February ennui, in March

Thursday, March 11 2004 @ 03:23 AM EST

Contributed by: Anonymous

While procrastinating writing my A's column, I spent some time flipping through my newly-arrived 2004 Baseball Prospectus, looking for nothing in particular. And "nothing in particular" really means "anything," and "anything," as any fan of The Zero Effect can tell you, is much easier to find than "something." Or such and such, blah blah blah.

So what did I find, you ask? Well, many things, but for now I'll stick to one. Reading the comments for Detroit's Chris Mears, I learned that 50 players had five saves or more in the major leagues in 2004, which struck me as a bit odd. Not the amount of players saving five games or more, but that Mears was one of them, because I thought the Tigers only won four games all year. OK, so the Tigers are an easy target and saves are a generally meaningless statistic; taken at face value, saves don't tell us much about a pitcher's talents. But what the heck, it's a fun stat, and let's not drift down the path of statistical elitism. So, with "saves" in mind, here's my semi-daily, but really semi-monthly, question for Da Box: who will lead the Blue Jays in saves this year, and how many will he have?

My money, such as it is, falls on … Justin Speier, with 24. If I'm wrong, Speier at least will lead the team in most consecutive vowels in their surnames, which is not yet a real statistic, or even a fantasy one, though we all hope it will be soon. The prize for this sweepstakes, as in the "How much playing time will Alexis Rios get?" game, is once again my enduring love.

(Editor's note: Rules and regulations forbid any Blue Jays employees from entering these fantabulous Gizzi contests. So if Keith Law or J.P. or anybody else has inside info, keep it to yourself. And by "keep it to yourself," I mean pass it on to me in private, because I've got some fantasy leagues I want to win.)

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