Examining Logan Kensing's P

P is another statistic from the old Big Bad Baseball Annual stable. It was developed by Doug Drinen, and measures the effectiveness of relievers. Calculate the probability of the reliever's team winning when he enters the game (which was P), when he leaves, and what it would be if he was perfect. If you subtract the leaving score from the perfect score, a bad outing will result in a negative performance. If you subtract the leaving score from the entry score, a good outing will result in a plus performance. Thus, it was possible to evaluate not only the usage of relievers, but their contribution to the game.

On 29 April 2009, the Nationals traded a minor league roster-filler pitcher, Kyle Gunderson, 48th-round pick in 2007, to the Florida Marlins for Logan Kensing, a hard-throwing right-handed relief pitcher who had worn out his welcome in Miami through not pitching particularly well after Tommy John surgery. Manny Acta threw Kensing into the fray at his first opportunity on 30 April, and the 26-year-old has made five more appearances, most recently on 11 May.

Date          Inning     P       Situation           Net Value
30 April         7     .615        1st, 1 out, up 1      -.123
 1 May           6     .099        1st, 2 out, down 5    +.014
 6 May           6     .061        load, 1 out, down 3   -.069
 9 May           7     .204        load, 2 out, down 1   +.164
10 May           6     .592        none, 0 out, up 1     -.564
11 May           5     .069        load, 2 out, down 5   -.014

He's responsible for losing over half a game in the short span of about two weeks, as his Value scores add up to -.592 (A value of 1.000 would equate to a game.)

But looking more closely at the data, Kensing is a tolerable mop-up man when behind. The disappointment is that he has absolutely failed to protect a lead. You wonder whether he gets too nervous when it's close. I think he might stick in the Nationals' bullpen, if they've still got players there with options, as the sixth man coming out to fill-in during blowouts.

EDIT: Kensing was designated for assignment the same day that I wrote this. I also corrected some mistakes in my calculations above.