Has Mariano Rivera Statistically Separated Himself From His Peers?
From SABR member Cyril Morong at Cybermetrics on September 26, 2011:
[Dave Anderson of The New York Times] compares Rivera to Cy Young and Nolan Ryan. Young won 511 games and the next highest is Walter Johnson at 417. Ryan struck out 5,714 batters, 839 more than Randy Johnson. Does Rivera dominate his peers in a similar way?
It is hard to argue against his 0.71 ERA in 139 post-season IP. I doubt any other closer can come close to that. Probably no other has had a chance to pitch so much in the playoffs. But the article offered no comparisons. No other pitcher’s post-season performance was discussed.
Rivera now has 603 saves and the only other guy with 500+ saves is Trevor Hoffman with 601. So let’s see how those two compare in their regular season stats (Hoffman only had 13 post-season IP). The table below summarizes some of their stats.
Read the full article here: http://cybermetric.blogspot.com/2011/09/has-mariano-rivera-statistically.html
Originally published: September 26, 2011. Last Updated: September 26, 2011.