Papelbon is DHL Delivery Man of the Year

[tWoSour]

http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20071011&content_id=2260946&vkey=news_bos&fext=.jsp&c_id=bos

Congrats to Pap, he deserves it. Since becoming a closer, he has been amazing

[Lintyfresh85]

Re: Papelbon is DHL Delivery Man of the Year

can't really argue with that. Congrats.

[dkgojackets]

Re: Papelbon is DHL Delivery Man of the Year

Hmm I'd rather have Rafael Betancourt's 1.47 to 1.85 ERA advantage with 21 more innings pitched.

[Coug00]

Re: Papelbon is DHL Delivery Man of the Year

Hmm I'd rather have Rafael Betancourt's 1.47 to 1.85 ERA advantage with 21 more innings pitched.

And I'd rather have Putz over both of them. At least statistically Putz was better in nearly every category this year.

Its a fan vote anyways, so pretty much just a popularity contest award.

[Lintyfresh85]

Re: Papelbon is DHL Delivery Man of the Year

can't really complain about any of them... oh well, I think baseball guys who pay the bills i.e. GM's know who's who, and the guys that deserve to get rewarded will do so with nice hefty contracts.

[dkgojackets]

Re: Papelbon is DHL Delivery Man of the Year

And I'd rather have Putz over both of them. At least statistically Putz was better in nearly every category this year.

Its a fan vote anyways, so pretty much just a popularity contest award.

Betancourt had the highest VORP among all relievers, 39.8 compared to 36.6 for Putz. Bell and Guerrier are between them.

But yeah, anything voted on by fans loses any sort of "deserving" criteria.

[Coug00]

Re: Papelbon is DHL Delivery Man of the Year

Betancourt had the highest VORP among all relievers, 39.8 compared to 36.6 for Putz. Bell and Guerrier are between them.

But yeah, anything voted on by fans loses any sort of "deserving" criteria.

I like VORP to measure every day players offensive production, but I don't think it can stand on its own to measure pitchers. Defensive support plays no input in the VORP pitching formula and I'm not sold on using ERA or RA for relievers in a formula (as neither measure how well they did in their role).

[rsox]

Re: Papelbon is DHL Delivery Man of the Year

I'll take the homer pick with Papelbon but Jose Valverde probably deserved it more than anyone.

[Moses Shuttlesworth]

Re: Papelbon is DHL Delivery Man of the Year

That's my boy pap

[ComfortablyLomb]

Re: Papelbon is DHL Delivery Man of the Year

I like VORP to measure every day players offensive production, but I don't think it can stand on its own to measure pitchers. Defensive support plays no input in the VORP pitching formula and I'm not sold on using ERA or RA for relievers in a formula (as neither measure how well they did in their role).

ERA and RA are terrible judges of how effective a reliever was on his own.

Just look at Joe Borowski. I think his three massive blow-ups really boosted his ERA this year.

4/19 - 0.2 IP / 6 ER
5/13 - 0.2 IP / 4 ER
8/14 - 0.2 IP / 4 ER

He gave up 37 ER on the year, 14 of them were in 3 of his 69 appearances. His ERA outside of the three major blow-ups was 3.26. Obviously you can't pretend they didn't happen but I've heard a lot of people talking about how lousy a closer he was this year and it's just not true. While he isn't the guy who put up a 3.26, he's also not really the guy who put up a 5.07 either. He's just a very average closer (not a bad one) who has a tendency to really blow up on occasion.

Relievers are tough to gauge in general though. They're prone to huge flakiness from year to year for whatever reason.

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As for guys like Papelbon or Putz. You only need to watch them to realize how much better they are at what they do than most of the guys who ever attempt to close. The metrics can tell you what you ask them too but the difference between these guys is largely irrelevant in terms of performance right now.