Okay, if I’m being honest, what I’ve attempted to do in this post is completely experimental. While based on statistics it’s really just a wild attempt to calculate which closers are bringing home the bacon. And by bacon, I mean points. And by points, I mean points. How many points is each closer going to get me (on average) in a given week. In other words, don’t try this at home. I’m not even doing this at home.
What I am trying to figure out is how many points the top closers are getting each week. In the process I have calculated both points per save opportunity (PPSO) and points per appearance (PPA). The second value factors in all the times a closer is brought into a game in a non-save situation. You know, the appearances when your closer gets shelled, ends up with a loss and is then unavailable the next night when there is a legit save opportunity. But I won’t get started on the rant.
When devising my patent pending formula I made a few decisions that I think make sense. I am ignoring wins. Wins for a closer are generally pure luck. It means one of two things. Either the closer was in the game in a non-save situation and his team ended up winning, or he blew the save and his team bailed him out in the bottom of the inning. Either way, that’s not how a closer earns his keep and I think including points from wins just obfuscates his true value.
In order to figure out how many points a closer is going to yield in a given week I did the following. Along the way I made some assumptions. Yes, I know exactly what happens when you assume, but you’ve been forewarned. First I calculated how many save opportunities each team has had per week and took the average. Then I figured out how many points each closer is averaging per save opportunity. Then, assuming the closer gets all of the teams’ save opportunities, I multiplied PPSO by number of opportunities. And VOILA!
Here are the results:
A.J. Ramos: 36.1 points
Zach Britton: 35.9 points
Roberto Osuna: 32.6 points
Fernando Rodney: 31.7 points
Jeanmar Gomez: 31.0 points
Arodys Vizcaino: 30.6 points
Jeremy Jeffress: 29.9 points
Alex Colome: 28.6 points
Jeurys Familia: 28.3 points
Mark Melancon: 27.3 points
Kenley Jansen: 27.0 points
David Robertson: 25.8 points
Cody Allen: 25.2 points
Steve Cishek: 24.2 points
Santiago Casilla: 23.6 points
Francisco Rodriguez: 23.6 points
Wade Davis: 23.4 points
Craig Kimbrel: 22.5 points
Hector Rondon: 22.3 points
Now let’s see what the numbers look like if we use appearances instead of save opportunities.
Zach Britton: 25.9 points
A.J. Ramos: 25.7 points
Jeanmar Gomez: 23.2 points
Kenley Jansen: 21.6 points
David Robertson: 21.3 points
Mark Melancon: 20.1 points
Jeurys Familia: 19.7 points
Francisco Rodriguez: 18.6 points
Steve Cishek: 18.1 points
Alex Colome: 18.0 points
Roberto Osuna: 17.9 points
Wade Davis: 17.9 points
Jeremy Jeffress: 17.6 points
Fernando Rodney: 17.6 points
Santiago Casilla: 16.8 points
However you look at it, Britton and Ramos are the top two guys. Andrew Miller was actually 4th on the first list, but I excluded him since his save opportunities will be few are far between with Aroldis Chapman back from suspension. In case you didn’t notice, both Jonathan Papelbon and Trevor Rosenthal are missing from both lists. And how about Jeanmar Gomez. Not too shabby for an undrafted player. He’s exactly the reason I never draft a closer early. You could have not drafted a closer at all and grabbed Gomez, Jeffress and Vizcaino off the waiver wire.
For those of you wondering whether it make sense to play a starting pitcher with RP eligibility in the RP spot, here’s what the number say. It depends on the SP, and it depends on the number of starts. Here are the top SP/RP pitchers and their points per start.
Vincent Velasquez: 19.8 points
Junior Guerra: 19.2 points
Drew Pomeranz: 17.5 points
Aaron Sanchez: 17.1 points
Tanner Roark: 16.5 points
Juan Nicasio: 14.7 points
Doug Fister: 14.4 points
Brandon Finnegan: 12.3 points
If any of these guys, except Finnegan, have two starts I would play them at RP. Otherwise, the numbers are not in your favor…
