A New and Improved Way to Measure Closers

by RhodeIslandRoxfan on Oct 21, 2009 5:56 PM MDT

In the Rockpile earlier today SDcat09 and Hizilla made comments comparing Brian Fuentes's and Huston Street's save totals. This inspired me to create a new statistic. OK not really but I haven't seen it on any baseball site so I thought I would share in my first FanPost.

The Issue: Saves are often used to determine a closer's effectiveness. Unfortunately measuring a closer by the number of saves he racks up during the course of a season is asinine. This is because not every closer receives the same number of save opportunities. Some teams like the Angels hand out save opportunities to their closer like its candy on Halloween, while others like the Nationals may provide a save opportunity once every time the moon cycles.

A Potential Solution: For me a closer's job is to convert save opportunities into wins. That's it, plain and simple. It doesn't matter if a he gets 60 save opportunities or six; the closer's job is to convert them into wins. So instead of just looking at how many games each closer saved, let's look at the percentage of save opportunities the top 25 closers (according to save totals) converted into wins during 2009.

First a look at the top 25 closers by saves this year.

	Player	Team	Saves
1)	Top of Form Brian Fuentes Bottom of Form	Angels	48
2)	Joe Nathan	Twins	47
3)	Mariano Rivera	Yankees	44
4)	Heath Bell	Padres	42
5)	Francisco Cordero	Reds	39
6)	Jonathan Papelbon	Red Sox	38
7)	Ryan Franklin	Cardinals	38
8)	David Aardsma	Mariners	38
9)	Brian Wilson	Giants	38
10)	Trevor Hoffman	Brewers	37
11)	Fernando Rodney	Tigers	37
12)	Jonathan Broxton	Dodgers	36
13)	Huston Street	Rockies	35
14)	Francisco Rodriguez	Mets	35
15)	Brad Lidge	Phillies	31
16)	Joakim Soria	Royals	30
17)	Bobby Jenks	White Sox	29
18)	Rafael Soriano	Braves	27
19)	Matt Capps	Pirates	27
20)	Andrew Bailey	Athletics	26
21)	Leo Nunez	Marlins	26
22)	Jose Valverde	Astros	25
23)	Frank Francisco	Rangers	25
24)	Chad Qualls	D'backs	24
25)	Kevin Gregg	Cubs	23

Now if we take those same 25 players and look at their percentage of save opportunities converted into wins, it looks like this.

	Player	Team	Saves	Percentage of Save Opportunities Converted
1)	Top of Form Brian Fuentes Bottom of Form	Angels	48	87.2
2)	Joe Nathan	Twins	47	90.4
3)	Mariano Rivera	Yankees	44	95.7
4)	Heath Bell	Padres	42	87.5
5)	Francisco Cordero	Reds	39	90.7
6)	Jonathan Papelbon	Red Sox	38	92.7
7)	Ryan Franklin	Cardinals	38	88.4
8)	David Aardsma	Mariners	38	90.5
9)	Brian Wilson	Giants	38	84.4
10)	Trevor Hoffman	Brewers	37	90.2
11)	Fernando Rodney	Tigers	37	97.4
12)	Jonathan Broxton	Dodgers	36	85.7
13)	Huston Street	Rockies	35	94.6
14)	Francisco Rodriguez	Mets	35	83.3
15)	Brad Lidge	Phillies	31	73.8
16)	Joakim Soria	Royals	30	90.9
17)	Bobby Jenks	White Sox	29	82.9
18)	Rafael Soriano	Braves	27	87.1
19)	Matt Capps	Pirates	27	84.4
20)	Andrew Bailey	Athletics	26	86.7
21)	Leo Nunez	Marlins	26	78.8
22)	Jose Valverde	Astros	25	86.2
23)	Frank Francisco	Rangers	25	86.2
24)	Chad Qualls	D'backs	24	82.8
25)	Kevin Gregg	Cubs	23	76.7

Now let's rank them in order by percentage of save opportunities converted into wins.

	Player	Team	Percentage of Save Opportunities Converted
1)	Fernando Rodney	Tigers	97.4
2)	Mariano Rivera	Yankees	95.7
3)	Huston Street	Rockies	94.6
4)	Jonathan Papelbon	Red Sox	92.7
5)	Joakim Soria	Royals	90.9 Top of Form
6)	Francisco Cordero	Reds	90.7
7)	David Aardsma	Mariners	90.5
8)	Joe Nathan	Twins	90.4
9)	Trevor Hoffman	Brewers	90.2
10)	Ryan Franklin	Cardinals	88.4
11)	Heath Bell	Padres	87.5
12)	Brian Fuentes	Angels	87.2
13)	Rafael Soriano	Braves	87.1
14)	Andrew Bailey	Athletics	86.7
15)	Jose Valverde	Astros	86.2
16)	Frank Francisco	Rangers	86.2
17)	Jonathan Broxton	Dodgers	85.7
18)	Brian Wilson	Giants	84.4
19)	Matt Capps	Pirates	84.4
20)	Francisco Rodriguez	Mets	83.3
21)	Bobby Jenks	White Sox	82.9
22)	Chad Qualls	D'backs	82.8
23)	Leo Nunez	Marlins	78.8
24)	Kevin Gregg	Cubs	76.7
25)	Brad Lidge	Phillies	73.8 Bottom of Form

I was disappointed to see that Fernando Rodney was ranked as the best closer using this method because I think we all know better. (The justification for this is Rodney had a 1.91 ERA in saves and a 6.08 ERA in non save games. Apparently he just turned it on when it was needed.) However there were some things that I did like including Huston Street moving up 10 spots, Joakim Soria moving up 11, and Brian Fuentes falling all the way to 12th. Even Poseidon's guy Andrew Bailey moved up 6 spots. I realize this can still be improved by doing something like weighing one run saves more than three run saves and penalizing closers more for blowing multi run leads but it's still an improvement over what currently exists.

I'm sure someone has done this before but I have never seen it. Anyway I think it's a more accurate way to rank closers than just looking at save totals.

Poll

What is the best way to measure a closer?

Number of Saves

0 votes

Percentage of Saves Converted into Wins

17 votes

ERA

2 votes

Other

15 votes

34 votes | Poll has closed

Eat. Drink. Be Merry. But the above FanPost does not necessarily reflect the attitudes, opinions, or views of Purple Row's staff (unless, of course, it's written by the staff [and even then, it still might not]).

Tweet Comment 9 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

I'm just happy

that something I said inspired someone. I think that i’ll have some more thoughts on this later, but I like where you’re going with it.

by Hizilla on Oct 21, 2009 7:10 PM MDT reply actions

Good work

Huston was very good at converting saves all season long.

A couple of things to consider. Not all save opportunities are the same. They differ in the number of outs to get, size of lead, whether there are runners on.

The Save is a fairly arbitrary sort of statistic as it is. Finish the game, not the winning the pitcher, tieing run … blah blah blah. I think win percentage added is a fairly useful stat to evaluate the quality of a save. Of course that doesn’t take into account the quality of hitters being faced.

by KindredSprites on Oct 21, 2009 7:43 PM MDT reply actions

I agree with the idea that the save is an arbitrary statistic

Just for fun here is how WAR ranked these 25 closers

1) Jonathan Broxton: 2.9
2) Andrew Bailey: 2.4
3) Brian Wilson: 2.4
4) Heath Bell: 2.0
5) Mariano Rivera: 2.0
6) Rafael Soriano: 2.0
7) Jonathan Papelbon: 1.9
8) David Aardsma: 1.9
9) Joe Nathan: 1.9
10) Joakim Soria: 1.8
11) Huston Street: 1.5
12) Trevor Hoffman: 1.5
13) Francisco Cordero: 1.5
14) Chad Qualls: 1.2
15) Frank Francisco: 1.1
16) Ryan Franklin: 0.9
17) Jose Valverde: 0.7
18) Brian Fuentes: 0.4
19) Bobby Jenks: 0.4
20) Fernando Rodney: 0.3
21) Francisco Rodriguez: 0.3
22) Kevin Gregg: -0.3
23) Matt Caps: -0.4
24) Brad Lidge: -0.7
25) Leo Nunez: -0.8

Now I know why Poseidon voted Bailey AL rookie of the year.

I'm still hoping to wake up from that nightmare I had about the 9th inning of Game 4.

by RhodeIslandRoxfan on Oct 22, 2009 12:04 AM MDT reply actions

This is interesting because there are some huge differences between WAR and percentage of saves converted to wins

Broxton: 17th to 1st
A. Bailey: 14th to 2nd
B. Wilson: 18th to 3rd
Rafael Soriano and Heath Bell from 11th and 13th into a tie for 4th
Fernando Rodney: 1st to 20th
Francisco Cordero: 6th to 13th
Huston Street: 3rd to 11th

I'm still hoping to wake up from that nightmare I had about the 9th inning of Game 4.

by RhodeIslandRoxfan on Oct 22, 2009 12:15 AM MDT up reply actions

Without

actually taking the time to look I would imagine that it has to do with their non-save appearances. At least that would explain Rodney and Fuentes’ drops.

by Hizilla on Oct 22, 2009 1:06 PM MDT up reply actions

Now I know why Poseidon voted Bailey AL rookie of the year.

That’s part of it for sure

"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein

by Andrew T. Fisher on Oct 22, 2009 5:22 PM MDT up reply actions

So to clarify

are we just looking at games finished which resulted in a win?

Hope got in my eyes

by Andrew Martin on Oct 22, 2009 9:07 AM MDT reply actions

Sorry should have clarified that better

If the closer blows the save he is penilizied by this measure.

Ex: Huston Street did not get credit for converting a save opportunity into a win when he blew the save against the Brewers in the 9th and CDI hit the HR in the 11th.

I guess it should say save opportunities converted into saves.

I'm still hoping to wake up from that nightmare I had about the 9th inning of Game 4.

by RhodeIslandRoxfan on Oct 22, 2009 10:21 AM MDT up reply actions

Perhaps you'd need to weight the leads the closer took into each save opportunity

It would make SSS comparisons (such as one season) a lot more accurate. Also, adjustments for closers who work more or fewer than three outs? Closers who inherit baserunners? Would you also include park factors? What about quality of opposition?

I think for the hardcore sabr dudes there’s plenty to work with to hone a perfect stat.

by biondino on Oct 27, 2009 6:10 AM MDT up reply actions