Friday, October 5, 2007

Smith ranked highest, Mota lowest

The statistic Left On Base Percent is a good indicator of a pitcher's ability. LOB% refers to the percentage of runners that got on base but didn’t score. Good pitchers have a high LOB%.

Fangraphs.com contains the LOB% rates for 299 relievers who pitched this past season in the National League. Unfortunately, from the fangraphs.com data you can't tell if, for relievers, the LOB% includes inherited runners.

Here's how the Mets most used relievers ranked:

Rank .. Name .................. LOB%
69 ...... Joe Smith ............ 80.8
70 ...... Billy Wagner ........ 80.7
92 ...... Mike Pelfrey ......... 77.8
153 ..... Pedro Feliciano ... 72.3
164 ..... Aaron Sele ...........71.3
168 ..... Aaron Heilman .... 71.1
182 ..... Scott Schoeneweis .. 69.7
191 ..... Jorge Sosa .............. 68.1
200 ..... Philip Humber ........ 66.7
232 ..... Guillermo Mota ...... 61.3

It shouldn't be a surprise that Mota ranks both at the bottom of the Mets list and near the bottom of the whole National League. What was a surprise was the Mets reliever who ranked the highest in LOB%: Joe Smith.

As a starter, Pelfrey didn't do as well as he did as a reliever. His LOB% as a starter dropped to 68.3.

1 comment:

  1. I don't think this includes inherited runners. Joe Smith allowed about half of them to score. I remember that he maintained his scoreless innings streak for a while by coming in with runners on, allowing them to score, and then getting out of the inning.

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