Interesting Stat.
 

Listening to my local talk radio the other day. Last year something like 95.6% of teams leading going into the 9th ended up winning. Not entirely surprising. Some stat guy compared this to the 1950 season and found that 95 % or so of the teams leading going into the 9th ended up winning. Mariano Rivera has a save percentage of something like 95.6%. He compared this to Casey Stengals teams and found the percentage to be almost identical.

Makes you wonder if the closer role is over rated.

It's definitely over rated.

They're overpaid, the agents made up this statistic years ago when former starters were washed up but could still go for an inning or two...to maintain name recognition for the fans, they created this "closer" position for one inning.

Years ago, your closer would enter as early as the 7th inning if there was a situation where you actually needed a real stopper.

Many MLB pitchers can enter the game in the 9th inning w/ nobody on base and get guys out. Are some better than others...sure. I know others will disagree...will be in interesting thread.

Actually Jerome Holtzman a Chicago sportswriter came up with "the save." However, your point is well taken.

It depends.

IMO, the MAIN reason for the Yankees winning all those Championships in the 90's and a year ago was because of one man Mariano Rivera.

I am a Met fan and the reason we lost the series to the Yanks in 2000 was because the Yanks had Mo and we had Benitez as a closer.

I realize the Yanks "own" the Twins but 2 yrs. ago the Twins had leads in 2 of those games and their closer (Nathan) "spit the bit" and Mo didn't which was why the yanks won the series. Even Papelbon is not what he used to be and has blown his fair share of saves.

Are some overpaid yes but you can say that about most major league ball players these days.

Jeter who at this point in his career is an average F6 at best turned down a 3 yr. $45 million offer. It looks like the Yanks are starting to "cave" a bit but IMO they should stick to their guns and see if Jeter can get a better offer.

Pete Booth

Unfair comparison on the numbers. What is a teams winning % when leading by 3 runs or less in the 9th inning is the real question. Even that isn't perfect because you can get a save at any point from the 7th inning on, and the deficit can actually be greater than 3, but you get the point :p

I didn't know that. Thanks for posting who came up w/ the save.

Based on this, a more reliable measure of the effectiveness of the closer (and for the OP) would be the saves:blown saves ratio. This would obviously be a much lower number than the 95%. But then you'd have to pay the statistician to go and research his numbers... again.

It wouldn't be that difficult would it? Blown saves are a recorded stats. Just get the ratio of recorded saves to blown saves.

Looking back at old box scores, from early in the 19th century through the 1960s, you see that, if a team had a solid lead, starters were often left in to finish a game even if they were getting hit hard.

For example, in one game Walter Johnson was ahead 7-1 after 7 innings but gave up 2 in the 8th and 1 in the 9th. Unlikely that would happen today. Same thing looking at Bob Turley many years later, even in the World Series, getting hammered late until they finally put in Bobby Shantz to earn a save in a 16-3 game. I guess the prevailing attitude was, "It's his game. Let him finish it" rather than, "Why not give some guy a chance to get some experience?"

As I've pointed out before, in the first 29 World Series games, the total number of relief pitchers used was 15. The Astros and White Sox used that many in one game in 2005.

but that doesn't qualify as a save . . .

Poorly worded... but yeah, it was. That was the point.