One of my favorite quotes out of the fantastic book “The Long Ball” was Sparky’s about how he handles his starting pitchers. I don’t have the book with me (I loaned it to Brian), but it went something like this…

For the first five innings, the game belongs to the starting pitcher. For the rest of the game, it belongs to me.

I didn’t put quotes around it because that might not be what he said verbatim, but boy did Sparky love his pen. At the first sign of trouble, Captain Hook would be out there. And for all three of his championship teams, he had a great pen to work with.

Clay Carroll was one of Sparky’s workhorses and will be going up against Doug Bair. I had to decide between Carroll and Pedro Borbon, since we’re only going to look at three relievers, and Caroll seemed just a little better.

Carroll and Bair match up pretty well. They’re almost equal as far as how much they worked, so the comparison will be easier. Carroll had a better ERA, while Bair had a better WHIP. And while Bair had a better strikeout rate, the one area where he’s grossly overmatched is in the homeruns allowed category. Carroll was stingy in allowing the long ball, and gave up only two throughout the entire 1975 campaign, while Bair game up ten in 1984.

Let’s take a look at the numbers:

Innings Pitched 96 1/3
Wins 7
Losses 5
Saves 7
ERA 2.62
ERA+ 137
WHIP 1.298
H/9 8.69
BB/9 2.99
SO/9 4.11
HR/9 0.19
Pitching Runs Above Replacement 34
Stuff -3

That homerun rate really stands out. Between that, and Carroll being worth 13 more runs then Bair (around one win), the nod has to go to the Reds.

Scorecard – 1975 Reds 7, 1984 Tigers 6

We’re in the lead again!!!! You can read Brian’s analysis of Doug Bair over at Tigerblog most likely tomorrow (if you can believe what he says).

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