Sunday, March 11, 2007

Runs Saved by Tigers Pitchers

Yesterday, I looked at Support Neutral Wins (SNW) and Winning Percentage (SNPCT) as ways to rank the all-time best Tigers pitchers. SNW says more about pitcher longevity while SNPCT is a measure of excellence. Another statistic which combines longevity with excellence is runs saved above average (RSAA). RSAA is the number of runs saved by a pitcher over an average pitcher's run allowed. It was created by Lee Sinnis and is similar to Pete Palmer's Pitching Runs which is calculated as follows:

(Lge Runs Allowed/9 IP - Runs Allowed/9 IP)*IP

How well this statistic balances longevity with excellence depends on which one you value more but it's considered by many analysts to be a reasonable measure for comparing pitchers across eras. The Top 20 Tigers pitchers of all-time in terms of RSAA are listed in the table below. Leading the pack are Tommy Bridges and Hal Newhouser, each with 301 runs saved above average.

The data for this analysis were extracted from the Lee Sinnis Complete Baseball Encyclopedia.



Table 1: Career Runs Saved by Tigers Pitchers


Pitcher

IP

RSAA

Tommy Bridges

2826

301

Hal Newhouser

2944

301

Dizzy Trout

2592

239

John Hiller

1242

136

Jim Bunning

1867

122

Frank Lary

2008

116

Virgil Trucks

1802

105

Al Benton

1219

104

Jack Morris

3042

100

Schoolboy Rowe

1444

92

Fred Hutchinson

1465

85

Dave Rozema

1007

79

Ed Siever

1036

73

Hank Aguirre

1180

70

Harry Coveleski

1023

68

Mickey Lolich

3363

63

Wild Bill Donovan

2137

61

Denny McLain

1592

59

Earl Whitehill

2171

51

Dan Petry

1843

45

2 comments:

  1. It seems like Tommy Bridges is at or near the top of these lists. I've always felt he was the most deserving of a Hall of Fame spot (out of Tiger pitchers not already enshrined). What's your take?

    ReplyDelete
  2. His only problem is he has fewer innings pitched than most Hall of Famers. I think he's borderline but he's definitely better than any other Tiger pitchers not in the Hall of Fame. He's a much better candidate than Morris.

    ReplyDelete

Twitter

Blog Archive

Subscribe

My Sabermetrics Book

My Sabermetrics Book
One of Baseball America's top ten books of 2010

Other Sabermetrics Books

Stat Counter