Looking at the all time list, I can think of 4 or 5 guys who it probably is, but I'll only guess one - Gossage?

Of course its Rollie Fingers.

I don't have a guess that's any better than the first two but I'm with the consensus it has to be one of the relief aces.

This reminds me of a question I thought about posting during the closer discussion: I wonder how many of their (Rivera/Hoffman) saves were of the three run lead variety. Or to a put it another way how many SV do those two have that aren't those low-leverage saves that make saber-inclined people grumble about how bad the statistic is...

I seem to remember a chart from the "Winners" book by Dayn Perry that ranked relief seasons by pitching runs above replacement and very few Hoffman/Rivera appear on the top 20 list of relief seasons (just checked 1997, 2001, 2003 and 2000 seasons appear, Hoffman's 1996 season ranks 3rd and his 1998 season 9th -- more than I recalled, Eckersley is the one really not put in a good light by that stat which ranks his great 1990 season 12th all time). That gets at a different question, than the one I asked above; but my brain just went on the tangent and since it is a day off, my baseball library is close at hand and thought it might add to the discussion. Any guess as to who ranks 1-2? 1 isn't a name brought up often but 1984 was a magical season for him, especially in the eyes of the baseball writers.

A. Magpie Loves Gossage.

B. I saw the list yesterday and it's Gossage :)

Eh.  I'm pretty smart.  I was trying to say I would have guessed Gossage, because Magpie loves him, but I saw the list yesterday and it's Fingers :).

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/1831

Seeing that list strengthens the case for Sutter. I thought it was a mistake at the time, but the more data I see the more I become convinced of his case.

I just had a thought, as the holds statistic catches on and we see more and more "set up men" I wonder when/if the time will come to embrace that sort of player in the hall. Bullpen usage has changed quite a bit in the last 30 years and I bet as the generation shifts and mangers aren't loathe to having technology in the dugout we might see a return of the relief ace applied to high leverage situations. It is a nice dream, but somehow I doubt that'll happen.

Keith Law on Yammer.com yesterday (yes, I follow him there) ...
"Ricciardi told our pro scouts in April '05 to tell everyone they saw that 'they can have Wells and Rios for a bag of balls.' Circle of life."

Interesting ...

You think if we ate some contract, the Tigers might trade Mags Ordonez straight up for Vernon?
Why would the Tigers do that? They need another bat, but probably not at Vernon's price.

I would do Alex Rios for Adam Dunn straight up.

Dubious quote (on Law's part - I still don't trust him on things JP, he is a jilted employee after all). Wells in '05 more than made up for his down (from 03) hitting with his great defense. Rios is doubtful too as he was young and had only one season under his belt.

Looking at the stats Rios' is at exactly half of what he played last year right now. His OPS is down, but doubling his line shows that it is mainly because of fewer singles. I think we all might have to accept that the player we've seen this year and last is the player he'll be instead of what he promised to be in 2007.

Now, with their contracts, I suspect JP would be saying that...

Holy crap! I didn't see the list! Damn! I was going through the actual Game Logs....

Didn't quite grasp the potential of this Event Finder thing they've got. Well, no wonder, you need a subscription. I am tempted. I'd like to play with it a while.

With respect to their actual list, Hoyt Wilhelm needs to be moved up. Baseball-Ref has him in 10th place with 125 saves of 1.1 or more IP. Now Wilhelm had 26 saves in 1952-53, which Baseball-Ref doesn't have game logs for. Retrosheet has 1953 however, and 11 of Wilhelm's 15 saves that year required that he retire at least four hitters. That moves him past Garber, Marshall, and Lyle into 7th place with 136. His actual total was probably around 142.

Along with the list, there's a graph showing how the one inning save took over the game, along with this comment:

This graph should be called “The LaRussa/Eckersley effect” since that first big drop from about 60% to about 50% occurred in 1988 when LaRussa adopted the model of bringing Eck in for just the 9th inning, and baseball has never looked back.

Which is what I always thought as well. But it's not completely true. From 1988 to 1992, roughly a third of Eckerlsey's saves  required him to get at least four batters. He was more likely to come on in the 8th inning in 1990 than Rivera is today. Which you could figure out from that list - Rivera's now got 110 >1.1 IP saves, Eckersley has 106. But Rivera's got 110 more saves.

Eckersley is more like the bridge to Trevor Hoffman than the first incarnation. But I do believe that's what baseball people thought at the time about how Eckersley was being used, and as he was so spectacularly successful, the perceived strategy was instantly adopted.

Anyway, yes - Rollie Fingers is the man.

I should admit, that in recent years Rich Gossage has struck me as something of an old blowhard, complaining incessantly that what he did to get his saves was way more demanding than what closers do today. Another old ballplayer, I thought, going on about how he and his contemporaries were the real men and the guys today... After you look closely at some of these save breakdowns, however, you start to think the man has a point. Gossage had more two inning saves in his career than one inning saves. And just wait til you get a load of Dan Quisenberry...

Which brings me to another trivial question. Hoffman has 571 saves, and to record them he had to retire (by my count) 1719 batters. That's more than Rivera, but not the most of all. Who had to record the most outs to rack up his career save total?

I never understood the Toronto fan's obsession with Dunn. Reds fans thought little of him for years. Nice OBP, nice homer totals. Strikes out a ton. As a LF he makes a good DH. Rios can be a 120 OPS+ player with above average CF defense. Perhaps a trade and a change of scenery is what he needs.

Yeah, a lifetime 900 OPS, 5 years in a row of 40+ HR's, nothing the Jays could use there.

Dunn is a DH though, who can play LF and probably some first base.  Just like Overbay, Lind, Snider, Cooper,... you get the idea.  DH's should be easy to find but as long as guys like Adams are getting playing time the Jays really need to find someone else for a one or maybe 2 year solution of which Dunn is one of the ideal candidates along with Nick Johnson.

Maybe because while Rios CAN be a 120 OPS+ player with above average CF defense, Dunn IS a 130 OPS+ (and typically better) player with poor corner D?

"the Jays really need to find someone else for a one or maybe 2 year solution of which Dunn is one of the ideal candidates along with Nick Johnson."

Mark Teahen is another good name to throw into the ring, fits the Jays needs well enough. Whoever it is, the Mark Derosa trade proves that JP has no excuse to sit back and twiddle his thumbs and cry that the market hasn't developed itself yet. Waiting until the trade deadline to improve the offense would be a big mistake.

with above average CF defense

I've never understood this belief.  You have to be smart as well as fast to be a good CF.   Rios has no baseball instincts and has shown time and again that he can cover a lot of ground but still end up in the wrong place to make the catch. 

I disagree Snider. I see Rios get to a lot of balls that off the bat you think will drop in. What he does do every now and again, is have a colossal brain fart and do something absolutely moronic that sticks out in our minds for weeks.

But that is not the norm. That is the exception. Rios is a fine defensive player. It's funny - the bad plays a player makes stick out in our minds a lot more than the day in and day out good plays they make.

It's like the tough life of being an umpire. You can get 99% of your calls right in a night, but if that 1% comes at the wrong time... boy, are you ever going to hear about it. Even if you did a great job overall, nobody's going to remember that.

Off topic, but is anybody else loving Mr. Chavez? The guy's arm is fantastic, he dropped down a suprise bunt to get the tying run on base last night, has hit a couple dingers and has got his average above Vdub's. Yeah he's your typical catch and throw back-up but im enjoying the energy he's bringing.

The belief comes from his plus/minus totals when playing CF last year. They were quite good. I suppose you can take issue with the stat but for fielding stats I'd contend it is the best measure one has... I tend to agree with you right now, but now (it seems) Rios has the physical tools to over come his mental lapses and make plays the average CF doesn't make.

You nailed it with Rios (and with umpires)... Psychologists are on the ball they've been observing the effect since the 1930s:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Restorff_effect

Not sure that has been posted.  The ATM Report today (on behalf of Lee Sinnis) had the following today:

* Blue Jays P Roy Halladay's line--6 IP, 5 H, 2 R/ER, 2 BB, 7 SO.

YEAR AGE RSAA  ERA     G  GS   IP    SO   SO/9 BR/9   W   L   SV  NW  NL  TEAM
2007 30   17   3.71   31  31  225.1  139  5.55 11.30  16   7   0  13  10  Blue Jays   
2008 31   40   2.78   34  33  246    206  7.54  9.91  20  11   0  21  10  Blue Jays   
2009 32   20   2.56   15  15  109     95  7.84  9.58  10   2   0   9   3  Blue Jays   
CAREER   241   3.46  296 270 1916.2 1382  6.49 11.03 141  68   1 132  77 
LG AVG     0   4.53          1916.2 1363  6.40 13.01 108 107

Halladay set the Blue Jays record for career RSAA.

1    Roy Halladay                241  
2    Dave Stieb                  240  
3    Jimmy Key                   130  
4    Roger Clemens               120  
5    Tom Henke                   101  
6    Pat Hentgen                  74  
7    Mark Eichhorn                71  
8    Paul Quantrill               65  
9    Juan Guzman                  63  
10   Duane Ward                   62  

 

I've never heard of RSSA and I read Palmer's linear weights when i was 12 (not most of it.. too much math) so i consider myself number savvy.

UPDATE! BREAKING NEWS! Eric Hinske traded to the Yankees!

So Hinske has now been with four of the five AL East teams? Next stop, Charm City!

RSAA - Runs Saved Above Average - measures the number of runs the pitcher saved over and above an average pitcher given the same number of innings and league and is park adjusted.  The formula is RA/IP minus league-average RA/IP, times total innings pitched.  Created/tracked by Lee Sinnis.

http://www.baseball-encyclopedia.com/

 

Wait a minute... when did Cecil move to the pen? Don't recall an announcement on that front. Might just be for work. Sunday they need someone to start and it is listed as TBA right now. Cecil or Richmond would be logical, perhaps one for 5 IP, another for 3 IP or something.

Here's your random Jays fact of the day:

In the past 16 games, Jason Frasor has pitched a total of 3.2 innings.

when did Cecil move to the pen?

He's the one (it used to be Richmond) being skipped this time  through the rotation with the off-day on Thursday. Expect Richmond to start on Sunday and Cecil against Tampa on Tuesday.

Today he's just getting the day off, but when Vernon Wells returns to the lineup on Friday, he'll probably be hitting sixth.

One of the hazards of playing Alex Rios in CF, as he makes a pointless off-line throw to 3B. Meanwhile allowing the tying run to get into scoring position.

I mean, gosh! That was terrible, terrible baseball. The tying run! To the best of my knowledge, Alex Rios is not a dumb guy. But he is one boneheaded ball player.

Not letting Romero pitch the shutout is a load of crap.  Why did Gaston take him out?

113 pitches is more than enough for a young guy like Romero.  Especially one who's looking like he could be a top line starter (wow!)

Romero looked great, loved the inning ending double play with the bases loaded in the 7th. 

Anyone think it's time to cut bait with Millar and try Randy Ruiz out?  He'd at least be able to put up the same numbers as Millar.

Not letting Romero pitch the shutout is a load of crap.

It's prudent management of a very young and very valuable arm. Sheesh.

Via Jordan Bastian, Gaston confirms that Adam Lind is the number three hitter going forward, and he hasn't quite decided where to put Wells for now (I'd bet on sixth.) Wells' reaction to being dropped in the order? "I haven't given him a choice."

Bastian also has a fine quote from Gaston on the old Yankee Stadium:

It was a dump.

Here is another nugget from Bastian this time from his twitter page:

"No moves announced by Jays, but it looked like Russ Adams was on the way out today. Could Dellucci be joining the team in NYC? We'll see."

"Gaston confirms that Adam Lind is the number three hitter going forward"

Finally. A top five of Scutaro, Hill, Lind, Rolen, and Overbay just makes so much more sense (especially the way Rolen has been hitting). Let the bottom four slots sort themselves out. The players listed above are the ones you want to see getting the most ABs.

What about giving Dopirak a shot as the left-handed DH? He's hitting 315/377/589 at AA (including .439 with three HR in his last ten games). Seems more promising than Adams or Millar, although I don't know if he's more likely to excel than Ruiz (317/379/564) or Coates (321/378/440 with 22 SB).

"To the best of my knowledge, Alex Rios is not a dumb guy. But he is one boneheaded ball player."

Well, that's why to the best of my knowledge, Alex Rios IS a dumb guy. He consistently displays a very poor baseball IQ on the field, and his recent activities off the field showed incredibly poor judgement for an athlete in the spotlight. He also doesn't come across as the sharpest tool during interviews, but granted that could be because he's uncomfortable in English (which again, doesn't say much for an American citizen who has been surrounded by English for at least a decade).

And how! No one cares about shutouts. No sense in lining up another young pitcher for an arm injury.

Yay. Dellucci. (Note: read w/sarcasm and apathy).

Dave Delucci is in the lineup for Las Vegas tonight.

"Dave Delucci is in the lineup for Las Vegas tonight."

I saw that but with an off day does it matter, just some more at bats for him, which incidentally, he struck out in the first with a man on third and one out tonight.

Also of note Harper is not in the lineup against a righty, hopefully though as already stated it's meaningless with an off day for the Jays, I don't see any reason why Harper would be called up. 

I'm assuming someone is coming up with Bastian's comment about Russ packing his gear. 

Taking out a young starter with a history of elbow injury after 113 pitches and a 5-0 lead is indeed nothing less than prudent management.  A complete game shutout after 135-140 pitches would be cause for consternation, and that's the positive side of things.

Magpie, relieve us from the suspense. Who had to retire the most batters in accumulating their saves? Do tell!

I'd guess Lee Smith has the most "outs recorded in a save" - he's got 169 "1 inning or more" saves, which leaves 309 "1 inning or less", which would place him in the top 20 just on their own.

AWeb has nailed it.

The Top 10, by my in-progress count is Lee Smith, Hoffman, Fingers, Rivera, Gossage, Sutter, Franco, Reardon, Eckersley, and Quisenberry.

How similiar is that top 10 list with a most outs per save list? Can you run that Magpie?