Winners Don’t Provide More Save Opportunities
Posted on January 21st, 2008 by dchase
This table represents Average Team Save Opportunities from 2005-2007:
| RK | Team | Avg |
| 1 | Milwaukee | 67.7 |
| 2 | San Diego | 67.7 |
| 3 | Chicago AL | 67.0 |
| 4 | Washington | 65.7 |
| 5 | San Francisco | 64.3 |
| 6 | Florida | 64.0 |
| 7 | Los Angeles AL | 63.7 |
| 8 | Oakland | 63.7 |
| 9 | Colorado | 63.3 |
| 10 | Philadelphia | 63.3 |
| 11 | Texas | 63.0 |
| 12 | Toronto | 62.3 |
| 13 | Detroit | 61.3 |
| 14 | Seattle | 61.3 |
| 15 | Arizona | 60.7 |
| 16 | Boston | 60.7 |
| 17 | New York AL | 60.7 |
| 18 | Houston | 60.3 |
| 19 | Atlanta | 60.0 |
| 20 | Los Angeles NL | 60.0 |
| 21 | Cleveland | 58.7 |
| 22 | New York NL | 57.7 |
| 23 | Tampa Bay | 57.3 |
| 24 | Cincinnati | 56.3 |
| 25 | Baltimore | 56.0 |
| 26 | St Louis | 55.7 |
| 27 | Kansas City | 54.3 |
| 28 | Minnesota | 54.0 |
| 29 | Pittsburgh | 52.7 |
| 30 | Chicago NL | 52.3 |
The top 10 teams (less the A’s & Angels) have been mostly “.500 ball clubs” over the 3 years represented. There’s good teams at the bottom, middle and top of the table, and excellent teams (Yankees & Sox) couldn’t be more in the middle.
Next time you’re undecided between Closer A, and Closer B, choose based on the Closers’ ability to miss bats not the quality of the team.
7 out of the top 10 teams are NL teams. Nothing too revelatory there - just interesting to note.
I noticed the bottom 5 had two of the worst teams over that time span (a distinction I failed to make earlier)
Going off this basic research I’d probably knock Jakim Soria & Matt Capps down a little bit.
You can never go wrong drafting closers who K people, but I don’t think your results necessarily take quality of the team out of the equation (not that you claimed that was the case). I would be interested to see how these numbers match up year by year with run differential. One theory would be that middlin teams who score as many runs as they give up tend to play in more close games and thus create more save ops. Or there could be no pattern whatsoever.
I don’t see the value in this list. Save totals fluctuate from year to year even for the top closers. Saves have more to do with team performance than player performance.
Granted this isn’t the most comprehensive way of looking at the situation, but it’s a “in a box” look at how many total save opportunities a baseball team yields on average over the last 3 seasons.
The yankees and red sox have been some of the most successful teams over the time span represented in the table, yet, have only provided an average of 60 SvOs for their bullpen.
Many fantasy managers bump closers up on their list that play for a quality team, I’d advise staying away from the really bad teams, but not over valuing a closer because his team is a lock for 95+ wins.
Wins don’t equal save opportunities.
eg. I’ll take Saito over Mariano Rivera (with all else equal), yet Rivera is going much higher in ADP.
Is there a possibility that there is some correlation between runs scored or park size?
For example there are less runs scored in a park like petco. Pitching battles with lower scores tend to be closer and therefore create more save opportunities? it’d be interesting to see what the graph would look like with runs scored neutralized.
charlie, send me an email. let’s talk about adding your ideas and making this more comprehensive.
I would have to say that projected runs scored and allowed or projected W-L would be a better indicator to try and base projected saves with.
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