Livan the Mentor
Livan Hernandez struggled against the Mets on Sunday, giving up six runs on eight hits over 5 1/3 innings. As he exited the field in the top of the sixth, his 2011 season had officially come to an end.
Hernandez isn’t injured. He isn’t on a strict innings limit either. The Nationals simply decided to shut Hernandez down for the season’s final month. Removing him from the rotation enables the team to test out various youngsters in preparation for next season. Livan didn’t put up a fight. He understood the decision and accepted it, and will embrace his new role as mentor and de facto second pitching coach.
This type of decision isn’t made every day, especially with a pitcher still as productive as Hernandez. Then again, Hernandez isn’t your every day type of pitcher, and this story will only add to his legend as one of the best characters and people in the game.
Though he tossed a clunker on Sunday, Hernandez still put together a productive season. In just five months he pitched to a league average 2 WAR while posting decent peripherals. With a 5.1 K/9, 2.4 BB/9 and 42 percent groundball rate, Hernandez finished his 2011 campaign with a 3.95 FIP and 4.32 SIERA. Over 175 1/3 innings, and signed for just $1 million, that is extremely cost-effective.
Never overly expensive and always hovering around the league average pretty much sums up Livan’s career. Durability was his calling card, since his rubber arm enabled him to throw around 200 frames every season. Even in his below average seasons, being available to soak up innings added to his value. Doing so while signed to team-friendly contracts was even more of a value-add.
Case in point: Hernandez threw more innings than anyone else from 2000-11 — it wasn’t even close either, as his 2588 1/3 was over 100 innings more than Javier Vazquez‘s 2482 — and he never made more than $8 million in a single season. Not that he was ever a legitimate candidate for the Cy Young Award or anything like that, but 200+ innings with a floor of 1.5 WAR would seemingly merit at least one season with an eight figure salary.
He was always hittable and lacked top-notch stuff, but understood his limitations and smartly broke down the opposition. While it’s laughable to picture Hernandez teaching Stephen Strasburg how to throw 84-mph slop, it’s tough to imagine many pitchers better suited to teach these young arms. After all, you don’t tally 36 WAR on the mound, over 15 seasons and with subpar stuff, without having plenty of pitching know-how. For $1 million this season, the Nationals got 175+ league average innings and a second pitching coach. Not a bad investment at all.
But every metric mentioned so far deals with Hernandez’s pitching. With 15 seasons as our evidence, it’s safe to say that his hitting skills are legitimate, and should not be overlooked when valuing his work. He has a career .222/.231/.296 line — a .231 wOBA — which fares extremely well against pitchers as a whole.
Across pitchers with 250+ plate appearances since 2000, only Carlos Zambrano has outproduced Livan offensively: Big Z has 8.3 WAR to his name while Hernandez has tallied 7.6 WAR at the plate and on the bases.
It’s an underrated aspect of valuing pitchers. For most, 25-50 trips to the dish represents a small sample lacking predictive value, so it’s ignored. Livan has always been above replacement level for pitchers at the plate, and while 1108 plate appearances is still a small sample, nobody will argue that his hitting is a 15-year fluke. For pitchers like Livan and Zambrano, their value increases by an entire win or more in certain seasons, which is too often overlooked when discussing their value to a team.
Look no further than Livan’s 2001 season for proof: he gave the Giants 2.5 WAR on the mound, but had a .294 wOBA that, over 85 plate appearances, was worth 1.3 WAR. It’s easy to say he was a 2.5 WAR pitcher that season, but he wasn’t. He was much closer to 4 WAR player.
Livan may not be ready to retire despite his September shutdown. He wants to pitch next season and prefers the Nationals. Though he would need to start for any other suitor, he mentioned that middle relief would be an option strictly given to the Nats.
For $1-2 million, a Hernandez capable of pitching in relief, making the occasional start, and continuing to mentor the youngsters is one of the most sound investments the Nationals can make this off-season.
Great article, I agree 100% that the Nats would be foolish not to renew Hernandez’s contract for the 2012 season. Davey Johnson has been adamant about needing guys in the bullpen who can throw a bunch of innings in a blowout, and no one fits the bill better than Livan. I’d like to see him retire as a National, and maybe go into coaching.
Baseball players have value outside of their numbers? I would’ve never known that by reading Fangraphs.
The Nationals sure aren’t going to win more games this season because Hernandez is shut down, if that’s what you’re inferring.
Great article btw, Livan has always been one of my favorite players to follow because of his knowledge on HOW to pitch despite having sub-par stuff. Shaun Marcum might be this generation’s Livan even though Shaun’s changeup is nasty.
I’ve always been fascinated by Livan. His sheer durability is incredible. 3121 career innings and not a single injury (that I know of). He lead the league in innings pitched for 3 straight years. He’s averaged 33 starts a year since his first full season (14 years). His innings totals have been down in recent years, but not because he’s not been able to take the ball.
Someone should preserve his arm and study it like they did with Einstein’s brain.
You forgot to mention Livo fields his position pretty well and could open up a school for bunting.
He can also be a translator because he speaks fluent spanish!
Sir Reginald says “Livan, Livan likes his money…He makes a lot, they say”
Not really relevant to the conversation at hand but I feel old…Livan was a World Series MVP 14 years ago. I remember that so clearly too.
Liván,
I remember him well, when I first interviewed him as he recently arrived to Spring Training with the SF Giants after his firs seasons with the Marlins. We spoke about Cuba(our land of birth)and he was very candid. I was then broadcasting the games for the Giants. I remember one question I posed to him; when I asked him “what do you really like about the USA, aside from the baseball world?”. He smiled and responded: “I can eat here every ten minutes if I want to”.*(In Cuba everytyhing is rationed)
I am very glad for his long career, I knew he was going to be a very good pitcher in the Major Leagues, because he always had a great attitude and that is very important if you want to stay in the show.
“Hernandez threw more innings than anyone else from 2000-11 — it wasn’t even close either, as his 2588 1/3 was over 100 innings more than Javier Vazquez‘s 2482″
That’s 9 innings a year. That’s not that massive a difference, that’s basically a start and a half extra a year, which is pretty much 1 extra turn in the rotation.
Also, Livan’s floor was 0.4 WAR in 2007.
Still remarkable durability.
Stating that Hernandez’s large number of innings pitched is a value beyond his WAR is wrong: the large number of innings increases his WAR.
Your article brings up a pet peeve of mine: Why isn’t pitcher batting (and fielding, for that matter) included in WAR? It’s part of what the player does, and it is a component of his value.
Yes, this reduces the comparability of AL vs. NL pitchers, but so what?
Pitcher batting is included in WAR:
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=p&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=20&type=8&season=2011&month=0&season1=2011&ind=0
The problem is simply that the interface has separate tables for “batters” and “pitchers” and no way to look at both mixed together. It would help not only in determining the true value of NL pitchers, but also in being able to compare batters and pitchers for MVP discussions, and for examining two-way players (Micah Owings?).
I was aware that pitchers’ batting WAR is listed. What I meant was that it should be included with their pitching (and possibly fielding) WAR in their total WAR, which it is apparently not.
“Pitchers – Where offensive WAR used wRAA and UZR, pitching WAR uses FIP. Based on how many innings a pitcher threw, FIP is turned into runs form, converted to represent value above replacement level, and is then converted from runs to wins.”
the only thing really interesting about this is that when some people claim that the PU would take action for benching a player when a team wants to audition some players for next season roster spots when the benched player has certain vesting clauses in his contract. Then suddenly it runs afoul of good faith contract practices….
seems to me that the players agreeing to these vesting terms in their contracts do so with the risk that teams may fall out of contention and they may lose PT and thus take on the risk of their options not vesting. this should become the acceptable standard for veterans getting or losing PT. Teams should have every right to use late season games to plan for the following season without fear of union action.
Livan claims he could pitch until he’s 50. That’s 14 years of long relief, but does anybody really doubt he could do it?
Livan has never been on the DL, when you throw that many innings in that long of a time, that’s incredible. Davey Johnson has suggested to the front office that they sign him as a long reliever, or a spot starter, like Tim Wakefield.
Another interesting note is that he probably tosses or tossed the most innings on the side. I remember reading something about him strengthening his arm by continually throwing on his off days…like, 100+ pitches and also quite a few before taking the mound on any given day.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he asked for 1 mil or less to play for the Nats again. Could still be a perfectly good long man for years.
I’m definitely a 1st ballot HOF. Soak it up.
so begins the Livan for HOF movement. I’m joining
45 WAR. The Hall could (and has) done worse.
NatsLady raises an interesting point which I don’t believe Fangraphs addresses- the effectiveness of pitchers in laying down bunts. Since most pitchers are poor hitters, their ability to effectively bunt does add value to their teams, and could, I imagine, be the source of a couple wins over a career. There is, I imagine, an expected run differential between advancing the runner through a successful bunt and the pitcher swinging away. I’d be interested to know who the most successful pitchers are at giving themselves up, and what the differential is.