Lyon the Tiger

In many respects, the Detroit Tigers were a disappointing entity in 2008. Preseason prognosticators held a generally sunny outlook for the men from the Motor City on the belief that a Miguel Cabrera-infused offense and a Justin Verlander/Jeremy Bonderman-led rotation would lead to a postseason berth. Instead, Detroit limped to a 74-88 record and a similarly disappointing 78-84 Pythagorean Record.

While the offense didn’t reach the hyperbolic expectations that some held, the Tigers did plate the 4th-most runs in the American League. Where the team truly disappointed was in the run-prevention department: the club ranked 26th in starter FIP, and the bullpen also turned in a wretched performance, ranking 27th in both FIP and WPA. Detroit’s lackluster leather didn’t help things (they ranked 24th in Defensive Efficiency and 27th in UZR/150), but injuries and poor showings on the mound doomed the Tigers to a distant fourth-place finish.

Detroit ostensibly took a step toward fixing their leaky bullpen, inking former Blue Jay, Red Sock and D-Back Brandon Lyon to a one-year, $4.25M deal. Just how much will the 29 year-old aid the Tigers in upgrading a depleted ‘pen?

Lyon’s last three campaigns are a great example of why ERA is such a misleading statistic for relievers. Based on his ERA’s…

2006: 3.89
2007: 2.68
2008: 4.70

..one would assume that Lyon was decent in ’06, great in ’07 and kind of lousy in 2008. However, not a whole lot changed in Lyon’s repeatable skills over that time frame. Rather, the flyball righty (career 41.6 GB%) was the beneficiary of an extremely low HR/FB rate during that superficially impressive 2007 season: only 2.2% of Lyon’s flyballs left the ballpark that year, compared to 9.7% in ’06 and 9% in ’08. After that run of good luck in 2007, Lyon had the misfortune of posting a .355 BABIP this past year.

Here’s a look at his three-year Expected Fielding Independent ERA (XFIP), which evaluates a pitcher based on his strikeouts, walks and a normalized HR/FB rate (thus rooting out Lyon’s wacky ’07 campaign):

2006: 4.18 XFIP
2007: 4.78 XFIP
2008: 4.33 XFIP

As you can see, Lyon’s ’07 season was actually his least effective campaign in recent years. On the positive side, Lyon posted the best walk rate of his career in 2008 (1.97 BB/9) and his K rate (6.67) was the highest since his lone season with Boston in 2003.

Marcel projects Lyon to pitch 62 frames in 2009, with a 3.98 FIP. That projection was made before Lyon switched to the DH league. He will however be moving from a great hitter’s park (Chase Field) to a slight hitter’s venue in Comerica Park. Let’s say that Lyon’s projection increases slightly, to a 4.05 FIP. Given those parameters, Lyon’s fastball/curve mix figures to be worth about 5 runs above what a replacement-level reliever (4.75 FIP) would produce. If we multiply Lyon’s 5 RAR by the average Leverage Index of a closer (about 1.8) to give him some additional credit for pitching more critical innings, he figures to be worth about .9 WAR, or about $4.05 million using a $4.5M/WAR scale.

So, Lyon figures to be worth most of the money that the Tigers will pay him, and he is coming off a season in which he posted the highest strikeout-to-walk ratio of his career. Adding a guy like Brandon Lyon to a club’s bullpen is not in itself a problem. Where the problems lies for the Tigers is that Lyon just might be the best option that they have for the late innings, considering Fernando Rodney‘s flammability and Joel Zumaya’s tenuous health.

Lyon seems like the guy who’s going to rack up the glory stat in Detroit, so he merits attention on draft day. Just don’t reach for him- plenty of other relievers have similar skill sets and talent levels. The only thing that separates Lyon is that he enters the game in the 9th inning with a lead between one and three runs.