Koch-Eyed?

If further proof was needed that Billy Beane is a genius, it came last night. Arbitration-eligible closer Billy Koch, who was traded by Beane's A's this offseason, was signed by the White Sox for two years and $10.625 M ($4.25M in 2003 and $6.375M in 2004).

Don't get me wrong. Koch is only 28 and is a fine closer who had a very good year in 2002. My first reaction was just that the current market does not warrant the salary or the length of the contract.

The Sox think otherwise:

"As we talked about at the time we traded for Billy, part of the appeal of doing the deal was the fact that we would be able to keep him around beyond 2003," White Sox assistant general manager Rick Hahn said.

"This contract not only rewards Billy for the unprecedented level of success he has achieved at this stage in his career, but also provides the club with some cost certainly going forward," Hahn said.

Maybe I'm wrong. Let's take a look at a few things. First, here are the relievers (10+ relief appearances in 2002) who made over $4M in 2002 with their salaries for 2003.

First	Last	2002 salary	2003 salary	Tot Sv	2002 SV
Mariano	Rivera	$9,450,000	$8,500,000	243	28
Robb	Nen	$8,300,000	$8,600,000	314	43
Billy	Wagner	$8,000,000	$8,000,000	181	35
Wilson	Alvarez	$8,000,000	$750,000	2	1
John	Smoltz	$7,666,667	$10,000,000	65	55
Ugueth	Urbina	$6,700,000	$4,500,000	174	40
Trevor	Hoffman	$6,600,000	$9,000,000	352	38
Roberto	Hernandez	$6,000,000	$600,000	320	26
Dustin	Hermanson	$5,833,333	$900,000	4	0
Armando	Benitez	$5,812,500	$6,750,000	176	33
Brian	Anderson	$5,375,000	N/A	1	0
Mike	Timlin	$5,250,000	$1,850,000	114	0
Troy	Percival	$5,250,000	$7,500,000	250	40
Kazuhiro	Sasaki	$5,070,000	$8,000,000	119	37
Omar	Daal	$5,000,000	$3,000,000	1	0
Sterling	Hitchcock	$4,936,719	$6,750,000	3	0
Matt	Mantei	$4,333,333	$2,000,000	60	0
Dave	Veres	$4,250,000	$6,000,000	94	4
Jose	Mesa	$4,200,000	$4,500,000	225	45
Danys	Baez	$4,125,000	$4,125,000	6	6
Albie	Lopez	$4,000,000	$1,500,000	4	0
Keith	Foulke	$4,000,000	$6,000,000	100	11
Steve	Karsay	$4,000,000	$4,000,000	41	12

Well, there are some swingmen and non-closers in that mix. Of the closers, the ones that signed new contracts this offseason took their lumps (i.e., Urbina and Hernandez, who also lost his closer's role) though Antonio Alfonseca joined the $4M-per-anum ranks with his new contract with the Cubbies.

Well, let's look at the career closers and what their salaries were in 2002. maybe that's a better fit for Koch:

First	Last	2002 salary	Tot Sv
Trevor	Hoffman	$6,600,000	352
Roberto	Hernandez	$6,000,000	320
Robb	Nen	$8,300,000	314
Troy	Percival	$5,250,000	250
Mariano	Rivera	$9,450,000	243
Jose	Mesa	$4,200,000	225
Todd	Jones	$1,000,000	184
Billy	Wagner	$8,000,000	181
Armando	Benitez	$5,812,500	176
Ugueth	Urbina	$6,700,000	174
Bob	Wickman	$3,400,000	156
Dan	Plesac	$2,200,000	156
Billy	Koch	$2,433,333	144
Mike	Jackson	$500,000	142
Danny	Graves	$3,525,000	129
Antonio	Alfonseca	$3,550,000	121
Kazuhiro	Sasaki	$5,070,000	119
Mark	Wohlers	$600,000	119
Mike	Williams	$2,000,000	116
Mike	Timlin	$5,250,000	114
Ricky	Bottalico	$1,500,000	114
Jason	Isringhausen	$2,750,000	108
Keith	Foulke	$4,000,000	100

You'll note that a good number of these closers no longer close and some may not even have jobs in 2003. It does appear that Koch was due a raise compared to the other active closers at his level. Maybe that's why the A's got rid of him. Koch is among the top 10 active closers in career saves, but is that enough?

How good is Koch behind the 144 saves? Here are Koch's career numbers:

Year   G   IP   W  L  SV  ERA K/9IP K:BB WHIP HR/9IP Adj ERA  SV%
1999  56  63.2  0  5  31 3.39 8.06  1.90 1.34 0.71    145    88.57%
2000  68  78.2  9  3  33 2.63 6.86  3.33 1.22 0.69    189    86.84%
2001  69  69.1  2  5  36 4.80 7.14  1.67 1.47 0.91     99    81.82%
2002  84  93.2 11  4  44 3.27 8.94  2.02 1.27 0.67    142    88.00%
Tot  277 305.1 22 17 144 3.48 7.81  2.09 1.32 0.74    138    86.23%

You'll note that his 2001 season was pretty rancid no matter how you look at it, but he saved 36 games and had a pretty high save percentage (saves per opportunity)-again proving how meaningless the save stat is in a vacuum. Overall his numbers are not that great. He is a capable reliever but one more year like 2001 may cause him to lose that closer's role.

His 2002 year was very good, but not because of the quality of his performance, which was good, as much as because of the quantity. He threw 93.2 innings in 84 games. That's a tremendous amount of pitching for a closer. That's what allowed him to break the 30-save threshold for the first time and allowed him to win 11 games. He was used 34 times last year when their was no save opportunity. He also averaged almost a strikeout per inning, much higher than his previous level.

But can he keep it up in 2003? It's doubtful. He will probably return to a 60-appearance, 70-inning workload typical of a closer with the Sox. Aside from the attendant reduction in saves and wins, will his performance be affected by the change in workload? Here is his performance in 2002 based on days rest prior to the appearance:

Rest ERA W L SV SVO G IP    AVG  K/9IP K:BB HR/9IP WHIP SV%
0   3.21 3 1 21 21 28 28   .220  7.71  1.60  0.96  1.32 100.00%
1   3.79 5 2 12 17 30 38   .245  9.00  2.38  0.95  1.34  70.59%
2   3.21 1 1  5  5 14 14   .106 10.93  1.89  0.00  1.00 100.00%
3-5 1.42 1 0  6  6 11 12.2 .196  8.53  2.40  0.00  1.11 100.00%
6+  9.00 1 0  0  1  1  1   .400 18.00  2.00  0.00  3.00   0.00%

It seems that he pitches best with more rest. Two days seems optimal. He also pitched alright with no rest, but pitching on one-day rest was his downfall. Maybe saving him to pitch longer every couple of days would be best. Here is his 2002 performances broken down by pitch count:

Pitches	AB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
1-15	217	.207	.283	.281	.565
16-30	101	.208	.344	.297	.641
31-45	22	.318	.400	.636	1.036
46-60	1	.000	.000	.000	.000

It seems that Koch falls apart after 30 pitchers. That should be enough for two innings on a good day.

So it seems that using him almost daily with gaps for rest as the A's did last year got the most out of Koch. It also inflated his numbers so that he would command a much larger salary this season. So the A's moved on and traded his inflated numbers for a superior closer. Given that the Sox are sort of trapped in the situation that they created, I guess that they go full-bore with Koch and sign him to the inflated contract. It's not a great move: he'll probably pitch well but it's doubtful that he'll be worth the money.

But maybe there's an ulterior motive. Perhaps with the players possibly filing a collusion grievance against the owners, it was time for Reinsdorf to take one for the team, i.e., his fellow owners. It's either that or the entire city of Chicago is totally infatuated with the save statistic. Alfonseca and Koch may help them get over that case of bad love however.