Running 2011 Baseball Thread, Vol. I: Dedicated to spnited

Your assessment assumes that all batters faced are equally important. They are not.

 

You may be one of the lot who ascribes a certain superhuman quality to the closer ("He gets the toughest three outs of the game" BS).

The role has been mythologized to death.

Plenty of pitchers can do the job. Most often it's a failed starter somewhere in the system (viz., Neftali Feliz).

 

I didn't say they were harder to get.

I said some are more important.

Reading is fundamental.

 

Francisco Cordero is 12th on the all-time saves list. He thanks you for helping him make $50 million in the big leagues, by propagating the myth of the icy-veined closer.

 

Neftali Feliz was not a failed starter. They simply chose to bring him up as a reliever first and he has been too good in the role to move.

I hate to break it to you, but there really are guys who are better suited to the role. For every Ryan Madson, who finally overcame his previous inability to close out games this season after multiple failures in the past, there are plenty of guys like Matt Thornton who are damn good relievers, but they fall apart in save situations.

 

Still not interested in reading what other people have posted? I am about to save you $60/month with some advice: Disconnect your internet. You can just post your pre-planned arguments onto a word processing program on your computer. It will be the same experience for you, apparently.

I didn't say that closing was some sort of special ability that requires something separate from ordinary pitching. It's not.

I said that your argument based on a percentage of batters faced is flawed, because not all batters faced are of equal value. Two outs, bases empty, 10-run lead? That batter faced is not very important. Three-run lead, two outs, bases empty, ninth inning? Not all that important. Tie game, seventh inning, runners on 1st and 2nd, one out? That batter is a hell of a lot more important than the other two. But your argument would treat them all equally.

 

Stain, you and I are simply talking past each other at this point, and I respectfully have no interest playing that game.

Papelbon got paid about $60,000 per out. (And let's remember he couldn't get the single most important out of the season.) That isn't a great allocation of resources. Superb non-closer Mike Adams got paid about $12,000 per out. And he got more of them and was generally more effective in leverage situations that were just as high, and didn't shit his pants when his team needed him most desperately.

 

How do you know if $60k/out is a good allocation of resources if you aren't examining how important the outs were?

There's a lot of outs I'd pay $60k for.

 

Getting Nolan Reimold and Robert Andino out shouldn't cost $120K. Or not getting them out, as the case may be.

 

Depends on how consistently you want to get them out, and in what situations.

 

And Felix might not have become a closer but for Frankie Francisco blowing his first two save opportunities of last year. The Rangers took a good look at Feliz in the rotation this spring but decided to keep him at closer. I don't think they've ruled out moving him into the rotation next year, but that's for another time ...

I do agree, though, that a proven closer can be way overpriced and often is an expensive luxury that many teams would be better off without.

 

I agree with that. I just don't see what raw out percentage has to do with it. Or more accurately, I see it as a flawed argument in favor of the correct conclusion.