Backe's Bad Games: Outliers? or The Norm?
by AstroAndy on Nov 4, 2008 10:08 PM CST
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PrintJust an interesting little side note on Brandon Backe. His ERA this year was 6.05. What was amazing to me was just how much of his ERA was dependent on a small number of games.
Brandon started 31 games this year. In his final 8 games, he had 4 disastrous starts.
The 11 Earned Run Games
- August 6 at Wrigley; 3.1 innings, 11 ER
- August 16 against the D-backs at home; 5.2 innings, 11 ER
The "Not Even Two Innings" Games
- September 17 at the Marlins - 1.2 innings, 5 ER
- September 27 at home against the Braves - 1.1 innings, 8 ER
If you remove these four games from his record, his ERA drops from 6.05 to a much more respectable 4.48. Those four games make up an astonishing 1.57 points of his ERA (0.91 ERA due to the 11ER games, 0.66 due to the <2 IP games).
Also, if you are inclined to cut Backe some slack because he's coming back from Tommy John surgery, then maybe it's important that these games came in the last quarter of his season, when his arm might be too tired to be effective.
I know I'm just cherry-picking the worst games, but the effect of those games seems disproportionate.
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I don't think the pattern is that unusual for a full season starter with a 6+ ERA....
In the back of my mind, I keep comparing Backe in 2008 with Jason Marquis in 2006, partly because of the pattern of a few horrific performances. So, out of curiosity, I went back and looked at Marquis’ game log. Marquis had a 6.02 ERA that year. In 2006, Marquis had games against the White Sox and Braves in which he allowed 13 and 12 earned runs, respectively. He also had games in which he pitched only 2.2 and 2.0 innngs and gave up 4 and 6 runs respectively. Like Backe he had a few jewels, several times pitching 8 innings of 1 or 2 run ball. Most of the rest of the games, he was mostly mediocre, giving up from 3 to 6 runs in 5 to 7 innings of work.
I’m not sure where that leads me. Other than to say that it confirms the similarity of those two pitchers’ seasons. Maybe there is some consolation for Backe in noting that Marquis has not been that bad since 2006. Marquis hasn’t been great, but his ERA in 2007 and 2008 was 4.60 and 4.53, right at his career average ERA. Anecdotally, it might lend credence to the idea that a couple of horrific games could be random bad luck. (Certainly it usually reflects a strategic decision by the manager to leave a pitcher in the game to take a beating…reportedly LaRussa didn’t like Marquis, and people speculated that he wanted to punish him.)
Another factor on Backe’s side….he pitched more innings in 2008 than he ever had in his career. I was concerned at the time when he crossed that threshold (149 innings). Perhaps that could affect his late season performance.
Good call on the Marquis comparison
And good job AstroAndy on doing the leg work on that. I agree with clack that any starter with that ERA probably has a few outliers, but I think your point is valid overall. It probably would have been responsible for us to shut him down after a certain point, but unfortunately for Brandon we were in the middle of a Wild Card race.
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A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Nov 5, 2008 12:48 AM CST up reply actions
The reason I decided to look at those bad games was that a lot of the message boards I frequent have been really dogging Backe…the same kind of flack Wandy used to draw, but maybe a little worse. I thought that this might be one of those “what have you done for me lately” situations, where people’s image of Backe’s ability was based on just the last month of the season or so, and I honestly think that’s part of what’s going on.
Thanks for pointing out Marquis…I really don’t know much about players outside of the Houston system, so it’s interesting to see that my observation isn’t an isolated event.
My gut on Backe says that if we give him another year, we’ll probably see some improvement. First, he’ll be that much more removed from the Tommy John, and he really pushed the fast-track on his recovery. Second, the dude has a hell of a work ethic and sets high goals for himself (he wanted 30 starts and 200 innings this year..at least he got one of those), and it’s hard to root against that.
He seems like a guy who has performed more poorly when he becomes emotional. Some guys do better, but he seems like he gets rattled and gets a bit unwound. Maybe time and experience will mature him a bit and that won’t happen (if I’m right).
to continue that thought...
(I accidently pushed the “post” before I was ready)
Backe sometimes uses his emotion, competitive fire, what have you, to heighten his game. At one time he seemed to draw from the vocal crowd reactions in big post season games at MMP, and pitch at a higher level. However, I agree with you that the emotion sometimes becomes a negative factor, particularly when it involves anger at the umpire, manager, or opposing players. I recall how he hurt his performance, when he got into the tussle with Yadi Molina, which was a continuation of a feud with LaRussa and Pujols. In Backe’s case, playing with emotion is a two edged sword.
Brandon Backe
Brandon Backe is a horse saying that he tore his rotator cuff last season and he was back to start 31 games this year. The Astros might have trouble with Backe as there number 4 or 5 starter so the Astros could use an extra starter or just use some minor leaguers to share starts with him.
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