The
Irrelevance of Closers and Saves
The
saves stat was made an official stat back in 1969 and developed by many
baseball Executives to give a stat to a pitcher that was able to close out
closer games. The number was set
to 3 runs or less for the traditional save, there are more ways to get saves
but they don’t show up as often as the basic 3 runs or less option; the closer
can also be called on to pitch more than one inning if the need fits, the
closer tends to be the “best” pitcher in the bullpen and is the most trusted
pitcher the manager has. The top
closer in the games history is, arguably, Mariano Rivera with an astounding 652
saves. Every thing I just said is
fact, with that said I hate the closer role and the S (saves) stat in general.
If
you’ve been reading my blog from the start or heard one of my earlier rants on
Turducken is Tasty on the subject you’ve heard me say before I hate the closer
role and today I plan on going into I bit more detail. Now this is all my opinion from this
part forward mixed in with stats if I feel they are needed, and with me saying
that you don’t have to agree with my views just hear me out.
The
closer is considered by many to be the best pitcher in the bullpen and given
his job he needs to be. Mariano
Rivera, Billy Wagner, Trevor Hoffman and Dennis Eckersly are all guys that are
synonymies with the closer role.
So I’ll pose the main question to all the people who defend the stat
that: Why do you wait to use your best pitcher? Now this isn’t 100% true all the time granted but how many
games could have been won that were lost in critical situations? Many times just this last season I
shock my head at managers that want to hold their closers till the ninth when
their fighting to keep the lead in the 7th. Lets look at an example of this biting
the team in the butt; this post season we saw the Dodgers beat the Braves to
move on to the NLCS. One of the
most critical moments came in game 3 when the Braves were up and the Dodgers
were pressing hard on the relief.
It was the bottom of the 8th with 1 out and 2 on; David
Carpenter was pitching and struggling.
Why wasn’t Kimbrel in? I
said this just before Carpenter gave up a HR that took the lead away from the
Braves and Kimbrel sat down from warming up. In that situation you wanted your best and he’s the best;
why wasn’t he in? Two reasons 1)
Walt Wiess wanted him for the 9th and 2) Kimbrel had never pitched
more than 4 batters all season. To
both of those I call bullshit; you needed the outs then and now so Kimbrel
should have been in the game and for the 2nd I don’t care he’s in
the majors I think he can handle facing 5 batters with a rest in between. Now there is no guarantee that this
would have solved the problem neither but odds get better. During game 3 of the World Series the
Red Sox brought in their closer in a non-save situation and still lost, though
on a bad throw not the pitchers doing.
Other
things to ask is why is the closer so much more valued rather than a pitcher
that gets a lot of holds? This
years Holds leader was Joel Peralta with a 2-year 6 million deal (with a 3rd
year option). The saves leader, by
comparison, was a tie between Josh Johnson and Craig Kimbrel at 50 each. Johnson is making roughly 13.75 million
this year and last year while Kimbrel is up for a major payday. The definition of a Hold is preserving
the lead in any inning but the last, which we call a save. Holds are starting to get more respect
but as of now they seem to be overlooked since we value the Save way more and
makes the closers more “valued” than regular relief pitchers.
In
the end it’s your opinion and I’ve just given a few reasons why I feel the
closer is overrated and by proxy the save as well. It’s like looking at a pitcher and saying “Oh he had 19 W’s
this year he’s a great pitcher!” without noting that the pitcher had and ERA of
4.00 and a WHIP of 1.30. We value
these guys above others because they can pitch in the last inning which we feel
is different than any other inning, and speaking from personal experience its
no different than the 1st.
No comments:
Post a Comment