There are generally two camps regarding closers. One holds that a team needs a dominant one to be effective. Only some pitchers have the right makeup to handle such pressure situations day in and day out. Members of this camp claim that pitchers pitch more effectively when they have a defined role (closer, 8th inning setup man, LOOGY, etc.) and a team's bullpen should reflect such a hierarchy.
The other camp eschews such conventions. A team doesn't need one particular pitcher to come in every single ninth inning when his team has a lead. Different pitchers have different skill sets, and as long as the pitcher on the mound is the best pitcher in that particular situation, it doesn't matter who gets the Save every night. Members of this camp are mostly theoreticians, as it's always comforting to teammates, managers, and owners to see a team's "best" relief pitcher enter the game to protect a lead.
I've been working hard crunching the numbers with a mind towards figuring out which pitchers could be described as true "closers" and which teams regularly employ such closers. The most useful statistic in this enterprise is the Save Opportunity (SVOpp), which keeps track of how many times a pitcher enters a game in a save situation. Some context: to earn a save, a pitcher must fulfill three conditions: 1) He must finish the game with his team in the lead, AND 2) He must not be the winning pitcher, AND 3) He must meet one of the following two conditions: a) Pitch at least one inning with his team leading by no more than three runs, OR b) Pitch with the tying run either on base, at the plate, or on deck. Any time a pitcher is in a position to meet these conditions, regardless of the result, he is credited with one in the SVOpp column.
My research mainly involves two percentages. The first is purely personal: it shows what percentage of a pitcher's appearances were in save situations (SVOpp/G). The second is team-oriented: it's a pitcher's appearances in save situations divided by his team's total save situations (SVOpp/total team SVOpp). It basically shows us how often a particular team called on a particular pitcher when the game was on the line.
The research does not necessarily tell us anything about what makes a good closer or how having a good closer influences the performance of a team, but simply which teams employ regular closers. In this way, I'm treating the moniker "closer" as a purely descriptive (rather than evaluative) category. In the same way as "left fielder" describes only where a particular player stands on the field, I'm using "closer" to describe only when a particular pitcher pitches in a game.
First, some broad, big picture numbers, then some individual analysis. Out of the 42 pitchers who tallied at least 10 SVOpps, 15 appeared in at least 60% of his team's total save situations. I picked 60% as the cutoff because of the teams that had a single pitcher factor into that many SVOpps, only one team had second pitcher account for more than 20% of his team's SVOpps. This one outlier was the Philadelphia Phillies, who had Brad Lidge take the lion's share with Ryan Madson clocking in when necessary.
Of the 7 teams who had their pitcher with the highest SVOpp percentage throw just 50% or less of their team's SVOpps, all but one had a second pitcher account for an additional 20% or more. The outlier in this group was the Tampa Bay Rays, who utilized somewhat of a closer-by-committee strategy in 2009.
Of the team's whose highest SVOpp percentage pitcher fell between 50% and 60%, six had another pitcher with over 15% of his team's SVOpps, but only two of those pitchers cracked 20%. Three of these teams had no other relief pitcher on the SVOpp percentage leaderboard.
Now on to the individual analysis, which includes both raw numbers and some context behind them. Here's a homemade graph of how each ranked pitcher falls in terms of Team SVOpp percentage.
Now I'll just go down the line:>80%
*Joe Nathan (Twins), 81.3%
*Francisco Cordero (Reds), 81.1%
70% - 80%
*Brian Fuentes (Angels), 78.6%
Remember that first percentage I was talking about, the personal one? Fuentes had the highest one of these by far: 84.6% of the games in which he appeared in 2009 were save situations.
*Brian Wilson (Giants), 75.9%
*Ryan Franklin (Cardinals), 75.4%
*Matt Capps (Pirates), 71.1%
Capps had the lowest personal percentage of his bracket: only 56.1% of the games he pitched were save opportunities. I guess the discrepancies between the two percentages says a lot about how many leads the Pirates had all season.
*Heath Bell (Padres), 70.6%
*Francisco Rodriguez (Mets), 70.0%
60% - 70%
*Jonathan Papelbon (Red Sox), 69.5%
*Mariano Rivera (Yankees), 68.7%
*Bobby Jenks (White Sox), 64.8%
*Brad Lidge (Phillies), 64.6%
Lidge's persistence is one of the reasons I've resisted using the term "closer" as any kind of qualitative measure. Brad Lidge was certainly a closer this year: in addition to covering a significant percentage of his team's close games, 62.7% of his appearances were save situations - good for 12th place among all pitchers measured. His teammate, erstwhile setup man Ryan Madson, pitched in 24.6% of the Phillies' close ninth innings, but only 20.3% of his appearances were with a lead on the line. What we see here is not the emergence of a new closer, but a guy who's usually a middle reliever picking up the slack.
*Huston Street (Rockies), 60.7%
*Kerry Wood (Indians), 60.5%
*Jonathan Broxton (Dodgers), 60.0%
50% - 60%
*Joakim Soria (Royals), 58.9%
*Andrew Bailey (Athletics), 58.8%
Bailey, a rookie, didn't assume the closer's job until relatively late in the season (early June). Until then, Brad Ziegler (8th place in last year's Rookie of the Year balloting) filled that role, accounting for 19.6% of his team's SVOpps. Once Bailey took the spot, Ziegler went back to setting up: over 85% of his total appearances were in non-save situations.
*Fernando Rodney (Tigers), 56.1%
*Trevor Hoffman (Brewers), 55.2%
*David Aardsma (Mariners), 54.5%
Aardsma was a little bit shaky settling into his closer's role. His other bullpen mates helped out some, among them Mark Lowe (16.9%, the lowest among pitchers measured).
*Chad Qualls (Diamondbacks), 52.7%
Qualls last pitched August 30 and finished the season on the DL. While he was down, rookie Juan Gutierrez filled in for him (18.2%, third from the bottom).
*Kevin Gregg (Cubs), 51.7%
The Cubs entered 2009 with closer controversy: up until the start of the season, manager Lou Piniella wasn't sure if he would call on the veteran Gregg or the youngster Carlos Marmol (32.8%) to close out games for him. Here's how it played out: Marmol closed during the first and last months of the season, with Gregg consistently picking up saves for everything in between.
*Rafael Soriano (Braves), 51.7%
Righty Soriano and lefty teammate Mike Gonzalez (28.3%) platooned at the position all year.
*Frank Francisco (Rangers), 50.0%
Francisco, in his first year as a regular closer, had some injury troubles causing him to miss several short stretches along the way. C.J. Wilson (31.0%), who closed for the Rangers in 2008 despite a mammoth 6.02 ERA, filled in for him quite well (2.81 ERA) during those spans.
*Leo Nunez (Marlins), 47.8%
Nunez took over as the Marlins' closer after projected closer Matt Lindstrom (24.6%) missed all of July with the post-World Baseball Classic blues - he pitched for Team USA, and was never the same since.
*Jose Valverde (Astros), 43.9%
Valverde was the regular closer for the 'Stros - 55.8% of his appearances were save situations - but injuries limited him to 52 games this season (down from an average of 70 the two previous years). Luckily LaTroy Hawkins (22.7%) was there to pick him up.
*George Sherrill (Orioles), 43.4%
This percentage only applies to games Sherrill pitched before being traded to the Dodgers, where his role changed from closer to Jonathan Broxton's setup man. After the trade, Baltimore's Jim Johnson (30.2%) took over as the ninth inning man for the Birds.
*J.P. Howell (Rays), 39.7%
*Mike MacDougal (Nationals), 36.2%
Joel Hanrahan was the projected closer for the Nats, but only racked up 10 SVOpps (good for 17.2% of his team's total) before being traded to the Pirates. He was another guy who pitched for Team USA in the WBC and was rendered ineffective as a closer. Maybe Spring Training is more important for relief pitchers than we all thought...
*Jason Frasor (Blue Jays), 34.1%
Frasor eventually became the team's closer over Scott Downs (31.7%), but it didn't happen until real late in the season; for all intents and purposes, they shared the job.
That covers everybody, in one way or another. Now we know a little more about which teams trusted which pitchers with close leads over the 2009 season.
Why is it so important to know which pitchers qualify as "closers" and which as "just plain good relievers?" Well, it's not, really. But it's amazing what we can do with the numbers and a little busywork nowadays, isn't it?
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