Incredible Mag

A Closer’s Stumbles Are Outnumbered Only by His Saves

<p>Johnson has worked for the most of the season&comma; yet the Orioles&comma; struggling for surviving in a tight American League wild-card race&comma; continue to base their hopes on him with games on the draw&period; Johnson has compiled an American League-leading 41 saves&comma; becoming a good example for the save statistic’s flaws&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The deep roots of the problem can be followed to 1960&period; Holtzman&comma; a sports article writer in Chicago&comma; was trying to proove the problems inherent in another statistic&colon; wins&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Holtzman wished to demonstrate for readers that Roy Face&comma; a Pittsburgh reliever who won 18 games in 1959&comma; was actually less effective in that heavily publicized season than he was in 1958&comma; when he won only five games&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Borrowing a seldom-used term&comma; the save&comma; which at the time was awarded to any relief pitcher who got the final out in a victory&comma; Holtzman redefined it for The Sporting News to resemble the way it is used now&period; By Holtzman’s count&comma; Face saved 20 games in 1958 but only 10 in 1959&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Unfortunately for Holtzman&comma; who was renowned in the business and who went on to become baseball’s official historian&comma; the save statistic has proved every bit as problematic as wins&comma; with Johnson’s numbers creating one of the bigger arguments against its validity&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>If saves are removed from the equation&comma; Johnson becomes something less than spectacular&period; Through Thursday&comma; his adjusted earned run average&comma; which takes into account a pitcher’s league and home park&comma; was 97th in the majors among pitchers with 50 or more innings&period; Johnson had allowed an overall batting average of &period;276&comma; which was 216th best among pitchers&period; He had also allowed the 11th-most base runners of any full-time reliever&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In terms of a modern metric like wins above replacement&comma; Johnson was more effective in 2011&comma; the year before he became a full-time closer&comma; than he has been in either of the last two seasons despite his major-league-leading 92 saves&period; As his salary has increased&comma; along with his profile&comma; Johnson’s WAR has gone from 2&period;7 to 2&period;4 to 0&period;6&period; He has nine blown saves and seven losses this season&comma; and one of his three wins came after a blown save&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>On the basis of his prodigious save totals&comma; though&comma; he is likely to receive a hefty raise for next season&comma; his last year of arbitration&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Baltimore’s bullpen in general has struggled&comma; one year after being one of the team’s primary strengths&period; It has blown an American League-leading 22 saves&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The two bright spots have been Darren O’Day and Tommy Hunter&comma; who have surpassed Johnson in terms of effectiveness&period; Yet Johnson&comma; carrying the label of closer&comma; continues to get the plush assignment of pitching to start the ninth inning&period; On Thursday he came through&comma; protecting a one-run lead against Boston&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>On Friday at Yankee Stadium&comma; the Orioles began a three-game series that could greatly affect their postseason chances&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>With the redefined save statistic&comma; the flaw that Holtzman could not see coming was that it would lead managers to pick a reliever&period;— not always the best reliever — and have him pitch almost always in save situations&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Thanks for the read and keep being awesome&excl; More articles to come&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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