First Pitch: It’s Time to Recognize Mark Melancon as an Elite Reliever

Mark Melancon is one of the best relievers in baseball.

That’s not just my opinion. It’s a statistical fact. Just take a look at the numbers over the last two years. Melancon ranks 7th of 139 relievers in xFIP. If you prefer ERA, he drops down to 8th. He’s been an amazing reliever for the Pirates, but he doesn’t get the credit he deserves in Pittsburgh.

I’m always baffled by the reactions towards Melancon. It seems that part of the fan base takes him for granted, assuming that he’s just doing what any good reliever does. He’s set the bar so high that when he actually pitches like a good reliever, instead of an elite reliever, the doom and gloom predictions come out. That’s usually from the other part of the fan base that is just waiting for the other shoe to drop, then predicting his downward spiral after a bad outing.

Even with numbers that show Melancon as one of the top relievers in baseball over the last two years, a lot of people don’t fully appreciate what the Pirates have with him. It’s to the point where there are calls for a closer of the future, or to trade prospects and spend about $10 M on Huston Street for the next year and a half. Since the overall numbers don’t get the appreciation they deserve, I decided to dig deep into Melancon’s stats, and show why all of the arguments against him are incorrect.

He Can’t Pitch in the Ninth

I’ve never believed that a good pitcher needs some sort of special magic to pitch in the ninth inning and close out games. It’s the Proven Closer© theory, which is only proven to be incorrect time and time again. Usually the idea stems from a lack of forgiveness. A bad inning in the eighth is forgotten easier than a bad inning that loses a game, or blows a lead and sends the game to extra innings.

In Melancon’s case, the stats show that he absolutely can pitch in the ninth inning. His numbers by inning:

I prefer xFIP for relievers, although I couldn’t find that available for inning splits. Maybe there’s a reason that’s not available for this particular split, and maybe that reason is because there’s no value in looking at splits by inning.

Oh, and what about just looking at save situations?

Identical results. And not far off from where everyone’s favorite trade deadline upgrade, Huston Street, stands in his career in save situations.

He’s Getting Figured Out

One thing that is said most often is that hitters are starting to figure Melancon out. When I say that this is mentioned “often”, what I mean is “about once a month for the last two years, people start predicting that Melancon will turn into a pumpkin at midnight because he had a rare bad outing”. Unfortunately there is no actual statistical evidence to support this. In fact, the stats say otherwise.

Last year Melancon had a .511 OPS against opponents, which is ridiculous. This year? A .500 OPS. Typically when hitters figure a pitcher out, that pitcher’s ridiculous OPS against those hitters doesn’t go down lower.

It’s actually not hard to figure out Melancon. He has thrown his cutter about half the time over the last two years. He throws his curve about 20 percent of the time. On average, you’ll see the cutter every other pitch, and the curve is his off-speed pitch. You know what is coming. So it should be easy to hit him, right?

Well that’s not the case either. I looked at all of the pitchers this year who had 30+ innings, and used their cutter 30% of the time or more (there were 18 of them). I wanted to see who had the best OPS against in their career, just off that pitch. As it turned out, Melancon ranked second, and ranked third this year.

Hitters know what is coming, yet they can’t do anything about it. Melancon has one of the best cutters in the game, and that’s even after the fact that he’s established that he’s throwing it every other pitch. It’s the same with the curveball. Here is the same study, only this time looking at everyone who threw their curve 20% of the time or more. I also included the knuckle curve. That’s what Melancon’s curve is classified as, although when I spoke to him during Spring Training, he said it was just a regular spike curveball.

Once again, Melancon ranks high on the list, coming in at fourth in career OPS with the pitch, only this time it was out of 52 pitchers.

I would have done the same with the fastball, but his .465 OPS this year suggests that’s not really a big problem. The point here is that anyone who takes five seconds to check out FanGraphs will see that Melancon mostly works off a cutter/curve combo. Despite the knowledge of what is coming in advance, batters can’t hit those two pitches. If someone has figured out Melancon, they’re not telling MLB teams about it.

What About the Singles Through the Right Side of the Infield?

There was a weird stretch last year where Melancon gave up several well-placed hits through the right side of the infield in the span of a week, blowing a few games in the process. This leads to a theory that batters can just hit the ball through the right side to get to Melancon. That assumes that all batters have the skill to just hit the ball at the exact spot where a fielder isn’t standing, which is why batting averages are at a low point these days.

Let’s just assume that batters do have the ability to do this, and it is a weakness for Melancon. If that’s true, then his OPS on ground balls would go up. His BABIP on grounders would also go up, since batters would be finding the hole on the right side of the infield. Here are those numbers for 2013 and 2014.

Stat: 2013 / 2014

OPS on GB: .387 / .358

BABIP on GB: .185 / .179

Once again, the numbers have gone down this year. That’s not something that happens when opponents have you figured out. I will note that his numbers against right-handers who go opposite field are horrible this year, with a .500 average and an OPS over 1.000. However, two points on that.

1. We’re talking about a sample size of 20 plate appearances.

2. We’re talking about a sample size of 20 plate appearances!

Even if you trust a sample of 20 plate appearances, it ignores the fact that right-handers rarely pull off this accomplishment. And his numbers against right-handers have gone down, from a .638 OPS last year to a .580 OPS this year. So clearly this approach isn’t helping right-handers.

Melancon is one of the best relievers in baseball

Here is a recap of a few things Melancon has going for him:

1. He posts some of the best numbers in the game among relief pitchers.

2. He throws a cutter half the time, and despite the fact that people know it is coming, the pitch rates as one of the best in terms of OPS against.

3. His curve is his big out pitch, and just like the cutter, it ranks as one of the top curves in terms of OPS against.

4. Almost all of his numbers have gotten better in 2014, showing that people are doing the opposite of figuring him out.

5. There has been no difference in his career between save situations and non-save situations, and his numbers in the 9th inning are slightly better than the 8th inning numbers.

Here are some things Melancon doesn’t have going for him:

1. He doesn’t have crazy facial hair, or a weird hair cut.

2. He always looks very serious.

3. He doesn’t have a signature celebration when he gets his final out.

4. He doesn’t throw upper 90s with his fastball.

5. He hasn’t had a full season of success as a closer, which makes it impossible for him to ever have success as a closer. Don’t ask me how all of those other closers got to their role.

Despite these short-comings, I think that Melancon should be recognized as one of the best relievers in the game. The Pirates don’t need a late inning guy or a closer, because they have him. I could do another post talking about how great Tony Watson has been, but I’ll save that and just say that the late innings look fine with those two in charge. And by those two, I mean those two clean-cut, serious guys who go about their job like it’s routine, and just continue to put up some of the best numbers in baseball.

Links and Notes

**Why the Pirates Will Be Fine if They Don’t Make a Big Addition to the Bullpen

**Prospect Watch: JaCoby Jones Hits 15th Homer of the Year

**The New Draft Rules Are Backfiring

**Prospect Highlights: Some Productive Plate Appearances From Tito Polo

**Minor League Schedule: Glasnow and Creasy Go For Bradenton Tonight