Comments on: Who Is Milwaukee’s True Closer?

By: Milwaukee - Baseball Prospectus

Milwaukee - Baseball Prospectus — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 15:00:54 +0000

[…] allowing only three runs. He even managed to pick up his first save in the game on Friday, although that statistic doesn’t mean a whole lot. The relief version of Lohse hasn’t cranked up the velocity, nor has the repertoire […]

By: Julien Assouline

Julien Assouline — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 21:00:37 +0000

Because the point of the article wasn’t to disprove the validity of the save, but rather to define the term closer, which is often associated with the save.

By: Julien Assouline

Julien Assouline — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 20:59:05 +0000

Thanks AD glad you liked it. And it’s a really good question. There is already a stat called RE24, which is context dependant. For example it takes into account the expected runs based on whether or not there are runners on base. The problem, for the pitchers is that it basically assigns all the credit to the pitcher. So if a player makes an error than or a bad defensive play, well then that goes against the pitcher. I’m not sure how to make the stat better or how to come up with a better one. I think that question would be better for someone in the BP stats team.

Here is a link to the full explanation of RE24. http://www.fangraphs.com/library/misc/re24/

By: ChinTheMan

ChinTheMan — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 18:06:50 +0000

Save this save that, why wasn’t the titled just called save?

By: ADprospectus

ADprospectus — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 16:32:54 +0000

“If a pitcher comes in the ninth inning to close the game and his team is up by 8 runs, then even the worst pitcher in baseball can close that game.”*

*Assuming he is not then employed by the Detroit Tigers.

Nice work as usual, Julien. One possible question for a future article: What’s the best way to weigh success by the leverage of the situation?