I decided to research the performances of the American League closers, after some debate on the weekend when Miguel Batista nearly blew a save. Bauxites had varying opinions on his performance; this shall attempt to answer the questions. Enjoy!
All statistics are from ESPN.com, not counting Monday's games.
To start, I looked at the top 14 in saves. Here are the top 12:
Wickman 32 Rivera 31 Hermanson 30 Guardado 29 Nathan 29 Rodriguez 27 Ryan 26 Cordero 26 AVERAGE 25.5 Baez 25 Batista 21 MacDougal 15 Street 15Note: Nobody from Boston or Detroit, because Foulke and Percival are hurt, Schilling's new to closing and Urbina's in the NL now. But we have 12 and that's good enough.
For this study, I'm classifying saves as Super, Tough, Regular and Cheap. These classifications come from tangotiger's Crucial Situations chart, where Super = Very High-Leverage, Tough = High-Leverage, and so on.
Each closer will get one point for a regular save, two points for a tough save, three for a super save and none for cheap saves. If the closer gives up runs but still gets the save, it doesn't matter. We're just concerned here with how good or bad the save or blown save was. Conversely, if a closer blows a regular save, he loses two points, one point for a tough save and three points for a cheap save.
In short, closers are not given credit for saving cheap saves, nor are they punished for blowing tough saves. The harder the save, the higher the point value awarded. Only save performance is considered in this section of analysis.
Enough talk, let's look at the Save Point results:
Closer Super Tough Regular Cheap Total SvPts Wickman 0 6 20 6 32 32 Herman. 1 5 11 13 30 24 Nathan 0 8 8 13 29 24 Rivera 1 5 10 15 31 23 K-Rod 0 6 11 10 27 23 Guarda. 0 5 13 11 29 23 Baez 0 4 12 9 25 20 AVERAGE 0 5 9 11 25 19 Cordero 0 7 5 14 26 19 Batista 0 4 5 12 21 13 Ryan 0 3 6 17 26 12 Street 0 3 4 8 15 10 MacDoug.0 0 7 8 15 7
And now the blown saves. I'm not counting certain blown saves acquired by pitchers if they had no realistic chance to get the save. One example is Huston Street before he was named the closer -- I didn't count his blown save in the sixth or seventh inning. The results:
Closer Super Tough Regular Cheap Total BSvPts Herman. 0 1 0 0 1 1 MacDoug.0 1 0 0 1 1 Guarda. 0 0 0 1 1 3 Nathan 0 3 0 0 3 3 Street 0 2 1 0 3 4 AVERAGE 0 2 1 1 4 5.8 Ryan 0 4 1 0 5 6 K-Rod 0 2 1 1 4 7 Rivera 0 0 2 1 3 7 Batista 0 1 2 1 4 8 Wickman 0 2 2 1 5 9 Baez 1 4 0 2 7 10 Cordero 0 2 3 1 6 11
Putting them together (SvPts minus BSvPts):
Closer SvOppPts Wickman 23 Hermanson 23 Nathan 21 Guardado 20 Rivera 16 Rodriguez 16 AVERAGE 13 Baez 10 Cordero 8 Ryan 6 MacDougal 6 Street 6 Batista 5
Despite that list, Batista is not the "worst" pitcher when it comes to this measure...
Closer Diff Hermanson -7 Nathan -8 Wickman -9 Guardado -9 MacDougal -9 Street -9 Rodriguez -11 AVERAGE -13.2 Rivera -15 Baez -15 Batista -16 Cordero -18 Ryan -20
...but he's close. Dustin Hermanson, Mike MacDougal and Eddie Guardado have only blown one save each, explaining their position at the top of this list of SaveOppPts (SOP) minus actual saves. What is worth noting is that every pitcher, even the very best, is below 0. Why? They all have cheap saves, my friend. As far as I'm concerned, they are lose-lose for good closers. If you get it, you should get it, it's an easy save; if you don't, you get penalized. Joe Nathan shows up in second because his three blown saves were all "tough saves."
Wickman has blown five, but he doesn't benefit from cheap saves as much as everyone else does, so he's tied for third. Well, he's actually tied for first, as I put more weight in the "SvOppPts" chart than I do the previous one. But enough about Wickman...for now.
What surprised me about these lists is that Batista is below average on each and every one of them. I know some of the measures are just derivatives of the others and the ordering would be the same, but Batista, Francisco Cordero and B.J. Ryan are the only ones below average on every list. Danys Baez is close, but he pitches for Tampa Bay and therefore nobody cares about him. These measures only take save opportunities into account, so it's clear that they consider Batista to be a below-average closer. As for a below average reliever (because those terms are very, very different), let's look at the more traditional measures.
I'll conclude this part by saying that Bob Wickman is the best closer in the American League, with Joe Nathan a close second. Now, Wickman is not the best relief pitcher in the AL -- nor among these pitchers -- but that's why I separated these parts.
Once again, the statistics are from ESPN.com and do not include Monday's games. In this case, they take every inning into account, not just saves and blown saves. We've already established the "closer" rating of these closers, now let's see how well they actually pitch. Some Bauxites predictions are included.
VBF: He's probably 10th in ERA.
Pitcher ERA Guardado 1.32 Rivera 1.33 Street 1.42 Hermanson 1.60 Rodriguez 2.60 Nathan 2.72 Ryan 2.81 Baez 2.91 Wickman 3.09 Batista 3.10 Cordero 3.33 MacDougal 4.13
Give that man a prize! Batista is, in fact, 10th among these closers in ERA. And, poor Mike MacDougal.
Can he do it again? VBF: [Batista is] 6th in Opponent Average.
Pitcher BAA Rodriguez .157 Rivera .165 Street .184 Nathan .189 Guardado .189 Ryan .208 Hermanson .216 Cordero .228 Baez .247 Batista .258 MacDougal .262 Wickman .264
Ouch. Maybe not. The rubber match for VBF: 6th in WHIP.
Pitcher WHIP Rivera 0.79 Guardado 0.90 Street 0.95 Rodriguez 1.00 Nathan 1.07 Hermanson 1.09 Ryan 1.11 Batista 1.29 Cordero 1.31 Wickman 1.35 Baez 1.35 MacDougal 1.41
VBF was close on this one (Batista was 8th) but the WHIP difference is huge -- 1.09 vs 1.29. One more table:
Pitcher DIPS Rivera 1.99 Ryan 2.19 Nathan 2.57 Street 2.65 Rodriguez 2.73 Guardado 3.04 Cordero 3.23 MacDougal 3.42 Batista 3.79 Hermanson 3.80 Baez 4.27 Wickman 5.19
Once again, all statistics are from ESPN.com.
You can see that Batista, while being in the top of the league in saves, is in the middle or bottom of that group by most definitions. What that means is basically what we already knew: he's a second-tier closer, which is no knock to Miguel Batista. It's very hard to be top-10 in saves and not be any good -- any manager would remove a really bad pitcher from the closer's role before long.
So let's deal with some other reader predictions. Ron says "Off the top of my head, it appears a lot Batista's saves come when the Jays have at least a 2 run lead."
Ron, you're right. 12 of Batista's 21 saves are "cheap" saves, which means he entered the game with a three-run lead or a two-run lead at home. That 57% (12 of 21) is second highest among these closers: B.J. Ryan has 65% (17 of 26). Here's that table:
Cheap Save % Wickman 19 Baez 36 Rodriguez 37 Guardado 38 Hermanson 43 AVERAGE 44 Nathan 45 Rivera 48 MacDougal 53 Street 53 Cordero 54 Batista 57 Ryan 65
Bob Wickman, while being low on the lists of every non-save measure, is not only leading the league in saves, he has the fewest cheap saves relative to his save total. It's remarkably low, that percentage. (It's not a misprint, I triple-checked it.) The obvious explanation is he's doing what Jack Morris was rumoured to do, just in relief. If it's not a tough or regular save situation, Wickman doesn't "bear down" or whatever cliche you wish to use. I don't know what the answer is, because that would require adding up all his save and non-save hits, walks, etc. Magpie can do that if he wants, but this is time-consuming as it is.
Next conclusion: Bob Wickman is a bad reliever. But he's a good closer. B.J. Ryan appears to be the opposite, while Mariano Rivera is just unhittable. But you knew that last one.
I just don't understand that Wickman thing, though. He's actively defying all of my accepted knowledge about closers. Is it small sample size (each of these guys is around 50 innings pitched)? Does he pitch differently in save situations? Is he remarkably lucky? Any Cleveland fans here who can help me out?
Overall, Batista looks bad compared to the elite closers, but that's not a fair comparison -- it's the opposite of damning with faint praise. I am confident in his ability to close out games, and I believe he is an above-average reliever.
I'll take a look at the 2004 AL closers in a future Game Report. Maybe even NL, but probably not. It would be all "Gagne and Smoltz ROOL!!!1!1" and I don't follow the NL that much, anyway. This might be done in the offseason, if I'm lazy about researching from Retrosheet. I wonder if anyone will show up as a Bob Wickman Pitcher? If so, I think we have a new term and a new award for closers who get the job done with bad numbers across the board.
Your comments, criticism and suggestions are appreciated. Updated stats for all these closers are available from ESPN here, hopefully sorted by total saves so you can see all the closers on the same page.
Looking over last night's games, Mariano Rivera once again got a cheap save, but with that bullpen, Torre almost has to go with Mo all the time. Okay, he doesn't (he's already used starters on their throw days, and Randy Johnson was going to close out Sunday's game if needed), but still...couldn't someone pitch an inning without giving up three runs? I refuse to believe that the New York bullpen (or any bullpen) has only one pitcher with an ERA under 27. And don't get me started on the "five run lead with bases loaded" save.
Oh yeah, and how about that ballgame?
We had the best chat of the season, easily. New "on the road" silence rules are in place, though:
1. In the bottom half of innings, only two people are allowed to say anything in the chat. VBF will give us all a warning, or, in his absence, some other Wells fan.
2. If the opposition gets a baserunner, Magpie must leave the chat. If he is not in the chat, Rule 2 does not apply.
3. "Skills" is not allowed near the chat in close games.
It is not known if these rules apply in home games or games played before 10:00 Eastern.
I disagree with the move to bring in Pete Walker, even if Miguel Batista was tired from Sunday. If the Jays took the lead, Batista would have been in there for the save, no doubt. It was a bad move by John Gibbons (I said "terrible" earlier, downgrade it to "bad") in either case. Even if Batista was not ready to pitch today and he had to go with Walker, Gibbons is still at fault. Batista was tired? Well, why did Gibbons bring him in on Sunday in a low-pressure situation, a 7-4 lead?
Because Batista is the closer. And closers get saves. That was a 3-run lead on Sunday and 3-run leads mean saves. No matter what you think about using Walker last night (this morning), Gibbons was a Slave To The Save at least once in the last two games.
And for my money, it was twice. Two times too many.
It doesn't take anything away from this ballgame, though. Extra innings, two Molina! brothers, an ejection...a fun game it was.
