by Keith Glab, BaseballEvolution.com
November 13, 2008
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LSV Intro
Last year, I used Linear Saves to finally convince myself that
Trevor Hoffman
was a better closer than Billy Wagner. By the early June, I was having
second thoughts. Billy Wagner had gone a respectable 13-for-15 in his save
chances and boasted a ridiculous 0.36 ERA on the strength of adding a changeup
to his arsenal. Meanwhile, Hoffman was finally showing his age, sporting
an 0-4 record, 5.68 ERA, and 11-for-14 save ratio.
Hoffman would only blow one more save on the year: one run allowed to the
middle of the Rockies' batting order. The Padres would score a run to win
that game for Hoffman in the bottom of the ninth. Wagner, meanwhile, blew
three straight saves in early June, allowing two runs in each contest. He
righted his ship before suffering a career-threatening elbow injury in early
August.
The point of this tale is that unlike a traditional counting stat, career
Linear Weights stats can fluctuate wildly, especially so with Linear Saves due
to the volatile nature of closers. So our table of career Linear Saves has
changed quite a bit in just one year and could indeed look different when we
check in again next winter.
2007 Career Linear Saves Leaders (Min 10 LSV10)
2008 Career Linear Saves Leaders (Min 10 LSV10)
Billy Wagner dropped from sixth to eighth on the all-time list while Eric
Gagne fell from eighth to ninth. As a result, Dan Quisenberry shot up from ninth
to seventh. As Rickey Henderson might say, it's as though someone dug up
Dan Quisenberry and he started saving games again. This serves as yet
another example of how rare it is for a closer to remain as consistent
throughout a long career as Trevor Hoffman has done. Wagner, for instance, would
need to save 150 consecutive games before he would match Hoffman's career save
percentage.
But there is at least one challenger for Hoffman's crown. With his 5.4
Linear Save performance in 2008, Mariano Rivera has leapfrogged Lee Smith and
stands as runner up in career Linear Saves, trailing Hoffman by 6.3.
Rivera is two years younger than Hoffman, and has averaged 2.3 LSV per season
over his dozen years as a closer. Again, a lot can happen in two years,
but suddenly the two future hall of Famers appear to be near-equals in this
measure of closing efficiency. Rivera's commanding edge in ERA, ERA+,
winning percentage, playoff performance, and multi-inning appearances obviously
make him a far better pitcher already, but we may be fast approaching the day on
which Trevor Hoffman won't even have Linear Saves to hang his hat.
Feel free to download the updated
Linear Saves
Excel Spreadsheet. We'd appreciate it if you cite and link back to
BaseballEvolution.com whenever using Linear Weights and send us suggestions on
how to better utilize and improve them.
Disagree with something? Got something to add? Wanna bring up something totally new? Keith resides in Chicago, Illinois and can be reached at keith@baseballevolution.com or found at the Baseball Evolution Forum