Joe Torre: Proctology

New feature at Fangraphs yields this list of most relief innings pitched, 6/24/05 to 6/23/08:

Heilman: 261.2 IP, 3.34 ERA, 3.34 FIP, 0.96 WPA
Proctor: 257.2 IP, 4.37 ERA, 4.74 FIP, -0.35 WPA
Qualls: 254 IP, 3.19 ERA, 3.90 FIP, 2.61 WPA
Torres: 251.1 IP, 3.37 ERA, 3.70 FIP, 4.41 WPA
Shields: 243.2 IP, 3.10 ERA, 3.32 FIP, 6.23 WPA
Guerrier: 240.1 IP, 2.92 ERA, 4.14 FIP, 2.27 WPA
Howry: 238 IP, 3.21 ERA, 3.45 FIP, 4.00 WPA
Rivera: 232.1 IP, 2.01 ERA, 2.31 FIP, 11.69 WPA
Rauch: 225.1 IP, 3.32 ERA, 3.66 FIP, 3.53 WPA
Gregg: 224.2 IP, 3.36 ERA, 3.69 FIP, 2.28 WPA

Proctor is the only reliever with an ERA over 4 or a negative WPA in the top ten. Among the top thirty, only two pitchers have ERA's that are not at least a half run better than Proctor's, and there are only three pitchers with FIP's that are not at least a half run better than Proctor's. Of the pitchers in the top 30 in innings in relief since 6/24/2008, ONE has an ERA worse than Proctor (Joel Peralta, 4.44) and NONE have a worse FIP or a worse WPA total. Despite this, Proctor is second in relief innings pitched.

Now, fortunately Proctor has pitched in average leverage contexts, with an LI of 0.99. Here are the relievers with an LI between 0.85 and 1.05, a FIP of 4.40 or greater and at least 120 IP over the past three years, in order of innings pitched:

Proctor, 257.2
Grabow, 189.2
Romero, 161.2
Jamie Walker, 154.1
Kline, 132.1
Pinto, 131
Tavarez, 130
Dohmann, 120

Only Proctor and Grabow (4.8) have FIPs over 4.63, and only Proctor and Tavarez (-2.58) have negative WPA totals. It is just baffling that Proctor has been used so much. Maybe Torre was trying to get back at Cashman for dealing Ventura? In fairness, Proctor's LI in 2008 is 0.60. But in fairness, Hong-Chih Kuo's is 0.57.

I didn't go further than the above because Sharpfang for some reason does not include BFP (or TBF or PA, whatever you call it) for pitchers! David should add that; exporting to Excel is exciting, but doing so and then finding it doesn't have the key unit for analysis is rather disappointing.