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 Post subject: Why Gossage, Sutter et al. should be in the Hall
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2005 2:05 pm 
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January 2, 2005
KEEPING SCORE
When a Game Saved Was a Game Earned
By ALAN SCHWARZ

Baseball's Hall of Fame voters, whose 2005 selections will be announced Tuesday, struggle with where to place relievers among the game's historical elite. That's because saves, the only relief statistic with any gravitas, have become far less weighty in the past 20 years; comparing yesteryear's firemen to those of today is akin to comparing golfers on the earth and on the moon.

The only reasonably modern closers deemed worthy of the Hall have been Rollie Fingers, whose 1970's appearances routinely lasted at least two innings, and Dennis Eckersley, who in the late 1980's began the modern practice of rarely pitching more than one. Elite closers caught between this evolution, like Bruce Sutter and Rich Gossage, have career statistics that dismissive voters strain to parse.

We know that the relief appearances of Sutter (who received 60 percent of the vote last year, well short of the required 75 percent) and Gossage (41 percent) were more trying compared with those of the Eckersleyesque closers of today, but to what degree? And how easy were those of Lee Smith, whose mammoth record of 478 saves still leaves him a long shot for induction?

Thanks to Retrosheet, the volunteer-run organization that archives historical play-by-play data, these questions can begin to be answered - perhaps not in time to change this year's voting, but in time to fuel the imminent arguments. As it turns out, arguments for Sutter, Gossage and some forgotten relievers could have more fuel than ever.

"There's a huge difference between the Sutters and Gossages and the closers people think of today, like Eric Gagne," said Retrosheet's founder, Dave Smith, by day a biology professor at the University of Delaware. "This is directly accessible by play-by-play data."

Recognizing that not all saves are created equal - starting the ninth with the bases empty is nothing like entering a jam in the seventh - Retrosheet unearths how hard each reliever's save opportunity was, looking at the length of the appearance and the inherited runners on base.

First, the length issue. Eckersley's saves lasted an average of 3.33 outs, a drastic break from closers before him. Outings for Gossage (4.72), Sutter (4.73) and Fingers (4.82) lasted more than 40 percent longer, with little difference among those three. (Eckersley's save chances came with none out in the ninth 63 percent of the time, compared with 31 percent to 35 percent for the other three pitchers. For a guy who gave out so few free passes, Eckersley did get many himself.)

Second, regardless of inning, how threatening a situation did these relievers enter? This can be quantified by assessing the outs and base runners when they took the mound. The calculations will be skipped here, but once again, the numbers show how Eckersley, who entered many innings with no one on base, had a much easier time. His situations generally posed an average threat of .57 runs; Sutter (.64), Fingers (.66) and Gossage (.68) were thrown into hotter fires.

These numbers do not just put a numerical face on how closers who preceded Eckersley pitched vastly longer and under tougher initial conditions. To be fair, Eckersley was inducted partly because he won 149 games as a starter before switching to relief in 1987. The numbers also show that Sutter and Gossage are quite comparable to Fingers, who was heartily inducted in 1992, and that Smith's 478 saves were clearly more of the modern variety.

Looking at these statistics further highlights how valuable Sutter's and Gossage's contemporaries, and predecessors, truly were. For example, Dan Quisenberry, the fantastic Royals submariner through the 1980's, lasted 5.19 outs a save, more than Sutter, Gossage and even Fingers, making his relatively light 244 career saves (and 75 percent success rate) much more impressive.

Unfortunately, Quisenberry was banished from the ballot in 1996 because he received so little initial support; his only hope is to be elected by the Veterans Committee, whose selections are announced every other March.

It's through this process that Sparky Lyle, one of the most forgotten firemen, is found to deserve more consideration than he will surely receive. Lyle dominated lineups through the 1970's for the Red Sox and the Yankees, entering tight situations no matter how early in the game.

In Game 4 of the 1977 American League Championship Series against Kansas City, he came on in the fourth inning and pitched two-hit shutout ball the rest of the way.

It turns out that Lyle not only took an average of 4.66 outs (in Sutter and Gossage territory) for his saves, but he also entered games in vastly tighter situations than any reliever thus far discussed. He came on with an average of 1.08 runners - more than twice as many as Eckersley, for example, and 25 percent more than the elite relievers of his time.

"Look at Eckersley and Lyle," Retrosheet's Smith said. "It's like they're not playing the same position."

As for sharing the same position in Cooperstown's Hall of Fame gallery, that will probably have to wait for most of these relievers. Their plaques will never be cast with Retrosheet's numbers, but votes for them probably should be.

E-mail: keepingscore@nytimes.com


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2005 2:14 pm 
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Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 2266
Location: New Jersey
Why Gossage belongs but Sutter does not

(EDIT: Removed the actual text of this as I remembered it was a column from the "premium" section of ESPN.com to which I'm subscribed. I do not wish for myself or Phillip to be sued by Disney's impressive platoon of lawyers. Let me just say that Rob Neyer is a fine writer and you could do worse than to subscribe to ESPN Insider just to read his columns. Damn shame that they moved him to the paid section of the website -- but if it was a dirty trick, it was one I went along with.)


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