FanPost

Chad Green May Be The Most Valuable Reliever In Baseball

The Yankees have had a stacked bullpen for quite some time now. The past few years the Yankees have had the privilege of enjoying the services of some of the most elite late inning hurlers in the game. Even before Brain Cashman made the trade that acquired David Robertson and Tommy Kahnle, Yankees fans caught sight of Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman. Even with these big name relievers, a converted starter named Chad Green was the Yankees best reliever in 2017 and one of the, if not the most valuable reliever in all of baseball.

When looking at his metrics for last season, besides his sub 2 ERA, there are several valuable aspects that stand out. When talking about electric fastballs, Chapman is always the first pitcher that comes to mind. However, in 2017, Green's fastball was much better than Chapman's. In fact, Green had one of the best fastballs in the entire league. His 22.3 fastball runs above average was good for second in the league, ahead of guys such as Craig Kimbrel and Kenley Jansen. What has made his fastball so effective as a reliever? Essentially, it is the same tools that has made Chapman's fastball so deadly in the past. Green's fastball is extremely rising as it comes through the zone, sporting a spin rate of nearly 2,500 RPMs with an average velocity of 96+ mph. A high spin rate and velocity fastball is a recipe for swings and misses. His fastball paved the way for a 13.43 K/9 good for about the 96th percentile in the league. While Green still had the tendency to walk more batters than other elite relievers, he was still striking out about 7 batters for every batter that he walked, mitigating some of the effect of his walks.

In addition to a new found velocity and spin in his fastball, his fastball velocity even increases as the season went on and showed a huge leap from last season.

Chad Green's 2016-2017 FB Velocity Chart

Green FB Velo

In addition to his fastball, Green has also found new success with a deadly slider, complementing his fastballl. While his slider isn't one of the best in baseball, it high velocity and sequencing with his fastball still makes it effective. Green's swing and miss percentage was about 33% for all pitches that were swing at.

Chad Green's 2016-2017 Slider Velocity Chart Green SL Velocity

Though not a groundball pitcher, his 7.0 HR/FB% was in the 86th percentile amongst all relievers, which was the exact same as Andrew Miller's last season. This is very valuable in Yankees Stadium where homeruns can hurt. His combination of high strikeouts and low amounts of homeruns mitigates the potential damage of the walks he gives up. Perhaps more to that point, Green faced a more difficult opponent load than the average pitcher. Over the course of the season, Green faced about a 6% higher run scoring environment than average. This takes into account aspects such as park effects, opponent strength and even weather conditions. In addition, the collection of opponents he faced throughout year posted about a .258 BA which was one of the highest opponent batting averages faced in the league, in the 95th percentile. Even given the strength of his opponents, he held them to only a .142 BA against which was fourth best in the entire league in addition to his 0.72 WHIP, good for second best in the league.

Green's success was no fluke, his .249 xFIP was the best on the Yankees and fifth best in the league. Nevertheless, there many factors playing into Green's success, his .230 BABIP suggests Green likely had a very strong defense behind him. This plays well to his strengths as a strikeout pitcher who gives up a lot of fly balls but not a lot of homeruns. Green's predominant catcher, Gary Sanchez, though often criticized for his defense, is one of the best pitch framers in the league, stopping about 9.7 runs over the course of the season just by his framing.

Perhaps most importantly for the Yankees, as we saw in Wild Card in particularly, Green was stellar in limiting the opponent's run scoring environment. Though due to the slew of top relievers in the Bronx did not require Green to pitch in very many high leverage situation, his Context Neutral Wins (WPA/Li) was third best in the entire league. (To clarify, Green's Win Probability Added (WPA) is not going to very high or low due to the lack of chances he had to effect it. WPA/Li does a good job of measuring a player's contribution to winning independent to the leverage situation. WPA/Li is not Win Probability Added/average leverage situation). Additionally, looking at inning independent leverage situations, there was not better pitcher in all of baseball in limiting damage than Chad Green. His 27.39 RE24 lead all relievers in 2017. This means essentially means that Green seldom put himself in vulnerable situations and limited the damage when he did.

Couple Green's stellar ability to limit run scoring environments with the fact that he has the ability to pitch several innings per outing does not just make him the most valuable arm in the Yankees bullpen, but one of the most valuable arms in all of baseball. Green's 2.3 fWAR put him at best on Yankees and sixth best in the league among reliever, again more valuable than Andrew Miller. However, nobody 1-5 in the fWAR rankings has the same ability to limit run scoring environments despite Green's lack of high leverage innings, or go multiple innings per outing like Green can.

Teams are yearning for pitchers with these exact two strengths. It would be hard pressed to try to make Green a starter after the season in the pen he just had.

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