Comments on Vegas Watch: Evaluating October Closers

Nice post, man. Who do you think the best of the ...

2007-09-11T06:55:00.000-04:00

Nice post, man. Who do you think the best of the elite has been this year? I think Putz, Papelbon and Saito have clearly been the top three. Cordero got off to a great start but has slowed quite a bit in the 2nd half. Meanwhile, Rivera only has 24 saves for the season, which isn't enough for him to be the best.

It's a shame because it seems that only Papelbon's team will make it to October out of those three.

I've been reading your blog for awhile, and enjoy the content. I have added your blog to my list of links for my own blog, The Sports Lounge, which is at dailysportsinfo.blogspot.com I was wondering if you could do the same. Thanks, and keep up the good work.

Although this seems weird at first, it actually ma...

2007-09-10T16:22:58.599-04:00

Although this seems weird at first, it actually makes sense. It's pretty widely accepted that the best way to predict a pitcher's future performance is to look at what he can control independent of his fielders- walks, strikeouts, and home runs.

This analysis ignores home runs, because for closers who only pitch about 60 innings per season, that's not a large enough sample to really be meaningful in showing how good they are at preventing the longball.

In looking at closers over the last six years, I f...

2007-09-10T16:04:02.716-04:00

In looking at closers over the last six years, I found that the only things that are particularly useful in predicting future save percentage are BB/9 and K/9. This is true for any month.

Do strikeouts count as two outs or something in Se...

2007-09-10T14:20:00.000-04:00

Do strikeouts count as two outs or something in September? I wasn't aware tons of K's was a closer prerequisite.