Article:Is Goose Gossage better than Mariano Rivera, or has the Save become Meaningless?

I belong to a great organization whose members believe in and protect baseball's history. There are a few members of the group who have founded their own research tools and websites], or in some way to contribute to someone else's. (The term "sabermatrician" comes from the acronym "SABR", which is short for the Society of American Baseball Research). I'm a volunteer researcher (everyone is, actually) on Retrosheet, and in a forum conversation on the site last week, shortly after the Hall voting became public, the topic of Goose Gossage's career naturally came up. Specifically, as Manny, and Davis have mentioned, the save in the "old" days had more meaning than it does now. And, considering the rule was changed in 1969, what about the relievers who pitched before then, who is to say a dozen of those guys aren't better than Bruce Sutter or Trevor or Mo?

Those of you who know me or have read some other stuff know I don't really believe in the save as a valuable statistic. At least not as we know it today. As you can see by the rule, starting an inning with a three run lead and getting three outs before allowing three runs qualifies as a save. He can also enter a game with the tying run on deck, there could be two outs at the time, however. So, as you see, the rule is pretty generic. I've always felt the tying run should be on base, or, better yet, in scoring position, (second base, third base, or second and third base with less than two outs).

The conversation started when Retrosheet founder David W. Smith presented numbers he had done at the request of the San Diego Padres last season as Trevor Hoffman was approaching 500 career saves. The average save length since 1969? Exactly one inning, with 17,162 saves recorded up until June 18th, 2007 (the date of the Padres request). The next highest amount was of the two inning variety, with 4038. An inning and a third, one third and two thirds rounded out the top five. The leader in blown saves is also exactly one inning, with 3509. Two third and one third fill out the top three. And remember, since this data goes back to 1969, and with the way relief pitching has become more specialized in the past 15-20 years, we could safely assume most of those two inning saves were prior to 1990, and the majority of th one inning came after.

What Mr. Smith then did when the election of Gossage became official was to take the career totals of nine "great" closers and put them into an inning by inning by save perspective. Hoffman leads in saves of one inning or less, with 89%! Hoffman also has only seven career saves of two innings or more. Conversely, Gossage had 125 of his 310 career saves (40.3%) of two innings or more. Rivera has 345 of his career total of one inning or less, and only one of more than two innings. Gossage, Sutter and Dan Quisenberry actually had more two inning saves than of one inning.

In 1964, the Boston Red Sox sucked, finishing eighth in a ten team American League with a 72-90 record and 27 games behind the pennant winning Yankees. Their closer, or primary reliever that year was Dick Radatz, a 27 year old righthander in his third ML season. That year, Radatz appeared in 67 games and led the AL in saves with 29. He pitched 157 innings, or two and two third innings per appearance! He finished seventh in the AL in strikeouts, posted a 16-9 record, and finished second in Cy Young Award voting. He had a similar season in 1963, leading the league in saves with 25, posted a 15-7 record with 132.1 innings pitched. In 1964, 21 of his 29 saves were of two innings or more (72.4%). In 30 of his 57 appearances (52.6%) there was at least one runner on base, and in his 57 appearances the Sox went 47-32.

I have no problems with the closer, or his role. I have a problem with the rule. If Brandon Webb or Johan Santana can pitch seven innings per start, and, at worst, allow a run in two of them, then why should we consider ONE scoreless inning by a relief pitcher to be such a big deal? And further, why should it be a big deal when he comes into the game with a lead? How many scoreless innings does either Webb or Santana throw each game when the score is 0-0?

Thanks to David W. Smith, Tom Tango, Sean Forman, and Scott Schleifer for the numbers provided.