The Remarkable Royals II
Posted: September 29th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 20 Comments »
Brilliant question from our emigo and most excellent sports fan Aaron Barnhart.*
*I have worked with Aaron at the Star for like 13 years and I think we have met once. Weird how that works.
The question: Has there ever been a team that lost 90 games with a starter and closer that had 2.25 ERAs or better. This is built around the Royals, of course. Zack Greinke has a 2.06 ERA. Joakim Soria has a 2.25 ERA. How difficult is it to lose 90-plus games with that combination?
Well, to figure this I went back to 1965 — that’s really about the time when the “closer” became somewhat prominent. There were closers before ’65, of course, but that seems a pretty reasonable cutoff. That was the first year anyone had what we would now consider 30 saves (Ted Abernathy). And Ron Kline had 29 saves that year in the American League.
Here, then, are the seven teams that have pulled the trick — I have made the qualification that the starter needed to have 200 innings pitched, and the closer needed to have 20 or more saves:
1965 San Francisco Giants: Juan Marichal and Frank Linzy. 95 wins.
1966 Los Angeles Dodgers: Sandy Koufax and Phil Regan. 95 wins and pennant.
1967 Chicago White Sox: Joe Horlen and Bob Locker. 89 wins.
1978 New York Yankees: Ron Guidry and Goose Gossage. 100 wins and World Championship.
1988 New York Mets: David Cone and Randy Myers. 100 wins and lost to Dodgers in playoffs.
1995 Atlanta Braves: Greg Maddux and Mark Wohlers. 90 wins and World Championship.
1996 Florida Marlins: Kevin Brown and Robb Nen. 80 wins.
Just missed
1988 Los Angeles Dodgers: Orel Hershiser had 2.26 ERA. Jay Howell. Won 94 games and World Series.
2005 Houston Astros: Roger Clemens and Brad Lidge had 2.29 ERA with 42 saves. Won 89 games and pennant.
So there you go. Using 2.25 ERA as a cutoff point, no team with what you might call a dominant starter and closer has come close to losing the 94 93 games (so far) that the Royals have lost. The 1996 Marlins did manage a losing record with the combination in 1996, however, and they won the World Series the very next year. So … don’t stop believing!
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Damn your oily hide!
” The 1996 Marlins did manage a losing record with the combination in 1996, however, and they won the World Series the very next year. So … don’t stop believing!”
I see a quote for the 2010 Royals yearbook…
When is the Cy Young Award decision date? Do we have to wait until after the World Series?
Wow, that is truly reMARKable!
You are out of your element Donny.
The first thing that popped in my mind was the 1972 Phillies, where Steve Carlton went 27-10, 1.97 ERA (182+), while the Phillies went 59-97. Remarkably (or maybe not), nobody on the team saved more than 4 games, and I’ll be damned if I can figure out who the nominal closer was (I’m not looking through all those box scores).
It is interesting to note that Carlton had 30 complete games (346 IP!). Carlton likely pitched the 9th inning as frequently as anyone else on the staff. One could make the argument that Carlton “closed” most of his own games (30 of 41), while pitching to a 1.97 ERA for a team that lost 97 games.
I’m not sure what conclusions can be drawn from this other than that both the 72 Phillies and the 09 Royals are truly bad teams with a great starter.
@Jordan:
The BBWA votes after the season, before the playoffs start.
They announce the winners after the World Series
I don’t know where to post this but I had to drop it somewhere when I noticed the beatdown that the Red Sox have delivered to the Orioles this year. Baltimore went 2 and 16 against Boston this year getting outscored over those 18 games by 62 runs or 3.45 runs per game. Baltimore won those two games by a total of 5 runs so in the 16 losses they were outscored by 67 runs or 4.19 runs per game. To bring it back around to the Royals, they were roughed up by the Cardinals even worse albeit in a much smaller number of games. The Royals were outscored by the Cardinals to the the tune of 27 runs over 6 games. The Royals actually managed a one-run victory over the Redbirds so they got pummeled by 28 runs over 5 games for an average of 5.6 runs. Thank you Mr. Pujols.
2009 Cardinals-
Ryan Franklin 38 Saves 1.95 ERA
Chris Carpenter 2.30 ERA (only 187.2 innings with one start to go)
I hate to say this, but the truth is. Zack Greinke is not me.
“The 1996 Marlins did manage a losing record with the combination in 1996, however, and they won the World Series the very next year. So … don’t stop believing!”
Trust The Process
Greinke is pitching in front of an atrocious, atrocious Defense.
how many earned runs has the defense cost Greinke? what is Greinke’s ERA in front of a league average defense?
Love ya, Joe, but–your friend Bill James writes about “agent tricks”, where if a guy hits 273 with 17 jacks 14 steals and 8 OF assists, his agent comes up with a set of guys who had AT LEAST 273/17/14/8 and guess what? all of those guys are better, so it’s a misleading set….
with Soria and Greinke you’re doing the same trick. try setting the cut-off at 2.50 and see what it looks like.
“How difficult is it to lose 90+ games with that combination?”
Well, keep in mind that there are approximately 125-130 games where Greinke is not pitching, the team generally does not score a lot of runs when he does pitch, and that Soria generally only pitches on those rare occassions when the team is ahead late in the game. Add in a manager who still hasn’t figured out after 157 games that Kyle Farnsworth should not be anywhere near the pitching mound late in the game in a close game, and you can get 90 losses pretty easily.
Joe, any chance you can update us on the #4 batter stats? Thanks.
Reminds me of last year had the best pitcher in the league (Lee) and a guy who was one of the top position players (Sizemore). Yet still managed to be pretty bad. Not as bad as the Royals are this year but still pretty bad.
A closer has less impact on a poor team. To get the most out of an elite closer you have to assume the team has late inning leads to protect a lot. I doubt the Royals record would be much different if they had a closer who was merely league average.
It’s a fun question and answer, but not sure what it says. As another poster noted, chance the benchmarks to a slightly higher ERA, or a few less saves, and the results will change.
Also, going back to 1965 doesn’t say much. Saves have changed dramatically over the years. During the 1965-1985(ish) period, bullpens were used differently. One-inning saves were rare, and closers came in with runners on base, thereby lowering the number of saves, and increasing the ERA. All said, there aren’t a whole lot of seasons to compare here, making it meaningless. (But, yeah, Scott Boras and his team would try to use such stats to get more money for their clients.)
Well of course the results will change but thats because a 2.25 ERA is rare, especially in the current era. But why would he need to change the parameters to 2.50 when Greinke and Soria are well below that. That also wouldn’t be a true comparison.
I, for one, am glad Zack is not pitching against the Yanks this week. Yanks are phoning it in. His last two games will be against a Twins team that might still be in the race. I’m sure if Zack had done well we would have heard an east coast chorus of, “Sure he threw a shutout, but the Yanks had clenched already and sat seven of their starters after 6 innings.”
Rob, if you’re asking just for the Royals’ #4 batters, here’s what Baseball-Reference has on their batting splits page:
.208 .279 .310 .590
An OPS+ of 45 compared to the league average for clean-up hitters…
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/split.cgi?t=b&team=KCR&year=2009
The problem with the question is that it drastically overrates the importance of the “closer.” Want a real example of losing big with a dominant starter? 1972 Phillies. Lefty Carlton goes 27-10, 1.97 ERA, 341 innings, 310 K’s, completes 30 of his 41 starts. The rest of the Phillies staff went 32-93 that year. Yes, Lefty won 27 of the 59 games that the Phils won. We can argue all day about the value of the “wins” stat – the argument of course driven by the LACK of wins by the Royals and Zack – but to do so disrespects the few pitchers who, like Lefty, were able to take truly awful teams and elevate them every fourth day to being winners. In fact, in that context, it’s possible that Carlton’s 1972 season was one of the very best ever by any pitcher. And yes, he won the Cy.