Five, six, seven hitters in the eigth.
And I suppose you'll evaluate each batter's OBP since Pagan tends to walk people?
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MLB: ***2024 Minnesota Twins***
- Thread starter Marcelason78
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And I suppose you'll evaluate each batter's OBP since Pagan tends to walk people?
If it's the Yankees 2-3-4 guys, bring in Duran.
If it's the bottom of the order, I go somewhere else and play for Duran to face the best guys in the 9th.
Let's take the game tonight and say you are up 5-3 and have Duran, Pagan, Smith, Thielbar and Jax.
LeMahieu leading off - Duran possibly stretching Duran to 2 innings if it's a 123 eighth. Maybe put in Smith for LeMahieu and then Duran, but probably not.
Judge Leading off - same as above. Oddly Judge has hit righties way harder than lefties so maybe theilbar for Judge and Rizzo.
Rizzo - same as judge, but likely not stretching Duran as the others can better handle the bottom of the order.
Stanton - Duran for sure unless one of the other guys has a great history against him.
Donaldson - he has sucked against lefties this year, so I would go Thielbar.
6 or 7 hitter - save Duran for top of order or ninth.
8 or 9 hitter - start with SmithPagan through LeMahieu, then bring in Thielbar or Duran if it gets to Judge.
Also, Jhoan Duran is #7 in the AL in Win Probability Added and T-10 in the MLB.
Oh, and among relievers only, he's #2 in MLB.
His usage is exactly where it should be. Highest leverage outs.
Oh, and among relievers only, he's #2 in MLB.
His usage is exactly where it should be. Highest leverage outs.
Good point. You aren't getting those numbers if you aren't used in the right spots often enough.
Mariano Rivera? He pitched 2 innings often and I think they had a lot of STUD setup guys.
Not sure what you mean by Hader.
Mariano Rivera's career Win Probability Added per inning pitched (RP years only): 0.0469
Duran 2022: 0.0711
The odds of winning a game your leading by 3 in the 9th are already, uh, high. Even +2 in the 9th, not a lot of WPA left to get, lot of 9th innings in there where he was probably overkill.
At least FDW and I agree that Duran is our best relief pitcher. Don't know if you agree or if you think Pagan is the guy?
Never said Duran can't go two innings. My take is that Duran is brought in to close the game, not be a 'high leverage' 6th or 7th inning guy.
Dug into Hader a little bit.
Twins have blown 7 saves in 21 opportunities. 12 teams are worse, so they are middle of the pack.
Brewers have 7 saves in 30 opportunities. Only 2 teams are better than them. They only have Hader pitch the 9th inning basically, but even on 6/5, they pitched him in a high leverage 9th inning of a tied game.
So is Milwaukee doing it wrong? Not really. I believe Hader is leading all relievers in WPA, so he's getting a ton of high leverage situations. He's made 20 appearances. Once in a tied game, 10 one run games, 5 two run games and 2 three run games. HIs other two saves were 1 out saves when a reliever got into trouble. Both were easy saves, though, where the tying run was on deck (not on base or at bat).
Could the Brewers have been better off if they didn't just stick to him in the 9th inning? Lets see, they have 6 blown saves by someone other than Hader.
4/22 - Ashby/Boxburger blew a 2-1 lead in the 8th. 4/21 was an off day, so Hader was available and the first 3 hitters (Bryce Harper, Nick Castellanos and JT REalmuto) reached based. Hader should have pitched the 9th, no doubt.
4/24 - Gott blew a 1-0 lead in the 8th. Hader had pitched the last 2 days (23 total pitches). Got was facing hitters 7-9. 100% the right move. Let Gott get the bottom of the order and then bring in Hader in the 9th (if he could pitch 3 in a row, which he has not all year).
5/23 - Boxburger blew a 2-1 lead in the 7th. Devin Williams got saves on the 24th and 25th, so Hader was likely not even available.
I think the other 3 BS were prior to the 7th inning, where no one would use their best RP.
So really, Milwaukee's use of Hader fits the "use your best pitcher in the highest leverage situations in innings 7-9." They've only lost 1 game where they reasonably should have done that.
Twins have blown 7 saves in 21 opportunities. 12 teams are worse, so they are middle of the pack.
Brewers have 7 saves in 30 opportunities. Only 2 teams are better than them. They only have Hader pitch the 9th inning basically, but even on 6/5, they pitched him in a high leverage 9th inning of a tied game.
So is Milwaukee doing it wrong? Not really. I believe Hader is leading all relievers in WPA, so he's getting a ton of high leverage situations. He's made 20 appearances. Once in a tied game, 10 one run games, 5 two run games and 2 three run games. HIs other two saves were 1 out saves when a reliever got into trouble. Both were easy saves, though, where the tying run was on deck (not on base or at bat).
Could the Brewers have been better off if they didn't just stick to him in the 9th inning? Lets see, they have 6 blown saves by someone other than Hader.
4/22 - Ashby/Boxburger blew a 2-1 lead in the 8th. 4/21 was an off day, so Hader was available and the first 3 hitters (Bryce Harper, Nick Castellanos and JT REalmuto) reached based. Hader should have pitched the 9th, no doubt.
4/24 - Gott blew a 1-0 lead in the 8th. Hader had pitched the last 2 days (23 total pitches). Got was facing hitters 7-9. 100% the right move. Let Gott get the bottom of the order and then bring in Hader in the 9th (if he could pitch 3 in a row, which he has not all year).
5/23 - Boxburger blew a 2-1 lead in the 7th. Devin Williams got saves on the 24th and 25th, so Hader was likely not even available.
I think the other 3 BS were prior to the 7th inning, where no one would use their best RP.
So really, Milwaukee's use of Hader fits the "use your best pitcher in the highest leverage situations in innings 7-9." They've only lost 1 game where they reasonably should have done that.
Duran is our best relief pitcher. He should come in in the highest leverage situation when it makes sense.
Give me a break on the 6th inning BS. I wouldn't normally want him in the 6th, but with this bullpen, there are times when it makes sense. Here are the games where he came in before the 7th.
His major league debut (before we knew he was our best pitcher). But it was for 2 innings in a game we trailed 2-1 against the heart of the Seattle order.
On 4/30, he entered a game against the Rays in the 6th inning. It was a 1-1 game when he started warming up and the meat of the Rays order was coming up. The Twins did take a 3-1 lead in teh Top of the 6th (after the decision to bring Duran in was made). Duran pitched 2 innings while the Twins extended the lead to 5-1 and had no need for a "Closer" in the game they won 9-1.
On 6/2, he pitched the 6th and 7th of a 2-1 game before Pagan blew the save in the 8th. He faced Detroits 1-6 hitters and left Pagan with the 7-9 hitters and few f'd it up. But can you honestly say with a straight face that using Pagan would have faired better against Detroits 1-6 hitters? More likely, Pagan or Duffy would have blown the lead in the 6th or 7th and Duran wouldn't have even gotten the save opportunity.
5/27 is a great example of this logic in action. Duran pitched the 8th with a 6-5 Twins lead. Twins score 4 in the bottom of the 8th. Rather than giving Duran a 2 inning save, they pull him for Cano/Pagan. Save some pitches thrown and what happens if Cano/Pagan pitch the 8th in a 6-5 lead instead of the 9th with a 10-5 lead. I don't want to know.
Since Hader is awesome and apparently a model for the fact that your best relief pitcher to "close" games, I wanted to compare.
Duran has pitched in 19 games, Hader 20.
Duran has pitched 25.2 innings, Hader 18.2.
Duran has had some mopup duty (up by 4 or down by 2). His third outing fit that bill, which makes sense. The other 2 times were after he went 5 days without pitching and another time when he went 3 days without pitching (5/13 and 5/18), so getting him some work made sense. The 5 day gap included the day after he pitched 2 innings (and the Twins won) plus the 3 blowout losses to the Dodgers where a "closer" wouldn't help. The 3 day gap included 2 close wins for the Twins (after he had pitched back to back days), but the 5/17 game they let Winder blow a tie game when they could have used Duran (although it was the 7th inning, which you say is a huge no-no for a "closer"). In both cases, the Twins won at least the next 2 games, so giving Duran mopup duty had no ill effect on future wins/losses.
Duran did not pitch between 5/28 and 6/1 which was 6 games in 5 days. That was very odd, but in those 6 games, there was only one game where it made sense to use him. In the 5/30 loss to Detroit when they were tied 4-4 in the 7th with 2-4 hitters coming up (which you would say is not a situation to use him) or in the 8th when they trailed 6-5 (another situation you would say not to use him). Every other game in that stretch either had the Twins up by 4 or more after the fifth or trailing by 2 or more.
They should have pitched him in the 7th last night against the Yankees (instead of Duffey), but you must think Rocco made the right call since you don't use your best RP in the 7th inning. So glad we saved him for the save opportunity.
Definitely should have used him on 5/26 with a 2-0 lead in the 8th, but with batters 6-8 due up, they thought Duffy could handle the 8th and let Duran be fresh to face the top of the order in the 9th (The Brewers would NOT have pitched Hader in this situation)
Definintely should have used him on 5/25 with a 2-1 lead in the 8th. Top of the order up, so I'm surprised Rocco didn't use Duran. He pitched the day before, but he's gone back to back a few times. Unless there was a specific reason not to use him (like he was sore or something), that was a bad move.
So, in summary, using your criteria that your best relief pitcher should be your "closer" and should only come in for 8th or 9th inning save opportunities, I can only find 2 games (5/25 and 5/26), where they should have used Duran and did not and it cost them a win. And if they had used him to get a 2 inning save on 5/25, there is no way they would have asked him to pitch 2 innings on 5/26, so really, it only cost the Twins 1 game.
Duran is ranked extremely high in WPA.
There are only a handful of RP with more IP than he has.
The only closers with more IP than him are David Bednar, Jorge Lopez and Clay Holmes (less than 2 inning each).
He's around the same IP as top "closers" Hendricks, Jansen, Rogers.
Far more innings pitched that Hader.
I just don't see a usage problem with Duran yet.
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Which inning last night was the Twins' "high leverage" inning? Did it make sense to bring in Duran then?
Seems like you want it both ways.
had we not scored 2 in the bottom of the 5th. Probably the 6th or 7th inning. Once you have a 3 run lead, It isn't as high leverage anymore.