Save | The Baseball Zealot

Effective use of closers

Lee Panas of Tiger Tales makes a good case for better use of MLB’s premier relievers. He uses his Tigers’ Jose Valverde as a case study but it goes for all closers of high talent.

This is the basic crux of his argument:

Instead of having Valverde enter a dozen or more games in very low impact situation just to get work, wouldn’t it be better if Leyland picked his spots using him only when the game was on the line? I’d rather see him enter a tie game in the eighth inning or with the bases loaded in the seventh than see him get a three out save with nobody on base and three run lead.

I’ve pleaded similar arguments to my baseball friends to no avail. There’s something simple about the “save” rule and there’s no getting around managers desire to saving their best guy for the ninth inning regardless of the actual impact the closer will have.

I know Lee isn’t the only one exploring this issue. Is the Save a dying stat? Perhaps not. But once we stop relying on it as the sole value of a closer, maybe they will be used in a more effective manner.

K-Rod for the Save!

K-Rod: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K (SV)

Seattle was Francisco Rodriguez’ victim as he broke the all-time single season record for saves.

F Rodriguez (S, 58) was the entry in the boxscores this morning as K-Rod eclipsed Bobby Thigpen’s old record of 57. Rodriguez will most likely be the first 60 save reliever. Who was it that had the all-time record BEFORE Thigpen? I’ll give you a second to think about it.

While I do, check out Baseball-Reference’s Progressive Leaders for saves (the answer’s there). B-R’s Progressive Leaders board is fun to look at for any stat. It lists 4 columns for EACH year going back to 1876; career leader, single-season leader, active player career leader, and yearly leader. It sounds rather mundane as I describe it but when you look at all four columns together, you get a sense of how the stat (in this case, saves) "progressed". Try other stats, too!

Oh, the answer is Dave Righetti with 46 saves in 1986.

The 60’s Save rule: a new one on me

I was talking to Mike, the commish of our APBA league this weekend and he was telling me about his current APBA replay. The 1961 season. Mike is a sucker for the 60’s decade when it comes to APBA replays. Mike uses the actual lineups and starting rotations when he does his replays. He uses … Continue reading “The 60’s Save rule: a new one on me”

Mike uses the actual lineups and starting rotations when he does his replays. He uses retrosheet.org to facilitate this. He came across something unusual in the boxscores regarding saves. There were instances of pitchers who were attributed saves even though they didn’t finish the game. Of course, nowadays finishing the game is one of the requirements of recording a save.

But looking through Retrosheet, I found a couple references of pitchers who recorded a save though they didn’t finish the game. After some research, I found this (emphasis mine):

The rule for a Save did not exist in the 1965 version of the baseball rules. A save was not introduced to baseball scoring until 1967. The rule in 1967 was:

“Credit a save to a relief pitcher who enters a game with his team in the lead if he holds the lead the remainder of the game, provided he is not credited with the victory. A relief pitcher cannot be credited with a save if he does not finish the game unless he is removed for a pinch hitter or pinch runner. When more then one relief pitcher qualifies for a save under the provisions of this rule, credit the save to the relief pitcher judged by the scorer to have been the most effective. Only one
save can be credited in any game.”

News to me. I wonder if Mike will be using this rule in his replay.