You've heard of its existence, but you've always doubted it. You'd seen pictures, but they were always fuzzy and looked a lot like a gorilla suit or some tires sticking out of a Loch...AN AWESOME RELIEF STAT!!
Well, folks, we might be on to something here. Two years ago I dipped my toe into this research and came up with REGs and BaRFs:
REG (Reliever Effective Game):
An appearance resulting in a WHIP that is LOWER THAN 2.000
BaRF (Bullpen Relief Failure):
An appearance resulting in a WHIP that is HIGHER THAN 3.000 (while facing 2 or more batters)
It doesn't over-value closers. It's completely WHIP-based. And it's super-easy to calculate. I've got some Reds stats here that are very interesting.
via ww4.hdnux.com
No more saves and holds. No heavy calculations. No judgment calls. What's also nice is that you can view this as a percentage of appearances, not as just a counting stat: REP (Reliever Effectiveness Percentage).
I've run the numbers for the Reds bullpen the last three years, and for the entire National League in 2009 and 2011. I haven't run more because while it is an easy stat to calculate, manually creating the spreadsheet from existing stats has been taking 30 minutes per team per year. Perhaps one of you stat studs can help me streamline things.
2009 NL REP: 62.9%
2010 REDS REP: 60.4%
2011 NL REP: 64.3%
2009 NL BaRF%: 14.2%
2010 REDS BaRF%: 17.0%
2011 NL BaRF%: 10.4%
I'd like to see less variation, and the REDS stats are SSS. I'd love to run 2010 for the whole NL to get a better feel for annual averages against which to judge.
My graphs are shiite, but whatchathinks? Does anyone have a better way for me to run the numbers so I can get a better look at this?
Finally, a shout out to Jonathan Broxton, who was exceptional in REGs, REP, and BaRF% in 2009:
G: 73
REGs: 56 (2nd in NL)
REP: 76.7% (10th in NL)
BaRFs: 4
BaRF%: 5.5% (10th in NL)