Yes, yes. it's a bogus stat. But tell us anyway -- who leads MLB '08 in saves?
Francisco Cordero | 4 (1.90%) |
Trevor Hoffman | 5 (2.38%) |
Joe Nathan | 9 (4.29%) |
Jonathan Papelbon | 76 (36.19%) |
Mariano Rivera | 6 (2.86%) |
Francisco Rodriguez | 46 (21.90%) |
Takashi Saito | 13 (6.19%) |
Jose Valverde | 5 (2.38%) |
Billy Wagner | 23 (10.95%) |
Other (who?) | 23 (10.95%) |
210 votes | 6 featured comments
Last cuts from the list: Todd Jones, Chad Cordero. J.J. Putz, Bobby Jenks, Jason Isringhausen and '07 AL leader Joe Borowski (Sorry Joe ... you didn't convince me!)
No Blue Jays were seriously considered for this list. Now, if we did TEAM saves, maybe ...
Other: someone. It's a sufficiently bogus stat that I'll take the field.
Bogus for sure ... we're 55 votes into this thing and the only candidate on the list to have ZERO votes is Valverde -- who led the majors LAST year!
Apparently Rivera is a 1 in 19 shot. I like those odds, but I think K-Rod is the easy favorite, on a smallball-minded team with strong starting pitchers in a crappy division full of pitchers' parks.
I'm going with Todd Jones actually. The Tigers have a good team
but I think they'll be in reasonably close games and without Zumaya to
poach in the early going he'll rack up a decent number.
Especially since his usage the past few years has been pretty
exclusively in save situations.
I had a hard time choosing between Papelbon, K-Rod and the field, but I think that overall I would give it to Rodriguez - he's going to pitch well, the Angels are going to win a lot of games, and Papelbon might not get used enough to rack up huge K numbers.