Friday, June 12, 2009
Kyle Farnsworth
See, this is exactly the kind of article I like from Poz and exactly the reason that MGL likely won’t:
He has struck out more than one batter per inning, he has a better than 2-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio, he allows fewer than one hit per inning, the league is hitting .250 against him in his career … and yet his ERA+ is less than 100 and he has blown 32 of the 59 save opportunities*. Now, seriously, how’s that possible?
*Farnsworth is one of only three pitchers in baseball history — along with Ryne Duren and Oliver Perez — to strike out more than one batter per inning and have a below average ERA+. Farnsworth is the only one of the three to have a better than 2-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio.
How’s is possible? I don’t know, really.
Kyle Farnsworth has a career 4.44 ERA.
Kyle Farnsworth has a career 4.44 FIP.
Kyle Farnsworth may have a great K rate, and a good K/BB ratio, but when you allow 114 HR on 722 hits (16%, when the league average is just over 10%), well, that explains everything.
What I commend Joe in his story telling. He painted a great picture, he looked in alot of places. But, when the ERA = FIP, then there is no puzzling piece. FIP is made up of K, BB, and HR. And Joe only looked at two of those pieces. It’s a little thing that I’ll overlook, and we’ll see if MGL thinks it’s too much of a gaffe to accept.
Anyway, it is a great find that Joe has where he shows that Farnsworth is almost always used in low-leverage situations. The Fangraphs page quantifies this with an LI of 0.55. That is worse than mop-up duty. And yet, somehow, he managed to have a clutch score of -2.7 wins. In 21 IP!!!
For those who are not used to the clutch score, the league trailer in worse clutch wins is usually in the -2 wins range. But after a full season. The current leaders, after Farnsworth, is 4 pitchers tied at -1.3 clutch wins (Brandon Lyon, Fausto Carmona, Masa Kobayashi Maru… sorry Indians fans, and Luis Ayala). If you think of those pitchers depresses you with his performance in the clutch this year, imagine having two of them, but stuck into the same body. That, is Kyle Farnsworth.
I would not be surprised if Farnsworth will end up with the worst Clutch season for any pitcher in the Retrosheet era, for someone who pitches in as few high leverage situations as he does.
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