Keeping it Short

Craig Calcaterra mentions short shutouts in his game recap today.

A few years back someone — it was either David Pinto of Baseball Musings or David Schoenfield of ESPN, I can’t remember which — observed that bullpen use was such that traditional nine-inning shutouts were rare birds and that maybe we should have a stat which recognizes an achievement in the context of the new starting pitching philosophy. He called them “short shutouts.” I was kind of dismissive of the idea and of course, it didn’t take. With a few years to think about it, I’m wondering if I was too dismissive too quickly. I’m not saying we should have a stat for, say, a seven inning shutout, but I do think we should probably recognize and accept that that’s about the best we can expect most days and give it some sort of due. Or not, I dunno, but I have to admit that I am more impressed with seven shutout innings than I used to be. Viva low expectations.

In related news, the Yankees got seven shutout innings for Luis Severino and homers from Aaron Hicks and Didi Gregorius.

I received a lot of negative feedback from an extremely close friend on that stat, to the point that we came to rhetorical blows. I didn’t like that, so I backed off the stat.

Maybe the best way to think of short shutout as a super quality start. A pitcher gets a short shutout if he pitches at least six inning without allowing a run. Short shutouts include complete game shutouts. Severino is one of ten pitchers this season with at least four short shutouts:

Pitchers with at least four short shutouts, through June 26, 2018.

Pitcher	CG Shutouts	Short Shutouts
Sean Newcomb	0	6
Justin Verlander	1	5
Dylan Bundy	0	4
Julio Teheran	0	4
Jose Berrios	1	4
Corey Kluber	0	4
Jon Lester	0	4
Jake Arrieta	0	4
Luis Severino	1	4
Jose Quintana	0	4

Looks like the Braves decided not to let their starters get in trouble. Thirty years ago, most of these pitchers would have stayed in the game until they allowed a run.

from baseballmusings.com https://ift.tt/2tFSgIv