Quiz vs. Sutter, Take 1

One of the great things about having a blog is that it allows you to write way too much about topics that interest nobody else but you. So for the next two days, I’m going to offer WAY too much on my personal quest to answer this question: Who was the better pitcher, Dan Quisenberry or Bruce Sutter? Today, we break down a few numbers – much of this is stuff I have included here and there in my column. Tomorrow, though, I introduce a semi-new relief pitcher statistic that will undoubtedly embarrass every single math teacher I ever had.

I also want to welcome all of you who linked here from The Kansas City Star Royals page. While you’re here, why don’t you buy a book?

Before we delve into my first ever statistical study – a mathematically unsound examination of Quiz vs. Sutter (with a little Goose thrown in) – we need to offer a little background. I admired Dan Quisenberry. I only got to know him a little bit toward the end of his life, but there are certain people you feel an instant connection with. Quiz was one of those people. Everyone felt that way about him. I went to see him at a poetry reading once, we had a great time talking. He discovered that he had a brain tumor just a few weeks later. We talked a couple of times after that, once about writing, once about relationships, and shortly after he was inducted into the Royals Hall of Fame, he was gone. He was just 45 years old.

I offer this background first because I need to be blunt: I entered into this Quiz vs. Sutter project with a very specific goal in mind – to prove that Dan Quisenberry was every bit as good as Bruce Sutter. Better, even. Now, I know full well this is absolutely the wrong way to go into a research project, but as football coaches say, “It is what it is.” We all need our inspirations.

Last year, as you know, Bruce Sutter was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame after being on the ballot 13 years. Quiz, meanwhile, received just 18 votes his one year on the ballot back in 1996. That seems wrong to me. I'm not saying that Quiz belongs in the Hall of Fame (I didn't vote for Sutter). But it's time for people to realize that Quiz was, in fact, a great pitcher.

Quiz vs. Sutter

The eerie similarities: It would be hard to find two relievers whose careers overlap much more than Quiz and Sutter. They were born less than a month apart in 1953. Sutter began his Major League career three years earlier, in 1976, while Quiz didn’t make it up until 1979. Sutter retired in 1988, Quiz in 1990.

Their appearance numbers are startlingly similar. Quiz appeared in 674 games; Sutter in 661. Quiz finished 553 games, Sutter 512. They pitched almost exactly the same number of innings – Quiz threw one more, 1043.3 to 1042.3.

Their successes are startlingly similar too. Sutter won a Cy Young Award and finished in the Top 5 five times. Quiz did not win a Cy Young Award, but he finished second in the voting twice, and also finished in the Top 5 five times. Quiz won five “Rolaids Relief Awards,” Sutter won four. They both won one World Championship. They both set league records with 45 saves (though Quiz did it first). Also, Quiz had a secretary named Lincoln, while Sutter ran from a warehouse to a theater.

The vast differences: Their overall results may have been similar, but everyone knows they were very different kind of pitchers. Sutter, relying on that pioneering split-fingered fastball, was a power pitcher. He struck out almost 500 more batters than Quiz:

Strikeouts
Sutter: 861
Quiz: 379

Sutter also allowed almost 200 fewer hits:

Hits allowed
Sutter: 879
Quiz: 1064

Sutter was also a closer for roughly three years longer than Quiz, so he has quite a few more saves and victories.

Wins and Saves
Sutter: 68 wins, 300 saves
Quiz: 56 wins, 244 saves.

OK, Quiz -- whipping the ball submarine style -- had his advantages too. Despite giving up more hits, he actually faced fewer hitters than Sutter because he walked about half the number of batters:

Walks
Quiz: 162
Sutter: 309

And by throwing that devastating sinker, he coaxed almost 50 more double plays. All in all, this actually allowed him to be more effective.

ERA
Quiz: 2.76
Sutter: 2.83

Unearned runs allowed
Quiz: 36
Sutter: 42

And just for fun:

Wild pitches
Sutter: 37
Quiz: 4

Inside the numbers: The truth is, the more I have broken down the numbers over the last couple of years, the more I have found that there’s very little to separate Quiz and Sutter. Yes, Sutter had 56 more saves, and this is not inconsequential. But it's not nearly as consquential as some seem to believe. Sutter picked up that gap in his later years as a mostly ineffective closer with Atlanta. Sutter finished just 75 percent of his save opportunities. Quiz was at 80 percent.

Blown Saves
Sutter: 101
Quisenberry: 60.

And as far as the 12 extra victories go, well, Sutter also lost 25 more games than Quiz which more than makes up the difference.

Winning percentage
Quiz: 56-46, .549
Sutter: 68-71, .489

So where do you go from here? I broke down the numbers some more. Both of these guys come from a time when relievers went more than one inning. Sutter had more multiple-inning saves than Quiz while Quiz had the advantage in really long saves:

Saves earned by pitching two innings or more
Sutter 130
Quiz: 121

Saves earned by pitching three innings or more
Quiz: 37
Sutter: 15

Quiz seemed to pitch better in context. He had a better ERA than Sutter -- but he also pitched in the higher scoring league. So his ERA+ (ERA measured against league average, adjusted for ballpark factors) is A LOT better than Sutter’s. It is in fact, tied for the third-best in baseball history:

ERA+
Quiz: 146
Sutter: 136

This means that as far as preventing earned runs goes, Quiz was 46 percent better than other pitchers in his league, while Sutter was 36 percent better than his league. Another way to look at this is by using Lee Sinin's great statistic "Runs Saved Against Average."

Runs Saved Against Average
Quiz: 148
Sutter: 123

This is a pretty powerful advantage for Quiz … but I will say this: I got a thoughtful email from someone who suggested that the difference in the leagues was largely neutralized because Sutter was a late-inning reliever, so he rarely got to face other pitchers. I actually think this makes some sense. I posed the question to Bill James, who sent along a typically fascinating reply that included thoughts on Jim Rice, Elston Howard, Bill Dickey, Yankee Stadium and the designated hitter. In the end, though, he did not really know whether or not there should be a special adjustment made for National League closers. He did not think so.

There’s one other advantage for Quiz: He pitched better in pennant races. I looked at both careers after August 15 in those years when their teams were within five games of first place. It’s pretty arbitrary, I know, but the numbers are striking because Sutter, generally, tended to wear down late in seasons while Quiz did not.

In Pennant Races
Quiz: 9 wins, 7 losses, 42 saves, 177 innings, 2.54 ERA.
Sutter: 4 wins, 15 losses, 34 saves, 102 innings, 3.98 ERA.

All of this seems to prove the point that, at the very least, Quiz was the equal of Sutter and should have received significantly more Hall of Fame support (or Sutter should have received less).

So, why did Sutter get so much more Hall of Fame support? I suspect there are five reasons:

1. Sutter was a more “dominant pitcher” – strikeouts and such.
2. Sutter had more saves.
3. Sutter got a lot of credit for popularizing the split-fingered fastball.
4. Sutter won a Cy Young Award.
5. Sutter played for the Cubs and Cardinals, two nationally beloved teams.

And I would answer each of the five this way:

1. Quiz was the more efficient pitcher.
2. Quiz had the better save percentage – and Sutter picked up most of his extra saves when he was no long effective.
3. Quiz also was a pioneer with the submarine pitch – it’s not his fault others couldn’t do it as well.
4. Quiz should have won the Cy Young Award in 1983 for sure (La Marr Hoyt? Please) and possibly in’82 or ’85 as well.
5. Quiz was consistently better in big games than Sutter.

OK, glad to get that off my chest. There is one other part of Sutter vs. Quiz that I have calculated – and I have to admit that this semi-new statistic does favor Sutter. It also shows that it is ridiculous that Goose Gossage is not in the Hall of Fame. It also shows that I do not have a particularly actively nightlife. We’ll unveil that study tomorrow.