As Andrew Beaton earlier linked, Ken Rosenthal contributed an article to FOXSports.com about the status of Willie Randolph. Rosenthal said a criticism of Randolph was putting in Billy Wagner in the middle of an inning, when statistics showed that’s not a good situation for him. Rosenthal related this with the following evidence:

Since the start of 2007, Wagner has entered games 84 times at the start of an inning, but only seven times in the middle.

He is 44-for-50 in save opportunities when starting an inning, according to STATS, Inc. His ERA in those situations is 2.05 ERA, and he has allowed six homers in 88 innings.

When entering in the middle of an inning, Wagner is 3-for-6 in save chances. His ERA is 7.11, and he has allowed three homers in 6 1/3 innings.

Now these stats are taken before Wagner’s blown save on Wednesday against the D-backs, so it is actually now eight times, 3-for-7 in save chances, and four home runs given up.

But analyzing these eight relief outings in which Wagner entered in the middle of an inning, there’s too many variables to call this a valid indictment of his success in this situation. First, eight games is a tremendously small sample size. Secondly, Wagner entering in the middle of the inning would usually mean there are inherited runners on, which would add to the probability that he would blow a save.

And perhaps the biggest argument against these stats can be found in the three of the eight games, all against the Phillies. Yes, not only is it a small sample size, but three of these games are against the same team. And not only that, but the same man inflicted major damage in two games! Pat Burrell hit a home run in two of the three games, making two of the four home runs Wagner had given up in such situations. Perhaps, just perhaps, match-ups have some weight in these scenarios as well!

Since the Phillies are a divisional rival, some of the team’s stars have accumulated at-bats against Wagner. Burrell, a known Mets killer, is batting .250 in his career with 2 HR, 4 RBIs, 1 double and 1 triple in 16 at-bats against Wagner. Ryan Howard is batting .300 against Wagner. Chase Utley is batting .333 against Wagner, and Utley contributed an RBI single in one of these games against Wagner and a game-winning single in another.

Going further, in all these Mets vs. Phillies games in which Wagner came in during the middle of an inning, he didn’t actually struggle with the inning he came in. He got out of the 8th twice without blowing the save. In another, Wagner only let one inherited run score.

In the eight games, Wagner has blown four saves, but in the other four games, he converted three saves and finished up another win in a non-save opportunity. This includes a key 4-out save against the Yankees on May 17 and a particularly dominant outing on June 3 against the Giants in which Wagner got two outs on just two pitches.

It should be mentioned that in 2006, I could only find two such instances of Wagner entering a game in the middle of an inning, both successful save attempts against the Braves and Phillies.

Like Andrew said earlier today, these “closer rules” are ridiculous and sometimes the results don’t even match up, such as the case seems to be with Wagner in the last three years.

Rosenthal presented the statistics at the same time distancing himself from a real opinion on the matter, but just by presenting only one view of the situation, he’s taking a side. What really bothers me about his article is the fact that he quotes unnamed scouts with the most empty and baseless comments. It’s like if I sat as a fan at a Mets game and saw David Wright yawning and then commented that the Mets are bored with baseball. These kind of quotes are absolutely infuriating and can hardly be included with “news.”