Aquino, Borowski, Wickman and Affeldt ... rank them.

[kimchi_chigae]

Wickman and Borowski both play on better teams meaning for save opportunities.

i still think wickman has some gas left in the tank...and the indians will win enough so he'll have a good number of SV.

How many times must it be said? Whether or not a team is good has ZERO bearing on the amount of saves a closer might get. In the words of Will Ferrel - "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!!!" <img src=/forums/images/smiles/kiss.gif>

In any case:

Borowski

Affeldt
Wickman

Aquino

zero? i might be wrong...as i usually am...but i would guess it would at least influence a little on the SV opps...

looking at the SV leaders from last year...from the top 15...only 4 come from teams with a losing record. this is a small sample of course...and one might argue that those top 15 are actually good closers and that's why they are on winning teams...

i'm sure you guys discussed this already...is this thing about closers who play for winning teams are likely to get more SV than those playing for losing teams one of those fantasy myths?

[so0perspam]

You're not wrong KC, this guy is off. Shamsky, areyou trying to exagerrate or something when you said how good a team is has absolutely nothing to do with how many saves a closer gets? I mean if you're on one crappy team that never wins, how many saves do you think the closer will get? A better team does lead to save opps which does lead to more saves. I'm not saying you take the bad closer who's on a good team over the good closer on the bad team, but if I had the chance to pick between a Mariano Rivera closing for the 2004 Cardinals and a Mariano Rivera closing for the 2004 Diamondbacks, I'd definitely pick Rivera as a Cardinal.

[Payne Dailey]

fantasy myth

[Surfs up]

I agree with Sham on his feeling about losing teams gets saves to. But The Royals are going to be down right nasty bad.Winning only 58 games last year.I can't believe they will approach that many this year. I wouldn't touch Affedt with a ten foot pole. But two years ago the Brewers were bad. Not as bad at the Royals this year and they had more saves chances then the Yankees. Enter Danny Kolb and his something like 23 for 26 saves in the second half.

[Shamsky69]

Sorry Sooperspam, but it's you who's off. That referenece to the Brewers in '03 by Surfs Up was exactly what I was going to mention. A great example that I know has been referenced before. I'll keep this real simple.

The fact is that save opportunities are the most important thing in determining how many saves a closer will have the opportunity to get, not the quality of his team. And guess what? Sometimes the crappiest teams have the most save opps.

Your Rivera example is a simply not valid. Let's say that the D-Backs had 50 save opportunities come up and the Cards only had 35 - you're telling me you'd still prefer him to be on the Cards? That's just silly.

[Amazinz]

You're not wrong KC, this guy is off. Shamsky, areyou trying to exagerrate or something when you said how good a team is has absolutely nothing to do with how many saves a closer gets?

Shamsky is correct IMO. Look at the SVOs over the last couple of years. They are all over the board. It's not to say good teams or bad teams get more SVOs just that there is no correlation between SVOs and Wins and Losses that I am aware of.

[sphinx80]

Being on a lossing team does not matter that much. KC had only 58 wins last year. That being said, I will bet a lot of those wins were really close games, as they rarely blow anybody out. With that in mind that means the closer for KC had 45-50+ save opps. If you are a good closer and do not blow many saves, then you are in a good position to get a lot of saves.

Now a team like the Yankees, they certainly win more games, but they also blow out a lot teams in which there are no save opps.

With all that, I like Wcikeman and Affeldt

[warrick95]

Jose Mesa had 11 more saves than Keith Foulke last year. Who's team was better? So many different factors go into generating save opportunities. I'd prefer to take the better team, because other than a few outliers (I'd say the Red Sox could very well be one of them), I think the overall % of save opportunities generated in total team wins is relatively similar for all teams...give or take a bit. So, if a team wins more,

This obviously doesn't hold true for ALL teams, but I believe when the numbers are crunched, it'll be close.

Leading save #'s last year:
Rivera
F. Cordero
Isringhausen
A. Benitez
Gagne
Nathan
Smoltz
Mesa
Graves
Hoffman
Kolb
Dotel
Chacon

etc.

Cordero's on a team that has poor pitching but a great offense...thus still close scores, though shootouts. Notice the rest of the teams from 1-7 all made the playoffs. The Rangers were cetainly a contender, too. The next tier definitely turned out to be much more unpredictable, though.

Edit: there are these theories:

+ is good
- is bad
= is average

+hitting and +pitching usually means less save opps (ex. Red Sox)
+hitting and =pitching usually means a decent amount of save opps
+hitting and -pitching usually means a good deal of save opps (Rangers)

+pitching and -hitting usually means a good deal of save opps (Athletics)
+pitching and =hitting means a decent amount.

Basically, I think a +/- or +/= (or vice versa) works out best...the teams that are TOO good don't seem to work out. Note that the Yankees' rotation was subpar last year, if you're wondering how Rivera ended up with so many saves.

[quicksilver8]

To answer the question, drop the KC closer. Borowski has the job locked up. Wickman still has some saves in him and Aquino is supposedly improving to the point where he is again the favorite for saves.

As for the other arguement here, I agree with Shamski....save opps are what counts and I haven't seen a stat yet that proves that save opps are any more plentiful on good teams. I would draft closers based upon their skills and their cost relative to their return.

[Tokugawa]

Thanks for the advice.

I was interested in the debate about save opps that followed. My major point is that unless a team wins, there is no chance of getting a save. I agree that the percentage of save opps per wins may be higher for worse teams, but when looking to drop one of these closers, I was leaning towards dropping one from a team (KC) that may win a little over half as many games as the others (Cle and Chi not Ari!), as I believe between these teams, not througout MLB in general, the respective closers for Chicago and Cleveland will see more save opps than KC's closer. I guess we will have to wait ans see what happens.

With all things being roughly equal between Borowski, Wickman and Affeldt (all are injury risks and haven't really proven themselves as great closers), I thought the amount of games their respective teams may win, was the only thing to distinguish them.