Unfortunately, all his links are broken. He used to blog at all-baseball.com, and now blogs at baseballtoaster.com . His URLs did not remap.

It’s a great series if you want to take the time to read them (and if someone wants to post the actually URLs).

They are no different to learn than NFL coaches looking at their charts as to when to go for 1 or 2 points.

The tougher part is the warmup. It takes 2-3 batters to warm up, so you can be in a blue zone, the ace warms up, it’s now a redzone, and by the time he is ready, it’s a no-leverage situation.

What would be nice to know is how often Goose and Rollie were warmed up in the 7th/8th innings, only to never enter the game. Those games are not “on the books”, but the 9th inning 4-run lead that Rivera enters are accounted for.

The trouble with using a stat like this is that it’s way too computation-intensive for any manager sitting in a dugout. Until we reach an era when there’s a guy with a laptop sitting next to him (or whispering into his headset), LI just isn’t going to be used in real time in a game situation. However, even as casual fans we instinctively recognize high leverage situations, and they should be obvious to a good/experienced manager even without supporting calculations. In fact, you could argue that LI is a way for those of us with less experience to arrive at the same conclusion that any “smart old baseball guy” gets from his gut. So when we see a manager apparently oblivious to these situations, or reacting to them inappropriately, we can conclude his gut, however large it may be, is failing him. When he does this repeatedly, we can conclude he’s incapable of managing a pitching staff effectively in game situations. We might even be able to come up with a numerical ranking of managers according to how well they use relievers in high leverage situations. And I think we all know who would be dwelling near the bottom of such a list.

I also recommend the Fangraphs leaderboards for LI, as noted in the above comment. In The Book, I showed how the LI for the closer should be in the 2.1 to 2.3 range, not the 1.7-1.9 that is the norm. Percival was the only one used close to optimal in 99-02. (Of course, just looking at a few games in 2007 won’t be enough.) The basic thing is to stop the 3+ run lead appearances in the 9th, and introduce 8th inning situations. If we’re looking for LI situations of 2.0 or higher, then there are plenty of situations where the LI is 3.0 and above for your ace to come into:
http://www.insidethebook.com/li.shtml#16

As well, Mike’s Baseball Rants had a great series on reliever usage. I’ll look for it tonight, but you can try finding it on baseballtoaster.com .

IMHO, what will change this is when closers become the generally accepted “best relief pitcher” (many times the case now), and thus a “rally killer.” This will end up replacing the closer and the save concept. Think “men left on base” (from a previous pitcher.)

Yeah, this kills me. Theoretically you could have a guy come in every game with three men on, give up an XBH so all three score, then get the remaining out(s) — and he could do this every game, all season, losing game after game, and still end up with an ERA of 0.00. Yeah, I know ERA is bogus as a predictive stat but here it completely blows as a performance measurement altogether. Sure, there are other stats that would capture what Mateo-esque suckitude this represents, but still — what number factors into contract talks and fan conversation (and the thinking of managers like Hargrove)?

Getting back to the original discussion, I will note that if you look at the Fangraphs leaderboard and sort by pLI, the top of the list is heavily dominated by “closers.” Which — I think — suggests they generally are being used correctly, even if it’s by accident. (In this regard it’s interesting to compare Jones and Zumaya: though Jones has a higher ERA, he is also higher in pLI and WPA). And what Mariner reliever has the most negative WPA? (The astonishing thing is that he’s only the 13th worst).

This from a Bill Simmons chat session:

Craig (Kalamazoo, Michigan):: As a Tiger fan, how long do I have to wait untill I get to see Zumaya with the closing job?

Bill Simmons: It’s completely illogical. It makes no sense. He’s the best reliever on the team, but the 3rd-best reliever (Jones) closes games. My buddy Hench and I whine about this all the time because we have Zumaya on our AL team — when Jones blew the KC game this week, we were going nuts. If you’re the Royals, who would you rather face in the 9th — 103 MPH throwing unhittable Zumaya, or a guy who looks like he was just signed from a semi-pro beer league? It makes no sense.

Could this be the example of giving the “closer” job to a veteran just to have a name attached, but then using your relief ace (Zumaya) as your real stopper…hmm….

IMHO, what will change this is when closers become the generally accepted “best relief pitcher” (many times the case now), and thus a “rally killer.” This will end up replacing the closer and the save concept. Think “men left on base” (from a previous pitcher.)

If you save a “closer” for the 9th only, you may not ever need him because the game is out of reach or the team is behind.