All Saves Are Not Created Equal

 

Table 3. Performance When Entering to Start the Ninth Inning

Player	One-Run SV/BS	Two-Run SV/BS	Three-Run SV/BS
Fingers	25/12	17/2	11/0
Gossage	21/6	17/2	13/1
Sutter	28/10	22/4	16/0
L. Smith	96/30	87/9	61/0
Eckersley	78/22	78/8	65/1
Hoffman	139/26	121/9	117/7
Rivera	94/20	102/3	94/2
TOTALS	481/126	444/37	377/11

 

Table 3 breaks down the performance according to the size of the lead. As a group, the seven relievers have gotten the save 97.2% of the time with a three-run lead and 92.3% of the time with a two-run lead, very close to Tom Ruane’s figures. The most striking thing is the high percentage of the time that the modern closers start the ninth inning, especially with more than a one-run lead.

Fingers and Gossage enjoyed this relatively carefree entrance in only one-sixth of their saves. It happened a little more often for Sutter, but still only 22% of the time. For Smith, it was 27.2% in the first part of his career, but 78.9% in the second part. Hoffman has had it very easy by this standard, with more than three-fourths of his career saves (78.2%).

Dan Quisenberry, the unjustly overlooked relief ace of the 1980s Kansas City Royals, advocated measuring saves by “degree of difficulty.” I have attempted to do just that in my studies, examining the various “save situations” in which a reliever enters the game. First, I looked at the most difficult jam, with not only the tying run(s) on base but the (potential) winning run as well.

 

Table 4. Performance When Entering with the Winning Run on Base

Player	WROB	SV	BS
Fingers	50	24	25
Gossage	45	22	21
Sutter	26	11	15
L. Smith	27	14	13
Eckersley	15	7	8
Hoffman	17	11	5
Rivera	10	3	7
TOTALS	190	92	94

 

The finding that jumps off Table 4 is that even the best relievers blow the save in this situation more often than not. Hoffman has done the best and Rivera the worst, though the more significant point is that their opportunities are so few compared to Fingers and the earlier relievers. Give Rivera as many appearances as Fingers with the winning run on base and, using his “success” rate, we’d be adding 28 blown saves to his career total. Conversely, putting Fingers in that spot as seldom as Rivera has faced it would lop off 20 blown saves from his total. This doesn’t even take into consideration what inning it is or how many outs there are.

The folks at Rolaids, who hand out the annual award for relief pitching, have tallied “tough” saves since 2000, defined as having the tying run on base when the reliever enters. In the past seven seasons, Rivera has more “tough” saves than any other reliever, 20, which happens to be only one more than John Hiller had just in 1973. The saves in Table 4 are “tough” by this definition. Here’s the data from entries with the tying run(s) on base but not the go-ahead run.

 

Table 5. Performance When Entering with Tying Run(s) On Base

Player	TROB	SV	BS
Fingers	118	77	35
Gossage	102	59	36
Sutter	80	47	31
L. Smith	59	37	20
Eckersley	42	28	11
Hoffman	36	25	8
Rivera	41	26	13
TOTALS	478	299	154

 

As in the previous table, Fingers has as many of these dangerous outings as Rivera, Hoffman, and Eckersley put together. As a group, these seven stalwarts recorded the save less than twice as often as they blew it, a measure of the difficulty of handling inherited runners. Taking these two tables together, the career “tough” saves add up to: Fingers 101, Gossage 81, Sutter 58, Smith 51, Eckersley 35, Hoffman 36, and Rivera 29. For Fingers and Gossage, more than half of their career blown saves came in these spots, and in nearly half of those blown saves, they entered the game in the sixth or seventh inning. For Rivera and Hoffman, most of their blown “tough” saves come in the eighth inning, virtually the only time they enter with inherited runners.

 

Table 6. Performance When Entering With Tying Run at Bat

Player	TRAB	SV	BS
Fingers	175	126	37
Gossage	174	116	42
Sutter	161	117	41
L. Smith	259	189	54
Eckersley	168	128	37
Hoffman	188	158	27
Rivera	164	129	26
TOTALS	1289	963	264

 

This data is, on the surface, more comparable, since all seven relievers faced this situation roughly the same percentage of the time, 36–39% of their save opportunities for the earlier guys and 32–35% for the later group, with Lee Smith at 42%. The career figures for Fingers and Eckersley are almost identical, as are those for Sutter and Gossage. Hoffman and Rivera have significantly higher ratios of saves to blown saves when facing the tying run at the plate, but a breakdown of the situations reveals why.

For Fingers, Gossage, and Sutter, more than two-thirds of their blown saves came when they entered no later than the eighth inning, meaning they not only had to get out of their first jam, they also pitched multiple innings and therefore had extra chances to blow the lead. Of Hoffman’s 27 blown saves in this category, only one came when he entered before the ninth inning; similarly, for Rivera it was only five out of 26. For them, this situation usually occurs when they enter to start the ninth inning with a one-run lead.

Add up the evidence and it’s clear that all saves are not created equal. Some save “opportunities” are gift-wrapped while others are booby-trapped. A whopping 59.8% of Hoffman’s career saves have come when he entered the game with no more peril than having the tying run in the on-deck circle. It’s even higher for Rivera at 61.7%. The percentage goes down as we look further back: Eckersley 58.2%, Smith 49.8%, Sutter 41.7%, Gossage 36.5%, and Fingers 33.4%. Compare the stats of the seven studs for these “easy saves” compared to the“tough saves” in which the tying run is on base.

Player	Tough SV/BS	Tough Ratio	Easy SV/BS	Easy Ratio
Fingers	101/60	1.68	114/13	8.8
Gossage	81/57	1.42	113/13	8.7
Sutter	58/46	1.26	125/14	8.9
L. Smith	51/33	1.55	238/16	14.9
Eckersley	35/19	1.84	227/15	15.1
Hoffman	36/13	2.77	288/16	18.0
Rivera	29/20	1.45	255/9	28.3
TOTALS	391/248	1.58	1360/96	14.2

 

Fingers, with almost as many tough saves as easy saves, had a better success rate in those dangerous situations than Rivera, the most revered of current closers. Gossage’s success rate was virtually the same. Why is Hoffman’s ratio of tough saves to blown tough saves so much higher? Of the 102 career saves he has recorded in which he inherited runners, 65 came when he entered with two outs, and 26 of those were in the ninth inning. Only two of Hoffman’s 482 saves saw him enter before the eighth inning, compared to 75 for Fingers.

This perspective suggests the difficulty of devising a unifying formula to evaluate all save performances in  their  situational  context.  Such a formula must take into account the immediate danger when the pitcher enters, where the runners are, how many outs, the size of the lead, how far he is from the end of the game, and run support. For instance, the fire is blazing when you enter in the seventh inning, but your team gives you a six-run cushion for the last two innings. How much easier is your save than the one where you have to nurse a one-run lead after the seventh inning, and how much tougher than facing the winning run when you enter in the ninth inning?

 

I believe it’s possible to devise a formula which will satisfy Dan Quisenberry’s wish for a “degree of difficulty” for saves, and which can be calculated by any fan watching the game. Until that time, Table 8 contains a final look at how our seven elites measure up in the separate parameters when entering the game.

 

Table 8. Performance In Game-entering Parameters