Diamondbacks Relievers Are Making History…and Not for a Good Reason

Diamondbacks Relievers Are Making History…and Not for a Good Reason

How a team’s relief corps performs in the late innings of a tie game or while holding a narrow lead shows their true value. Some relievers are there for mop-up duty; some are there to keep their team from falling farther behind so their hitters have a chance to come back. But the truly elite find themselves on the mound in late innings while holding a narrow lead or in a tie game. The Arizona Diamondbacks relievers have not found themselves in that situation very often, given the team’s dreadful record. But when they have been in that situation, they have struggled mightily. So much, in fact, that they are doing something that has never been done before, as far as we know.

The Best Way to Measure Clutch Late-Inning Relief

Regular readers of this author’s material are familiar with the relief stat known as the Goose Egg, invented by Nate Silver. It is named for Goose Gossage, who is the career leader in them. What it measures is clutch, late-inning relief. Goose Egg situations meet the following criteria:

• Seventh inning or later (or fifth inning in a scheduled seven-inning game)
• Tie game or a lead of no more than two runs
• If entering with runners on, the tying run is either at bat or on base

A scoreless inning in that situation earns a Goose Egg (GE) if the pitcher gets three outs. He’ll also get a Goose Egg if he enters with runners on base, and the number of inherited runners plus the number of outs is greater than or equal to three.

If he is charged with an earned run in that situation, he gets a Broken Egg (BE). If he gives up an earned run or an inherited run, it’s a Meh (M) — a stalemate, in other words. He’ll also get a Meh if he gives up an earned run in an inning where he still closes out a win for his team.

An important relationship to look at when using this statistic is the ratio of Goose Eggs to Broken Eggs (GE/BE). On average — going back all the way to 1921 — a pitcher (and a team) will have a 3-to-1 ratio. The best teams often have a ratio between 5:1 and 7:1. In other words, in a GE scenario, an average team will pitch a scoreless inning three out of four times. The current league leader — the Chicago Cubs — has a ratio of 7.4 to 1, meaning that roughly seven out of eight innings in a GE scenario will be scoreless.

Diamondbacks Relievers in the Clutch

Back to the Diamondbacks. On June 15, they were in San Francisco facing the NL-leading Giants. When Humberto Castellanos entered the game in the bottom of the eighth inning, there were runners on first and third with two outs. The Diamondbacks led, 8–5. Since the tying run was at bat, and since the number of outs he would potentially pitch, plus the inherited runners he had, was three, it was a Goose Egg scenario. He walked the first hitter, Curt Casali, to bring up Mike Yastrzemski. On a 1–2 count, Yastrzemski hit a grand slam that was barely fair. Broken Egg. 9–8 Giants, a score that held up to the end.

That Broken Egg was the 23rd by a Diamondback this season. The team, at the time, also had 23 Goose Eggs. As of this writing, they have 24 GE and 24 BE — a straight 1:1 GE/BE ratio. This is the lowest GE/BE ratio ever measured. (Full disclosure: We do not have data from 2018-2020.)

Goose Egg Record

Complete Goose Egg Record of Diamondbacks relievers as of the close of play June 24.

Unreliable Relief

This means that in a Goose Egg scenario, there is a 50/50 chance that the Diamondbacks will give up an earned run. That played out as predicted Friday, June 18 against the Los Angeles Dodgers, when they had 23 of each. Caleb Smith had matched reigning Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer zero for zero through the first six innings. In the seventh, Noe Ramirez pitched a Goose Egg. In the eighth, Joe Mantiply pitched a Broken Egg. 50/50 chance, and that’s exactly what happened.

When a position player has a bad game, the team can still win. The team can also still lose when a position player has a good or great game. An example Mark Grace gives is that he was the last Chicago Cubs player to hit for the cycle — May 9, 1993, against the San Diego Padres — but the Cubs still lost, 5–4. When a starting pitcher has a bad game, the team can still win. But when a closer has a bad game, the team loses every time.

A Gut Punch

There is still a lot of baseball left to be played. The Diamondbacks relievers can turn this around. But if current trends hold, the Diamondbacks will make history with the lowest GE/BE ratio in the modern era of relief pitching. (This began in the 1950s, when teams started using relievers as weapons.)

Something has to change. What they’re doing right now isn’t working. Tyler Clippard’s pending return might help, but he’s only one player. There is no help on the way from the minors, so some more free agent signings or waiver claims of a pitcher who has been designated for assignment need to happen. The season has had enough gut punches. A record-low GE/BE ratio — at least to those who are familiar with the stat — might be the ultimate one.

Nate Silver’s Original Article on Goose Eggs

Main Photo:
Embed from Getty Images

Players mentioned:
Humberto Castellanos, Curt Casali, Mike Yastrzemski, Kevin Ginkel, Taylor Clarke, Stefan Crichton, Caleb Smith, Alex Young, Matt Peacock, Noe Ramirez, Ryan Buchter, Yoan Lopez, Joakim Soria, Riley Smith, Chris Devenski, Joe Mantiply, Anthony Swarzak, JB Bukauskas, Trevor Bauer, Mark Grace, Tyler Clippard