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2014 Indians Prospects That Matter: Relief Pitchers

Introducing the 2014 Indians Prospects That Matter (relief pitchers)

By Ryan
Preston Guilmet
Preston Guilmet
Jason Miller
2013 in Review: Minors

Levels: DSL Indians (R-) • AZL Indians (R-) • Mahoning Valley (SSA) • Lake County (A-) • Carolina (A+) • Akron (AA) • Columbus (AAA)

Players: SS Francisco Lindor • C Tony Wolters • RHP Mitch Brown • SS Dorssys Paulino • OF Tyler Naquin • 2B/SS Ronny Rodriguez • OF Luigi Rodriguez • OF LeVon Washington • RHP Cody Anderson • OF Clint Frazier • RHP Trevor Bauer

2013 Mid-season Prospects That Matter

2013 Pre-season Prospects That Matter

2014 Preview: Minors

Part I: Resources (other lists)

Part II: 2013 PTM Review

Part III: A quantitative prospect comparison (position players)

Part IV: Testing the new PTM formula

Prospects That Matter

Part I: Position Players

Part II: Starting Pitchers

Last time we covered the starting pitchers in the organization, and this time we'll look at the relievers.

For those who missed it, here's the PTM formula for pitchers:

-NetOBP-NetSLG+NetSORate+AgeMod+PosMod

Where:

NetOBP = (LN(OppOBP)-LN(LgAvgOppOBP))*1.8

NetSLG = LN(OppSLG)-LN(LgAvgOppSLG)

NetSORate = (LN(SORate)-LN(LgAvgSORate))/4

AgeMod = Age-LgAvgAge*Mod (see here for the modification details)

PosMod: Starting Pitchers have no modification, while Relief Pitchers have a -.600 modification to their score to account for the innings differences. For instance, the typical reliever throws 50-60 innings in a season, while a typical starter throws 180-200 innings. Leaving leverage aside, a starter is going to be more valuable to a club than a reliever.

As you can see, a relievers gets a rather sizable penalty, and while that may seem harsh, I think it reflects the future value of a starter and a reliever. Only a very few relievers in the game top 3.0 Wins Above Replacement (Craig Kimbrel, for instance), while a good starter can easily reach that mark because the amount of innings he's on the mound. Yes, good closers can earn in some cases as much as a good starter (witness Kimbrel's recent extension), but I don't think dollars is equal to value in this case. If you're on a limited budget, I think you'd much rather pay a good starting pitcher $10M to pitch 200 innings than a great reliever to pitch 60.

On to the rankings:

(click to embiggen)

(download complete file - Excel)

2014_ptm_-_relief_pitchers_medium

The 2014 PTMs:

Prospects That Really, Really Matter:

  • None

Prospects That Really Matter:

  • Preston Guilmet

Prospects That Matter:

  • Bryan Price
  • C.C. Lee

Honorable Mention

  • Enosil Tejeda, who just missed the cut at .249

Notes:

  • I included Nick Hagadone in here, even though he no longer has rookie eligibility, because he pitched more in Columbus than in Cleveland.
  • If there was one number I wish I could manually fix, it was Austin Adams, who ended up at -.378. In 2013 he was coming back from shoulder surgery, and remained in Akron the entire season. That triggered a considerable age penalty (he was over two years older than the Eastern League average). Walks also hurt him, as walked 4.75 per 9 innings, which translated into a .316 OBP, almost .100 of which is due to the free passes.

Next Up: Recap

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