I am by no means an expert, as there are exponentially more things about baseball that I do not know than I do know. That said, I’ve always had a pretty good grasp on the fact that randomness (luck? fortune? Choose your own term…) has a very big impact on the outcome of baseball games. And at the risk of tearing my infraspinatus as I pat myself on the back, I’ve found that knowledge has put me ahead of a very large percentage of baseball fans in that regard.
To wit.
Let’s look at Clay Holmes. In particular, let’s look at ways we have that measure pitching effectiveness that remove randomness from the equation.
There are 113 relief pitchers in MLB who have logged a minimum of 50 innings in 2024. That’s a pretty good sample, as it’s essentially the three or four most trustworthy relievers per team. Among that group of the most trusted relief pitchers in baseball…
Clay Holmes ranks 15th in xFIP – that’s 87th percentile, if you’re wondering. He’s kept the ball on the ground at a higher rate than all but one of those 113 pitchers and has allowed fewer HR per nine innings than 86 percent of them.
Holmes is better than the league average in exit velocity allowed, hard hit percentage allowed, barrel percentage, and despite not really being a swing and miss guy, also has a K%-BB% that’s better than average among the most trusted relievers.
Basically, he’s somewhere between good and great at everything that doesn’t involve luck to a certain extent.
Yet, when we bring randomness into the equation…
Despite yielding generally soft contact on the ground, his HR/FB rate is almost exactly average, and his batting average on balls in play is the 13th highest among relief pitchers. (That’s HR/FB% and BABIP – I’m begging you not to make this discussion silly by bringing saves and blown saves into the equation.)
Do the numbers above mean 2024 Clay Holmes is peak Eric Gagne or peak Zack Britton? No, of course not.
But it does mean he’s pitched pretty well, and the frustrating results have far more to do with matters that do not involve him than they do his pitching.
Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments or yell at me @mybaseballpage1 on Twitter and/or the “My Baseball Page” on Facebook.
PS: Just grabbed “Bullet Rogan and The Kansas City Monarchs” by Phil Dixon. I have a few things to get through first, but I’m really looking forward to reading it. Rogan is rarely mentioned in the GOAT discussion, but make no mistake, he belongs in the GOAT discussion.
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