I know absolutely nothing about him.
Let's discover Mr. Pauley... together!
A couple days ago one of my relief pitchers (who will remain unnamed -- you never know who's reading these things) went on the disabled list. He was the black sheep on my otherwise stellar pitching staff, so I was looking for any excuse to dump him. An upper back strain rendered him completely useless (a step down from his "mostly" useless status when he was healthy) and I dropped him like a Christmas goose.
I chose to replace him with David Pauley for a couple reasons. First of all, when I drop a player I like to replace him with somebody who fields the same position. It maintains the balance of the universe, or something. Secondly, Pauley's at-a-glance stats are extraordinary.
ERA = 0.94
WHIP = 0.76
24 strikeouts in 38 1/3 innings (not bad)
4 wins
Four wins is unique for a middle reliever at this point in the season. Starting pitchers usually accumulate those wins. There are various statistical circumstances that would negate this, but without looking at specific game summaries it seems likely that Pauley was the last pitcher on the mound four times when his team took the lead late in a ballgame. This doesn't actually mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of baseball, just a slight abnormality. I don't expect Pauley to finish the season with ten wins.
A quick note on WHIP, by the way:
Walks + Hits,
divide it all by Innings Pitched.
It's a good indicator of how well a pitcher keeps guys off of base. A WHIP around 1.00 is very good. At 0.76 Pauley is only allowing one baserunner every other inning or so. Granted, he's only in each game for one or two innings... but still!
So opening up our handy-dandy Baseball-Reference.com profile, what do we find?
- Up until this season Pauley had been groomed to be a starting pitcher. For ten professional seasons he was starting baseball games. I don't know why, but it never appeared to work out. Somebody somewhere decided before this season began that, hey, maybe he should be pitching at the end of the game instead of at the beginning. It turns out he works very well in frequent short inning-long spurts rather than periodic multi-inning starts.
- Opponents are only batting .167 against Pauley. More surprising, opponents' slugging percentage is only .183. Slugging percentage reflects how often batters his doubles, triples, and home runs. So far this season Pauley has given up zero home runs, zero triples, and only two doubles.
- That WHIP thing we were talking about, prior to this season his lowest WHIP was 1.18. That was five seasons ago back in AA where the batters will swing at absolutely anything (and miss). The question then becomes this: can he sustain this new found ability to keep runners off the bases, or will he regress back to his old statistical standards?
- Additionally, Pauley has been the beneficiary of good luck. Even when batters do put the ball in play, they're still only batting .204. Normally this number is significantly higher (last season, for example, it was .262) but it seems Seattle's fielders have been in the right place at the right time... at least while Pauley is on the mound.
- Apparently Pauley is making $422,000 this season. That may seem like a lot of money (and it is, at least compared to my bi-weekly paycheck), but the way he's performing it's an absolute bargain.
- David Pauley's middle name is Wayne.
- He looks slightly toasted in all of his head shots.
I've mentioned Seattle closer Brandon League's inconsistency before. If League should fall apart before David Aardsma's return then there is a good chance the Mariners would go with Pauley to finish off ballgames.
That is, as long as Pauley keeps doing his thing. There's that pesky invisible force called regression, and the bullpen is a new role for Pauley. It wouldn't surprise me to see him slide the second half of the season, but for now it appears he has finally found his niche.
Let's discover Mr. Pauley... together!
A couple days ago one of my relief pitchers (who will remain unnamed -- you never know who's reading these things) went on the disabled list. He was the black sheep on my otherwise stellar pitching staff, so I was looking for any excuse to dump him. An upper back strain rendered him completely useless (a step down from his "mostly" useless status when he was healthy) and I dropped him like a Christmas goose.
I chose to replace him with David Pauley for a couple reasons. First of all, when I drop a player I like to replace him with somebody who fields the same position. It maintains the balance of the universe, or something. Secondly, Pauley's at-a-glance stats are extraordinary.ERA = 0.94
WHIP = 0.76
24 strikeouts in 38 1/3 innings (not bad)
4 wins
Four wins is unique for a middle reliever at this point in the season. Starting pitchers usually accumulate those wins. There are various statistical circumstances that would negate this, but without looking at specific game summaries it seems likely that Pauley was the last pitcher on the mound four times when his team took the lead late in a ballgame. This doesn't actually mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of baseball, just a slight abnormality. I don't expect Pauley to finish the season with ten wins.
A quick note on WHIP, by the way:
Walks + Hits,
divide it all by Innings Pitched.
It's a good indicator of how well a pitcher keeps guys off of base. A WHIP around 1.00 is very good. At 0.76 Pauley is only allowing one baserunner every other inning or so. Granted, he's only in each game for one or two innings... but still!
So opening up our handy-dandy Baseball-Reference.com profile, what do we find?
- Up until this season Pauley had been groomed to be a starting pitcher. For ten professional seasons he was starting baseball games. I don't know why, but it never appeared to work out. Somebody somewhere decided before this season began that, hey, maybe he should be pitching at the end of the game instead of at the beginning. It turns out he works very well in frequent short inning-long spurts rather than periodic multi-inning starts.
- Opponents are only batting .167 against Pauley. More surprising, opponents' slugging percentage is only .183. Slugging percentage reflects how often batters his doubles, triples, and home runs. So far this season Pauley has given up zero home runs, zero triples, and only two doubles.
- That WHIP thing we were talking about, prior to this season his lowest WHIP was 1.18. That was five seasons ago back in AA where the batters will swing at absolutely anything (and miss). The question then becomes this: can he sustain this new found ability to keep runners off the bases, or will he regress back to his old statistical standards?
- Additionally, Pauley has been the beneficiary of good luck. Even when batters do put the ball in play, they're still only batting .204. Normally this number is significantly higher (last season, for example, it was .262) but it seems Seattle's fielders have been in the right place at the right time... at least while Pauley is on the mound.
- Apparently Pauley is making $422,000 this season. That may seem like a lot of money (and it is, at least compared to my bi-weekly paycheck), but the way he's performing it's an absolute bargain.
- David Pauley's middle name is Wayne.
- He looks slightly toasted in all of his head shots.
I've mentioned Seattle closer Brandon League's inconsistency before. If League should fall apart before David Aardsma's return then there is a good chance the Mariners would go with Pauley to finish off ballgames.
That is, as long as Pauley keeps doing his thing. There's that pesky invisible force called regression, and the bullpen is a new role for Pauley. It wouldn't surprise me to see him slide the second half of the season, but for now it appears he has finally found his niche.
