As we wait for games to start, it’s a good time to reflect on how lucky we are to be witness to some of the greats that future generations will revere. Some got to watch Ted Williams hit, or Bob Feller pitch. Clemente throw someone out from right field. I wasn’t that lucky. But I did get to see this guy ply his trade better than anyone before him. At age 41 he put up this stat line:
W L ERA SV ER HR BB SO ERA+ WHIP BB/9 SO/9
1 2 1.91 44 13 3 8 60 232 0.897 1.2 8.8
NY papers are saying this may be his last season. Watch when you can. I never got to see Walter Johnson. But I got to watch Mo.
This is the last year of his contract and the other day he pretty much said “I’m retiring” in every possible way except coming out and saying “I’m retiring.” Trying to imagine the Yankees’ pen without Mo is a little bit like trying to imagine baseball without bats.
Well I can remember Gossage, Lyle and Rags so post Mo won’t be quite as tough for me, but as **Southern Yankee **wrote, MO was the best there has ever been at his position. It really isn’t close. He is the “Exception to all Rules” to quote Tom Verducci. He is the one player so clearly clutch that the hundreds that can prove without question there is no such thing as clutch will concede Mo is the exception.
It is his Post Season numbers that really standout: In 96 post season games he has a .70 ERA. That is 141 innings and 42 saves (of course 42) and is 8-1 as far as Wins and losses. His post season whip is 0.759! He has only surrendered 2 homers.
Some regular season career gems:
His being on top of the list for saves is not a credit to him, it is him lending his greatness to a very flawed stat.
He is the active leader in BB & Hits per 9 innings and 2nd overall.
His adjusted ERA is the best ever. He is #2 active & #5 overall for Ks/BBs
They don’t keep official records, but one of the bat companies mentioned he has broken more bats by far then any other pitcher.
Here’s a good one, shows what a firefighter he has been: Base-Out Runs Saved (RE24) Mo is the active leader and more importantly he is 13th overall and I don’t see another reliever in the top 40. Ecks is 29th but he started 361 games. It is basically a starter’s stat.
There is an argument that closers are over-rated and an unneeded expense but Mo does like to follow these rules. He is the active leader in Win Probability Added (WPA) and 4th overall. Another stat that is dominated by Hall of Fame starters.
I believe it was Jim Kelly that said way back in 1996, “Someone tell this kid there is no higher league.”
The writers stopped writing warnings about his age about 3 years ago as apparently he refuses to age. Again “The exception to all Rules”.
Leadoff spot looks to be a choice between Chone Figgins and Dustin Ackley. Maybe putting Figgins back at leadoff will bring his game back. I know the guy’s a lot better than what we’ve seen of him his first couple seasons in Seattle.
Right, but that’s been the argument precisely because teams often either put a guy at closer who’s not especially great, and who manages to get saves because getting saves isn’t really that hard, or (conversely) put a guy at closer is who is really good but whose talent is somewhat wasted because he isn’t brought into the game in enough high-leverage situations.
No-one has ever said that an all-time great pitcher is “over-rated and an unneeded expense,” and Rivera’s stats say more about his pitching ability than they do about the position of closer. Hell, if the Yankees had used him optimally over the years, instead of in the often-pointless-and-arbitrarily-designated role of “closer,” his Base-Out Runs Saved and Win Probability Added numbers would probably be even better.
I’m on an iPhone currently so no links but all the stats are either from the bottom of Mo’s page on baseball-reference or their leaders page in the pitching section.
I tried to grab stats that minimized the team and ephasized his individual greatness.
They* better make a fucking statement with some compelling reasoning. Until i hear otherwise, i’m chalking the reversal up to “Protect the Golden Boy.”
I don’t think Das has any interest in protecting the Golden Boy since he’s the independent member of the panel. But I want to know everybody’s reasoning regardless.
I’d still argue more closers are overrated, even the ones who pitch well. It’s difficult for a guy who pitches 70 innings to actually be a great pitcher.
Look at it this way; last year Ricky Romero, a starting pitcher, had a really good year. He went 15-11 and had a 2.92 ERA. He made the All-Star team and got a couple of Cy Young votes, and deserved to. You wouldn’t put it amongst the all-time great seasons or anything though. He was, let’s say, the 7th best pitcher in the league, something like that.
The difference between Ricky Romero and an AVERAGE pitcher is about 40 runs. That’s roughly what he saved his team.
Now take Jose Valverde, who had a very good year with Detroit; a 2.24 ERA, 49 saves. He was really, really good - but in just 72.1 innings, as opposed to Romero’s 225. The difference between Valverde and an average pitcher was 17, maybe 18 runs, tops.
A relief pitcher just isn’t that valuable, even when they pitch well. Tom Henke had a better ERA+ than Tom Seaver, but he just didn’t pitch enough to merit the comparison. Bruce Sutter pitched really well… for 1042 innings, which is substantially fewer than the number of innings Roy Halladay has thrown in just the last five years. No matter how good you are, a guy with 70-80 innings can’t be THAT good, and certainly shouldn’t be considered for a Cy Young Award.
What differentiates Rivera is that
He is utterly dominant; his typical year would have been one of the best seasons of Bruce Sutter’s career, or Trevor Hoffman’s, or whomever, and
He does it year after year after year after year without stopping, and
Plus he’s racked up a playoff record that is the equivalent of the greatest season a relief pitcher has ever had.
Here are the career WAR for relief pitchers, going down a list of career saves leaders:
Mo Rivera: 56.3
Hoffman: 30.8
Lee Smith: 30.3
John Franco: 25.8
Billy Wagner: 29.7
Eckersley: 58.7, but most of that is as a starting pitcher
Jeff Reardon 20.3
Troy Percival: 18.1
Randy Myers: 16.9
Rollie Fingers: 24.4
Francisco Cordero: 21.4
A few other notables get into to 20s; Hoyt Wilhelm is just over 40 but his best season by far was when he was a starter, and Goose Gossage is 40 on hte nose. Rivera is just completely on a different page; no other relief pitcher has ever been comparable.
Why? Hell if this was handled right we shouldn’t even have known that Braun failed a test if he won his appeal, but mlb once again does a terrible job at containing leaks.
Failed tests should be made public, and if the appeal is successful then the reason for the reversal should also be made public. I recognize that MLB isn’t the government, and doesn’t have the same obligation to be transparent, but i think it’s better for everyone in cases like this if the whole process is open and accountable to the stakeholders, which includes the fans.
Maybe they should (I personally disagree since I don’t think the general public tends to take a very guilty until proven guilty attitude) but the agreement between the mlb and the players union says they are not, and this is certainly not the first time that mlb has allowed information to be leaked that they agreed to keep confidential.
I know that what happened contravened the agreement between MLB and the players’ union, and i agree that the leak shouldn’t have happened under current rules.
I was making a principled argument about what i believe that policy should be.
Braun should be booed at 29 ball parks* for the rest of his career for sliming out of his 50 days suspension on a technicality. This is sad and pathetic.
I know it is too much to ask the Brewer fans to boo him, but they should.
Wow. That’s just a joke. Granted that the protocols exist for a reason, but unless there’s some kind of reason to believe that the delay affected his results - and I’m open to hearing about that - this is completely ridiculous. Fuck Braun. He cheated and got lucky.