Andrew Miller Doesn’t Have Any Saves, And He’s The Best Reliever In Baseball

The Cleveland Indians’ Andrew Miller is the sort of pitcher we had in mind when we developed the goose egg, our replacement for the save stat that rewards pitchers for throwing scoreless relief innings in clutch situations. Miller isn’t the Indians’ closer — that distinction belongs to Cody Allen — and in fact, Miller doesn’t have a single save yet this season. But no reliever has contributed more to his team’s bottom line so far.
Miller has appeared in 23 games, usually entering in the 7th or 8th inning. All but a handful of those appearances have come in high-leverage situations. He’s yielded just two runs — one of them unearned — while striking out 37 batters and allowing just 5 walks and 13 hits in 26.1 innings. He’s been as unhittable as pitchers get. But while Miller hasn’t earned any saves for his efforts, he does have 17 goose eggs, tying him for the major league lead. He also leads the majors in goose wins above replacement (GWAR), having added 2.3 wins to Cleveland’s tally so far. If his performance so far is the source of any disappointment, it’s that, unlike during last year’s postseason, Miller hasn’t been used in many multi-inning appearances — but that’s on manager Terry Francona, not Miller.

The co-leader in goose eggs is the Brewers’ Corey Knebel, who started out as a setup man but worked his way into the closer role. We’re more interested in pitchers with less conventional usage patterns, however, and a couple of them have fallen off the pace slightly. The Astros’ Chris Devenski, who we highlighted last month for often working multiple innings at a time, is up to 15 goose eggs, but he also has 5 broken eggs (the goose equivalent of a blown save). And the Reds’ Raisel Iglesias, who’s mainly used as a closer but who often enters the game in the 8th inning instead of the 9th, is stuck on 12 goose eggs, mostly because the Reds have been playing like crap and not providing him with enough clutch situations to pitch in.

You can find a complete rundown of goose stats in the table below. We’ll continue to update these numbers once a month or so.