with $3 million, citing precedent. No other non-closer has ever won more than $2 million in his first year of arbitration.

The Yankees' case is based on a flaw in the arbitration rules, which were constructed on an old paradigm that over-values closers and saves. Without the saves to make his case, Betances was forced into the untenable position of having to argue that he is a closer, which he patently isn't, although patently false arguments seem to be the strategy du jour in America.

Needless to say, the Yankees won the arbitration case and Betances will simply double his career earnings this season. 

A Great Set-up Man > A Lousy Closer
The larger issue is that the arbitration system makes no sense. Had Betances simply pitched at the same level of production all ninth innings, instead of seventh and eighth innings, he would have cited Aroldis Chapman's $5 million arbitration salary from three years ago and probably exceeded that. The irony there is that Betances pitches in more high leverage situations as a fireman than he would as a closer, who is often asked to protect two- and three-run leads.

Compare Betances with Phillies closer Jeanmar Gomez, a replacement-level pitcher who is Betances' inferior by every measure except saves, 37 of which Gomez fell into last season despite a 4.85 ERA. And by salary: those 37 saves earned Gomez a $4.2 million contract for 2017.

Take a look at the difference between these two pitchers over the last three years:
Betances: 217 games, 245 innings, 5.3 hits/9, 3.4 BB/9, 14.3 K/9, 1.93 ERA, 8.5 WAR
Gomez: 179 games, 205 innings, 10 hits/9, 2.7 BB/9, 6.4 K/9, 3.68 ERA, 1.5 WAR\

One More Thing, Randy Levine...
There is one more point to make, and that is that Yankees president Randy Levine must have been channeling his inner Jim Dolan in the aftermath of the arbitrator's decision, and now he owes Betances an apology. Levine's denigrating public rant about Betances and his arbitration strategy was mean-spirited and gratuitous. He is going to have to live with the consequences if Betances leaves town as a free agent when he's eligible because the boss treated him poorly in public.

Fireman of the Year Award Goes To Terry Francona

The Fireman of the Year Award doesn't exist anymore. It was retired in 2011, long after the notion of employing your best relief pitcher to extinguish a rally was itself extinguished.

Blame Tony LaRussa and Dennis Eckersley
The closer killed the award, given annually by The Sporting News. When the fireman was in his prime, managers called upon him in any late inning to get key outs with runners on base, then quell the riot for another frame or two.

In 1977, Sparky Lyle won the Cy Young Award (and the Fireman, of course) hurling 137 innings and winning 13 games without ever starting. Mariano Rivera, who tallied nearly three times as many saves in his career as Lyle, averaged about half as many innings per year and never pitched even 80 in a season once he became a closer.

Chapman vs. Miller
Which brings us to the two bullpen back-enders packaged by the Yankees to Chicago and Cleveland to help those two woebegone franchises make a run at a title this year. One flame-throwing lefty, Aroldis Chapman, is closing quite nicely for the Cubs, allowing two earned runs in 13 innings while fanning 22 of 53 batters he faced in August. That's exactly what Theo Epstein and his front office cadre paid a high price for.

Over in the AL, former Red Sox skipper Terry Francona was reunited with lefty flamethrower Andrew Miller, who served as Chapman's eighth-inning caddy in New York. Because he wasn't wed to saves, Miller has been amenable to serve in the old fireman role. He's entered games most often in the seventh inning, and sometimes in the eighth or the sixth. Miller has been used in only three save situations, but like Chapman, he's allowed two earned runs in 15 innings and whiffed 24 of 52 batters.

But they're not the same. They've pitched roughly the same number of innings, faced the nearly same number of batters, smoked roughly the same number and allowed the same number of runs, Miller has been much, much more valuable.

Win Probability Added
By Win Probability Added, a statistic that determines the likelihood that a team will win when a reliever enters a game and the likelihood when he exits (100% in the case of a save), Miller has gifted 1.3 wins to the Indians in just one month, while Chapman has earned just .15 for the Cubs. 

That's because a team ahead by two entering the ninth is virtually a lock to nail down the win even without the closer, whose successful "save" adds nearly nothing to the team's win probability. Contrast that to a fireman who enters with the bases juiced and a one-run lead in the seventh. That game is close to a toss-up, but if he can induce a double play, or fan the two batters, he's put out the fire and vastly improved his team's odds of winning.

The risk for a manager of trodding this weeded-over path is that another reliever blows a ninth inning lead and the hometown blowhards call for your head. But a self-confident helmsman like Terry Francona can do it, and a tip of the cap to him for trying it.

Maybe if the Tribe wins the World Series, everyone else will finally try what should never have been abandoned.

Save Him For Later

After treating their manager like the ugly sister of the girl they really wanted to date, the Washington Nationals have won the hand of star manager Davey Johnson. Good for them. Today, Johnson lost them a chance to win a game by employing a sliver of conventional wisdom that is neither.

Tied 8-8 in the bottom of the ninth, Johnson overlooked closer Drew Storen in favor of rookie Ryan Mattheus and his 15 innings of experience. The Braves promptly scored the winning run.

Brave announcers took it as a given that Storen would be held back for -- let's say it together -- a save situation. Isn't it clear to a smart tactician like Johnson that that makes no sense? If you can't use your closer with the game on the line in the bottom of the ninth, what's he for?

Now, Mattheus appears to be no stiff. Even giving up the run, his ERA stands at 1.72, albeit in a career covering 47 outs. And Storen was no guarantee. But "saving" your closer so he can add to his stats, at the expense of a win, is such a dumb move that even the least savvy manager should know better.

If giving up a run right now costs you the game, your best reliever should be on the mound. How hard is that to comprehend?

b

A Wagnerian Opera

By the time you read this, events may have passed it by, but the Mets' Billy Wagner dilemma is worth examining.

It appears that the Mets, by showcasing the fireballing lefty following his long DL stint, and then placing him on the waiver wire, expect to buy out his $1 million option next year rather than pay him $8 million to stay. That in turn indicates that the Mets don't expect to compete seriously in 2010.

There's no reason KRod and Wagner can't co-exist in Queens. They would form a devastating lefty-righty bullpen combo, with one pitching the 8th and the other the 9th depending on the handedness of the batters due up. With the help of a decent "set-up" man, the Mets would truncate each game to six innings, a prospect that could benefit the starting rotation in myriad ways.

Certainly the brains of some managers and GMs (and virtually all baseball reporters) would get snagged on the idea of splitting saves between two star closers. But statistics are servants, not masters. They should illuminate what's important, not distort strategy in order to accumulate them. A bullpen of Wagner, KRod and a few working parts would almost certainly be the best in baseball, regardless who "closes."

No one has done this before, and it bucks conventional wisdom to some degree. That's a big hill for a GM to climb, particularly a GM facing the prospect of unemployment with one more wrong move. Omar Minaya is probably more risk averse than Ben Bernanke at this point, and tampering with baseball tradition is about as risky as it gets, short of violating an "unwritten rule."

Of course, it's not my money, so it's easy for me to endorse the expenditure of $8 million. But I'm guessing that even the seriously-Madofffed Fred Wilpon would gladly spend $8 million for a pennant, particularly given what he's been through the last three MLB campaigns. In addition, the Mets may know something about Wagner that we don't. Perhaps they believe that his two-strikeout audition against the Phillies was his high water mark and that the Red Sox, or whoever takes Wagner off their hands, would be getting damaged goods. In that case, a trade might save them some salary this year, $1 million next year, and return a promising youngster in trade.

Personally, I'd like to see the Mets figure out how to create synergy with their dynamic closer duo. They might actually knock over some false idols in the process. But I'm not counting on it.
b

Seeing the Bigger Picture

One good decision by Joe Girardi and one bad decision by David Delucci did more today than turn a 3-0 Indians cruisefest into a tie game. They were microcosms of lessons teams and fans would be well-advised to understand.

With his Yankees, down by three with one out and the bases loaded in the sixth inning correctly Girardi diagnosed the situation as the critical moment of the game. Forget that more than a third of the contest lay ahead and focus instead on the opportunity before Girardi.

Weak at-bats against righty Jensen Lewis -- who had relieved Jeremy Sowers -- leave the Yankees down by three. A single reduces the lead by two-thirds. A rally gives New York the lead. Yankee bullpen superiority is moot if the Bombers fail to score, and this is likely to be their best chance.

The bottom of the order is up -- a Quadruple-A player answering to Morgan Ensberg's name and a back-up catcher swinging a rubber hose. Instead, Girardi goes to his bench, sending up Robinson Cano for Ensberg and Jorge Posada for the backstop named Gonzalez or Cabrera or Guttierez or something.

Replacing Ensberg with a second-baseman leaves someone playing out of position defensively. Inserting Posada leaves NY without any other option at catcher behind a 36-year-old and his ailing shoulder. But those are problems for a manager whose team is in the game. So Girardi plays the odds and sends up those two stars.

Cano strikes out, but Posada rips a tailing liner the opposite way that left-fielder Delucci completely misplays. Failing to recognize that the ball is coming off a left-handed bat, Delucci takes the wrong line, eliminating any chance that he might make the out. Then, with his team ahead by three and able to withstand a single, he dives, misses and allows the ball to squirt through to the wall, clearing the bases, tying the game and sending Posada, the go-ahead run, to third.

All this completes the pitching line for starter Jeremy Sowers, whose shutout becomes five plus innings of three-run ball thanks to the efforts of the bullpen -- or more accurately, the left-fielder.

So:
1. The key moment in the game is not necessarily in the eighth or ninth inning; it's whenever the pivot point occurs. If Joe Girardi appreciates that the sixth inning might be the right time to insert his best pinch hitter, why can't any manager figure out that it might also be the right time to insert his best reliever? If Mariano Rivera or Trevor Hoffman is your shutdown closer, which makes more sense, using him with the game on the line or in the ninth with a two-run lead? Or worse yet, eschewing his services at the critical moment and squandering any opportunity to take advantage of his skills?

Someday, this will be accepted wisdom. It will be considered so obvious as to be beyond debate. There may still be some ninth-inning specialists, but they will be guys who can't perform with men on base, not teams' best relievers, and they certainly won't command the big money. For that to happen, a courageous -- or perhaps desperate -- organization must implement the philosophy.

2. You have to look beyond a pitcher's basic stats, particularly won-loss record. With different relief pitching or defense, the exact same pitching performance accrues a win and five goose eggs to Sowers's credit. Instead his ERA for the day is over five and he gets a no-decision. The statheads have developed complex formulae for measuring pitchers, but they are impossible for a layperson to calculate, and still flawed. That's why when I evaluate a pitcher I consider a statistical gumbo of innings pitched, ERA and quality starts, and then season with contextual factors -- home park, defense and bullpen.