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Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Best non-closer season among relievers? How about two of them… this year!
This article on Shutdowns and Meltdowns noted that Venters already has 43 shutdowns and only 3 meltdowns. Which got me to ask: which reliever has had the highest WPA, without the benefit of getting a bunch of saves. Turning to the ultra-quick Play Index, I asked for all pitchers with at most 10 saves (and some other filter to remove starters or swingmen), sorted by WPA.
#1 was Mariano Rivera’s lone season as setup guy. That one was a WPA of +5.4. #2 is Rafael Betancourt in 2007 at +5.4 as well. And #3 was Mark Eichorn and his 157 innings in relief (and 10 saves, so just managing to satisfy my arbitrary filter).
After that? We have Venters and Clippard, both this year, both at +4.8 wins. Clippard is especially noteworthy, in that he has no saves at all so far. With just over a month to go, it’s possible that one of these two relievers is going to supplant Mariano Rivera for best relief season by a non-closer (as measured by WPA).
#3 on the list for this season is Antonio Bastardo with eight saves and 2.966 WPA. He’s a ways behind Venters and Clippard, but Bastardo has definitely been one of the more underappreciated relievers in baseball this year, especially since his team has had injuries to their #1-3 relievers on the depth chart at various points (Ryan Madson, Jose Contreras, Brad Lidge). 30 shutdowns, 3 meltdowns. The 10:1 SD:MD ratio is fifth best in baseball at the moment (behind Venters, Greg Holland, Jonathan Papelbon, and John Axford).