Is Gagne getting squeezed?

[eanelson4]

The problem imo is that you're basing an assesment on 8-10 IP, instead of his full career.

 

Understanding statistics and sampling size, I am not simply basing my opinion from the small sample that is this year. He stunk the second half of last year with the Red Sox as well. The key here is, even when his ERA was high for the Red Sox, his stats were still:

 

18.2IP

22/9 K/BB Ratio >>> his K/BB Ratio and HR given up are significantly worse this year than last.

1 HR Given up

 

HR's are notorious for killing relief pitchers, especially closers. 4HR in 14.2 innings this year vs 3HR in 42 innings last year.

 

I don't think his career stats are all that relevant at this point. I think looking back from his stint with the Red Sox last year through this year so far, the numbers do indicate a change in talent. His stats from this year and last are all we have to go off of. I am not going to look back 4 years and 1 TJ surgery ago and worry about numbers that he (and nobody else in the league for that matter) can't put up anymore.

[ninja33]

We can use all the metrics we want, but this much is clear:

 

If Weeks makes the throw to first on the double-play ball in the Cardinal game, and the first-base umpire correctly calls Blom out Sunday, we're not having this discussion right now. And neither of those things are Gagne's fault.

But Gagne putting runners on the corners with no outs in that game is his fault. I understand that he battled out of it with a K and what should have been a DP, and i commend him for that. But he's still putting way too many baserunners on, and when you do that you're leaving the door open for bad things to happen (especially with the crew's defense).

I find it hard to believe that people continue to make excuses for him. He was probably getting squeezed a little on sunday, but the fact remains he just hasn't pitched that well this year, he's put way too many people on base. I'm not saying that will continue (I actually think he's a good pitcher and can be a solid closer for the team), but he's just been bad so far.

[Fatter than Joey]

You were assured by me (I'm certainly not speaking for that whole thread) that because of how bad Bush's start was in 2007, bad luck was almost certainly part of the culprit and as a result, he was bound to improve

 

Bush's last 2 months, were almost identical to his first 2 months in 2007. He had one outlier month in June, but for most of last year, pitched like he has this year.

 

I'm trying to remember exactly what the argument about Bush was in 2007 (and I have no idea what your position was Russ), but I think in early 2007 there were expectations that he would be closer to a 3.50 ERA guy (as he was near the end of 2006) instead of a +5 ERA guy. I don't think anyone expected Bush to maintain the +6.00 ERA he had in April throughout 2007, but I didn't expect him to get down around 4.00 either, and he didn't.

 

I don't think Gagne will go the way of Turnbow, and I expect his BB rate will improve -- but again, I am not very interested in arguing Gagne's future performance, rather just saying, he hasn't pitched well to this point, and his results are indicative to his performances.

[TooLiveBrew]

his K/BB Ratio and HR given up are significantly worse this year than last.

 

Yes, due largely to one or two appearances that should level out with more IP.

 

 

I think looking back from his stint with the Red Sox last year through this year so far, the numbers do indicate a change in talent.

 

But that's being so selective -- why not include his time in Texas? Or if we're going to ignore a certain portion of recent results, why not his most recent 8 outings?

[Fatter than Joey]

I was responding to eanelson4, who seemed to be linking his expectations of Gagne to his salary.

 

I agree with you here Russ -- Gagne's salary is a bit odd because of the one year deal.

[eanelson4]

But that's being so selective -- why not include his time in Texas? Or if we're going to ignore a certain portion of recent results, why not his most recent 8 outings?

 

I guess it is being selective, good point. However if you compare his outings in Boston + Milwaukee to Texas, you have an equal number of innings and 2 distinctly different players. Here is the data

 

Milwaukee + Boston : 33.1 IP - 24 ER - 6.48 ERA - 41 Hits - 5 HR - 2.05 K/BB - 9/17 SV (~53%)

Texas : 33.1 IP - 8 ER - 2.16 ERA - 23 Hits - 2 HR - 2.42 K/BB - 16/17 SV (~94%)

 

Total '07+'08 : 66.2 IP - 32 ER - 4.32 ERA - 64 Hits - 7 HR - 2.19 K/BB - 25/34 SV (~74%)

 

Remembering that this is about all that he has pitched since '05, these are good numbers to base anything off of. Clearly this is not the Gagne of old, even if you throw Texas in the mix. That aside, it is obvious that there are 2 distinctly different players here. In Texas, he was lights out, however the latest half of his "new career" indicate that he can't keep that up. As has always been my belief with Gagne, only time will tell, but at some point we can't just keep giving him the ball, having him go 53% on save opportunities. If he can revert to even his stats totaling from '07 + '08 I would take that from a rental guy, and hopefully that will be the case

 

And on a second note - this has gotten way off topic (partly due to me), so I'll answer the original question. No, Gagne is not getting squeazed, he just isn't throwing enough strikes.

[TooLiveBrew]

Remembering that this is about all that he has pitched since '05, these are good numbers to base anything off of. Clearly this is not the Gagne of old, even if you throw Texas in the mix. That aside, it is obvious that there are 2 distinctly different players here. In Texas, he was lights out, however the latest half of his "new career" indicate that he can't keep that up.

 

But the problem for me is that you can't tell much from this sample, other than that Gagne's true talent at this point (I agree heartily with the bold section) is a composite of the Tex/Bos./Mil. numbers. Since in each individual case, the samples are so small, I'd rather rely on the three combined if I'm trying to gauge where his talent lies. Even then, it's probably incomplete, but imo it's much better than trying to determine which small sample Gagne truly is -- he's really all 3!

[rluzinski]

He had one outlier month in June, but for most of last year, pitched like he has this year.

Bush currently has a 6.48 ERA and a 5.38 FIP in 23 innings this year. To say he pitched like that for most of 2007 is just not accurate.

I'm trying to remember exactly what the argument about Bush was in 2007 (and I have no idea what your position was Russ)

It was the the exact same luck/sample size vs. "he's obviously getting hit hard and probably will continue to" debate we are having right now with Gagne. I love stats as much as anyone but trying to analyse small samples is a waste of time. Too much uncertainty. We'd be better off trying to look at his fastball velocity or the movement on his off speed pitches. Maybe focus on his machanics. Anything but the results of 14 innings.

but I think in early 2007 there were expectations that he would be closer to a 3.50 ERA guy (as he was near the end of 2006) instead of a +5 ERA guy. I don't think anyone expected Bush to maintain the +6.00 ERA he had in April throughout 2007, but I didn't expect him to get down around 4.00 either, and he didn't.

4.0 ERA? 3.5 ERA? I don't know who those people were but it sure wasn't me. He had a Marcels projection of 4.22 ERA and he had about a 4.40 ERA over the previous 2 years. Somewhere in that ballpark would have been a realistic expectation. His bad 2007 season lowered his 2008 Marcel projection to 4.55 ERA. That's about what I expect from him, going forward.

Gagne isn't an easy guy to project using a sabermetric approach because his substantial injuries have limited the innings he's pitched over the last 3 years. He had a 3.81 ERA and a 3.30 FIP in the AL last year, which is pretty decent but again, we are only talking about 52 innings. His Marcel projection is only 4.24 ERA but that's because it's so regressed to the mean so much because of lack of data. Mevlin and his scouting team must have seen something that made them conifident that Gagne would be a good bet going forward. I would have told Melvin that he probably wasn't worth the $10 mil risk and guessed at a high 3 ERA.

[nate82]

I'm not making excuses for Gagne being not great so far its just that I think he has ran into some really bad luck. I doubt this will continue with Gagne. When you look at the available closers that we could have gotten only Percival would have been the cheaper option and I believe he wanted more than a one year deal that the Brewers were offering him.

 

I'm not sure if we would even be at the same record as we are now without Gagne. It would have been either Riske or Turnbow as the closer starting out the year. Knowing Ned it probably would have been Turnbow as the closer. I really like Turnbow and I think he can be an adequate BP guy but he is not a closer anymore at least not for Milwaukee. The only way Turnbow could be a closer again is with another team like Brad Lidge going from Houston to Philly.

 

If you look at the person who had the most saves last year in Valverde he hasn't been dominant either so far this year either. It's early and maybe it was just a jump to a conclusion where it seems Gagne is getting squeezed. I still believe he has been getting squeezed on the borderline pitches. Something has to give here maybe his luck will change in the next couple of games.

[Ennder]

I guess part of the question is expectations. I expect Gagne to have an ERA in the 3.50-4.00 range so his start doesn't bother me that much. If people out there actually expected him to be a sub 3 ERA guy then yeah, he isn't that anymore.

[Patrick425]

I'm wondering what the overall attitude is in St. Louis regarding Isringhausen? His stats are not much better than Gagne's (6.6 ERA, 11 svs, 4 Bln Svs), but they are in 1st with a winning record. I'm not a Gagne apologist or anything, but I'm guessing that Izzy is being cut a little more slack by Cards fans because of their situation.

[Bucky Rules]

I'm wondering what the overall attitude is in St. Louis regarding Isringhausen? His stats are not much better than Gagne's (6.6 ERA, 11 svs, 4 Bln Svs), but they are in 1st with a winning record. I'm not a Gagne apologist or anything, but I'm guessing that Izzy is being cut a little more slack by Cards fans because of their situation.

 

And the Cards exercised their option on Izzy for 8.8Mil this year, I believe. They must have done so because they feared he would get more from somebody else. Because that's would good -- not elite -- closers make in 2008. At the end of the season, I still believe we'll look back and view Gagne as a good closer.

[Fatter than Joey]

Generally speaking, regression to the mean" isn't something you should sometimes not expect

 

I agree, however there is nothing guaranteeing us that "regression to the mean" will work nicely in between the timelines of an MLB season -- especially for a reliever that probably isn't going to get more than 70 IP in any given season. It seems to me that a lot more posters here are assuming that regressions will fit nicely into 162 games, when in reality, they can often span 2-3 seasons.

 

Gagne isn't an easy guy to project using a sabermetric approach because his substantial injuries have limited the innings he's pitched over the last 3 years.

 

I agree, and really all I was taking issue with is "Gagne has pitched well so far" -- I really am not interested in trying to project what he will do the rest of the year.

 

I would have told Melvin that he probably wasn't worth the $10 mil risk and guessed at a high 3 ERA.

 

I think Melvin knew that he rolled the dice here.

 

I'm not a Gagne apologist or anything, but I'm guessing that Izzy is being cut a little more slack by Cards fans because of their situation.

 

Winning solves a lot of problems -- I think the other difference is that Izzy has been pitching in STL for 6 years now, so Cardinal fans have a better idea of what he is doing -- Brewer fans on the other hand have a much harder time discerning what is up with Gagne.