Originally posted by: chuckywang
Gagne had a higher ERA, a higher WHIP, and a higher OBP in 2003 (his Cy Young year). He's almost there, but not quite.
Yes, looking at purely ERA/ERA+ it appears Eck should take it because nobody scored on the guy, and Eck's ERA was much lower than the league average (0.61/3.72 vs Gagne's 1.20/4.03). But, don't discount the fact that Gagne converted 55/55 saves that season even though he gave up 6 more earned runs than Eck.
I am betting that Gagne beat himself with walks that season rather than opponents beating him. Why? Because even though Gagne's WHIP is .08 higher due to 20 walks vs Eck's 4, Gagne's K/9 (not factored into WHIP) absolutely creams Ecks:
137 strikeouts in 82.3 IP vs Eck's 73 in 73.3IP.
and hits allowed is even better for Gagne even though he pitched more innings:
37 hits allowed over 82.3 vs Eck's 41 over 73.3 (which is why WHIP is so close even though Gagne had 5X more walks). Oh, and both only allowed 2 HR's.
All in all, what accounted for those 6 more Earned Runs for Gagne vs Eck? I'm betting it was from the 20 walks, but more in depth analysis would have to be done. But surely, if you equate K/9 as a sign of dominance then Gagne takes it over Eck. Sure he was a little more wild, but in the end he converted every save. If Eck blew even one save, I don't think you could say he had a better season/was more dominant than Gagne just based off a .59 better ERA but getting creamed in K's. I can't find the blown save stat for Eck in 1990, think it was implemented in 99. I'll have to check some baseball refs when I get home.
UPDATE: Ok while I can't find blown saves for Eck in Total Baseball (8th Edition), it does say that he blew game 2 of the World Series vs Cincy in the 10th inning. He gave up 3 straight hits to blow the game. I'm betting Eck blew a bunch of saves during the regular season too but would have to get that info from Elias.
Other evidence that swings to Gagne: Opponents batted .133 off Gagne, and .160 off Eck.
Now let's get into some of Bill James sabermetrics: For CERA, which is defined as "Component ERA (This Bill James statistic is an estimate of what the pitcher's ERA should have been, based on the composite batting line of the batters who faced him". Gagne's CERA improves from 1.20 to 0.93, and Eck's goes up from 0.61 to 0.83. I translate this to mean Gagne faced better hitters and got them out, but the description is still a little unclear.
Next, we look at Win Shares, defined as "The Bill James estimate of how many of his team's wins this player was individually responsible for, multiplied by 3." Gagne scores a 25, Eck a 19.
The last two categories are PR+, or Adjusted Pitching Runs, where both score identically (24). This is defined as: "Linear Weights measure of runs saved beyond what a league-average pitcher might have saved, defined as zero. Adjusted for home park and for the quality of the defense behind the pitcher."
Last but not least, is Total Player Runs where they both scored identical again (2.4). That is defined as the "sum of a pitcher's Adjusted Pitching Runs, Fielding Runs (at positions other than pitcher), and Adjusted Batting Runs, all divided by the Runs Per Win factor for that year - generally around 10, historically in the 9-11 range.
So my final opinion is I think Gagne edges out Eck overall even though Eck edges him out in ERA. Gagne makes up for it in completely dominating his hitters by either striking them out or getting them out (despite walking more), and also takes sabermetric win shares (wins he was directly responsible for). Add to the fact that he never blew a save in 55 tries, and Eck blew one in the 10th inning of the World Series. Hope you enjoyed
😉
