Good evening ladies and gentlemen! Tonight I shall be writing about closers. I was going to write about the AL West or NL Central (until I saw that Anthony wrote a post about it) but then I just suddenly thought about this topic, and it's something I've always been wondering about. A few times I've heard Anthony say that Mariano Rivera is the best closer to ever play the game, and of course millions of other people share that same opinion. I don't disagree, but I don't know if I agree either.
I'm not really sure how you can ever say that so and so is the best closer ever, I just don't get it. Mariano is the best closer ever, but Trevor Hoffman has over 500 saves, by far the most saves ever. Then you've got Francisco Rodriguez who may set a new major league record for most saves in a season. How can we say one is better than the other? The way I see it, it all depends on the team you're on. I think Rodriguez will be considered the best closer of the 2008 season when it ends, but why? Because he saved 60 games or whatever? I think its great he might break the record, but it's not like he's saving so many games because he's so great, but because he gets a lot more opportunities than others. Of course that means he's reliable, but I feel there are other closers that could do what he's doing if they had the chances.
Rivera isn't going to be doing that as long as he's on the Yankees, since they mostly win with a score 17-5 and ridiculous stuff like that. If you're on a team with great pitching and a great offense, then you most likely aren't going to get as many chances to save a game as other closers may get on a team with great defense and pitching with no offense, or great offense with ok/bad pitching. I feel like there are too many factors to determine who is a better closer, when it comes to the really good ones. It's kinda like saying Robin Ventura is better than David Wright because he has more grandslams; that all depends on a specific situation and how often you're placed in that spot. Just like saves, you have to have a team that can reach the (potential) last inning of play with the right conditions for a save, which doesn't happen all the time.
Those camo Padres uniforms are butt ugly!
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2 comments:
Mikey --
Good point about K-Rod. He's an interesting case, because he is one of the few closers I actually do like, but he probably isn't even in the top-3 AL closers this year (behind Rivera, Nathan and Papelbon, in no particular order). And I say this, despite the fact that I hate both the Red Sox and Yankees, in general and I hate Papelbon, in particular, and am kind of tired of Rivera being so good.
The other factor in saves, etc. is the number of 1+ inning saves and also the number of saves with tying runners on or at least at the plate. Calling a performance where you enter the game in the bottom of the ninth inning with a three-run lead a save is kind of asinine.
-wal
I'm feeling I've talked with you, Jesse, about a statistic that is better to assess a closer rather than the typical saves, era, whip, etc...
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