Turnbow's ERA: Victim of "Clutch"?

by RJ Anderson on Mar 23, 2008 4:44 PM EDT in Positional Reviews

In my last post we looked at Bases Per Inning Pitched (BPIP) and found the correlation between BPIP and ERA to be closer than WHIP and ERA. Today I'd like to dive into the predicted ERAS popped out from BPIP and specifically examine the case of Derrick Turnbow.

Going back to 2004 and setting an innings floor of 50 I collected nearly 1,300 individual seasons and ran their predicted ERAs as well as setting up a "Net" reading to see who was lucky and unlucky. To my surprise Milwaukee Brewers' reliever Derrick Turnbow's 2007 and 206 seasons ranked as two of the three unluckiest seasons in terms of ERA earned against predicted ERA.

Last year Turnbow had a BPIP of 0.94 - giving up less than a base per inning - and had a predicted ERA of 2.07, his real ERA wound up at 4.63, a difference of 2.56. With such a relatively low BPIP I looked into his WHIP numbers, regularly 1.32, with men on, and sure enough found an answer. It seems that Turnbow was a shutdown reliever, until someone get on base, then his WHIP rose to 1.80.

One of the most common sabermetric principles thrown around is that clutch hitting is simply a myth. As far as I'm aware nobody has ever studied the idea of "clutch pitching", but in theory they can amp up their efforts more than a hitter could in certain situations. Without swearing in that direction too much, Turnbow's 2006 numbers showed a 1.69 WHIP overall and a 2.19 WHIP once a runner got on. It's important to note that the runner counts either of his doing or an inherited runner.

So I took it another step further and looked at 2005 - his 2004 season doesn't qualify since he only pitched in six and a third innings. With a WHIP of 1.08 I guessed that his WHIP with runners on was certainly higher, and it was, at 1.48. In each of the previous three seasons Turnbow has seen his WHIP shoot up with runners on by at least a half a runner. Without having another example to provide, it goes back to the Juan Salas/Jay Witasick topic.

Obviously more research is needed to be done, but as I go through the information I'll pass along tidbits like this.

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Clutch Pitching

Lots of people have studied clutch pitching, but a better term might be "situational pitching." Unlike clutch hitting, there's good reason to believe that clutch/situational pitching exists.

In recent years, the ultimate role model was Tom Glavine, who would completely change his approach in "clutch situations" -- willing to walk guys in order to get the pitch he wanted. In those situations, his OBP against would rise but his SLG against would go down dramatically.

I believe there are some pitchers who do turn it up with runners on. In four of the last five years, for example, Johan Santana has had a lower OPS against with runners in scoring position than with no one on. Could be a statistical fluke, but could also be a pattern to watch.

by studes on Mar 23, 2008 9:44 PM EDT reply actions

Hi Dave

Nice to see you around these parts.

Great examples with Glavine and Santana. I'm pondering if trying to get someone to look at the pitchf/x data in this situations would be worth it to try and see if they vary their tendencies.

by RJ Anderson on Mar 23, 2008 11:16 PM EDT up reply actions