Comments on: The Angels Sign Rodney’s 2009 Save Percentage

By: JoeR43

JoeR43 — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:48:44 +0000

“Well, they signed Brian Fuentes 2008 flukey career year that was way better than any year he had ever posted since he broke into MLB in 2001 last year, and look what happend.”

Best sentence you and I ever co-wrote.

By: ineedanap

ineedanap — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:40:05 +0000

Well, they signed Brian Fuentes 2008 tRA and FIP last year, and look what happend.

By: Xavier

Xavier — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 05:14:54 +0000

CircleChange:

Not to be annoyingly reductivist

Wait, to be annoyingly reductivist, did you just argue against the premise of this post by citing a few relievers with good 2009 save percentages?

By: GSS

GSS — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 06:11:35 +0000

He was being sarcastic.

By: Scottwood

Scottwood — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 18:31:30 +0000

And I said that using WPA instead of WAR to evaluate relievers has merit. But, that does not mean that this was a good signing. Rodney is not a good reliever.

By: ThinkBlue

ThinkBlue — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 08:44:35 +0000

Here’s something I just noticed. Rodney’s career WPA is -0.34 and he’s posted a positive WPA only twice in his career. His career GB% is 47.7 and he’s only posted a GB% >50 twice in his career. The years in which he posted positive WPA’s are the same years in which he posted GB rates of >50%. Maybe the Angels think they can get him to induce more groundballs?

By: ThinkBlue

ThinkBlue — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 08:02:50 +0000

Since vivaelpujols mentioned leverage, it should be noted that Rodney’s WPA/LI was -0.06.

By: vivaelpujols

vivaelpujols — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:23:06 +0000

WPA isn’t predictive, but it represents the ceiling for closers. Look at the leaders in WPA for relievers over the past few years. You’ll see that they are MUCH higher than the leaders for WAR. That implies that WAR undervalues relievers.

By: Scottwood

Scottwood — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 05:26:09 +0000

The difference between a great and average reliever in the modern day closer role is this: .02 wins with a 3 run lead in the ninth, .04 wins with a 2 run lead and .06 wins with a 1 run lead. Per “The Book.”

By: CircleChange11

CircleChange11 — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 03:00:16 +0000

I do think you can put just about any decent reliever at the closer role and get ~30 saves. But at what cost?

Guys like Leo Nunez (26 of 35 sv opp), Kevin Gregg (23 of 30), etc show that it can be done, just not very efficienty as compared to ‘real’ closers like the aforementioned Fuentes (48 of 55), Broxton 36 of 42), Nathan (47 of 52), etc.

Guys like Brian Wilson (38 of 45), and Ryan Franklin (38 of 43) are IMO examples of guys that had good ‘stop gap’ seasons, but might not be reliable bets to duplicate the feat.

For example, making Zavada a closer (as an alternative to Qualls) instead of a 7th/8th inning guy could likely result in a 30 SV season … but how many more blown saves than an established closer?

IMO, that’s where the 1 WAR difference between guys is a tremendous undervalue, because when a closer blows a game, it’s a real loss, right then and there … and the difference over a full season could be between 5-10 “shoulda been wins” that are now losses or ‘tie games’ (that require additional bullpen usage).

So, in threads like these, it is helpful (IMHO) to list such guys that could close pretty much as effectively as an established closer. I think most decent relievers could close 70% of the games successfully, but each 5% over 70 comes at a higher value, and when guys can save ~90% of games, that’s a critical difference due to the finality of many blown saves.

Relievers as a whole just seem to be unpredictable bunch, and seem to be as popular as non-elite QBs. When they’re successful they’re just “doing what they’re supposed to do”, but when they’re not it’s the guillotine for them (from view of the fan).