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Bruce, Lee, and the Goose
December 17, 2002 - Dan McLaughlin _The Baseball Crank
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One little useful fact in the same vein, although I'm not 100% sure it means anything: from 1977 to 1984, an 8-year span, the Goose's teams exceeded their Pythagorean projections by 21 games, almost 3 full games a year. The biggest effects came, generally, in some of the seasons when the Goose pitched the most - 1977, 1980, 1984. (Dan Quisenberry has a similar, even more impressive record: for the six seasons of his prime, from 1980 to 1985, the Royals exceeded their Pythagorean record by 20 games.) Bruce Sutter's teams exceeded their Pythagorean records by 19 games over 9 years (1976-84), although the biggest damage (+7) was done when he was a rookie setup man; the numbers break down to +16 for his first three seasons and +3 for the next 6 years when he was mostly used in save situations, albeit with a much heavier workload than the modern closer.
Lee Smith? -8 games from 1982 to 1995. I don't hold Smith responsible for that, but it's another fact suggesting that his impact on his teams was less significant than guys like Gossage and the Quiz who threw 100-135 IP a year at their peak, with ERAs in the low 2s and the 1s.
Does this prove anything? Logically, you expect teams with great bullpens to win the close ones. It's noteworthy in Gossage's case that the biggest seasons were the ones when he was paired with other good relievers (Kent Tekulve, Ron Davis). I think if memory serves, I've seen some studies have shown a slight overall effect for teams with good bullpens (witness the Braves this year), but I could be wrong about this, and I obviously haven't studied the question. You would think that it should be an extra feather in a guy's cap if his team won an unusual number of close games when he owned the 8th and 9th innings.
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