According to the media, Mariano Rivera “officially” became the greatest closer ever a few days ago when he broke the all-time saves record. The assumption that Rivera needed to save one more game than Trevor Hoffman to be considered the greatest one-inning pitcher in history is laughable, but here we are. But the more heated discussion has been about whether Rivera or Derek Jeter has been more indispensible over the Yankees’ reign of dominance.

Rivera’s 602 saves (wait, the number is already up to 603) have all occurred during the regular season, which might as well be warm-up games for the modern New York Yankees. Since the 1994 strike, they have missed the playoffs just once. The 2008 season notwithstanding, has there really ever been any doubt of the Yankees making the postseason? Their payroll is consistently enormous, and if there’s a chance they might not make the playoffs, Brian Cashman makes sure to reload at the trade deadline. Making the playoffs is as routine for the Yankees as sub-.500 seasons are for the Pirates.*

*This reminds me of when I lashed out against a Yankee fan who said “preseason football > regular season baseball” on Twitter. This is because he prefers football and also because regular season baseball translates to preseason baseball in Yankeeland.

I don’t think it’s disingenuous, then, to focus on postseason performance. But I want to be clear here: there’s a difference between claiming a player has been a brilliant playoff performer and claiming he has been innately clutch (or, in contrast, a choke artist). Does Mariano Rivera’s superhuman performance in the postseason mean he’s going to continue having an ERA under 1? Almost definitely not, but his entire body of work as a closer does make him better suited for the role than anyone else. On the other side of the spectrum, Alex Rodriguez did kinda suck in a few postseasons with the Yankees, but that didn’t make him a “choker,” and he didn’t magically become “clutch” in 2009. This is the distinction between the actual value of past performance and the predictive value of said performance.

Mariano Rivera’s career postseason stats are absolutely disgusting: A 0.77 ERA and 0.766 WHIP, with 42 saves and 5 blown saves.* The number of blown saves might be shocking, but it shouldn’t be surprising that two of them occurred during the most famous collapse in baseball postseason history – the 2004 ALCS.** In fact, the only time the Yankees won a series where Rivera blew only one save was the preceding series against the Twins. The Yankees ended up winning that game anyway, though, because the Twins are fucking worthless against the Yankees in the playoffs. In October, as Rivera goes, so go the Yankees.

*I wish Fangraphs’ postseason shutdown and meltdown stats went back further than 2002. Since then, Rivera has had 19 shutdowns and 2 meltdowns. By comparison: Brad Lidge, 18-4; Jonathan Papelbon, 11-1 (wow); Joe Nathan, 2-5 (lol); Brian Wilson, 6-1.

**One of the blown saves was extremely unfair, as Rivera entered with runners at 1st and 3rd with no out and managed to allow only one run; he actually increased the Yankees’ chance of winning in that outing.

I’m a big proponent of FIP and xFIP, especially when it comes to closers, but the disparity between Rivera’s 0.77 ERA and 2.24 FIP and 3.21 xFIP over 139.2 IP definitely tests my faith in the metrics. Such a large disparity cannot be seen with some of the best individual seasons by other closers, who pitched in only half as many innings. For example, Dennis Eckersley’s 0.61 ERA in 1990 was backed up by a 1.34 FIP. I’m sure you could probably find seasons that disprove my general notion (Eric O’Flaherty this year is a candidate), but I think Rivera’s postseason tERA of 1.86 is probably closer to telling the true story of broken bat grounders, since it incorporates batted-ball data. He has managed to keep his career BABIP at .262, after all. The .216 mark in the postseason is definitely indicative of some luck, but it’s impossible to say how much. I think any way you slice it, it’s tough to envision a closer doing better over 16 seasons of postseason play.
In contrast to Rivera, Jeter’s postseason performance has been unremarkable when compared to his career. His postseason batting line of .309/.377/.472 is nearly identical to his regular season line of .313/.383/.449. It should be noted that these stats are still pretty great for a shortstop. And we’ve all seen the crazy plays he’s made in the field, and his clutch November home runs. He’s basically a great player in every situation. Yet Win Probability Added (WPA) tells me the craziest thing: Derek Jeter has hurt the Yankees overall chances when he’s been at the plate in the postseason (-0.58 WPA). Go ahead, look it up. Look at that clutch rating (-1.14)! Derek Jeter is a “choke artist”! But if you want to take leverage out of the equation with WPA/LI, Jeter manages to get into positive territory (0.56). I guess he’s ok.

I think you know where I’m going with this. Mariano Rivera’s postseason WPA is a whopping 4.86. Even if we strip out leverage (in the form of LI), which is going to heavily favor a closer, his WPA/LI is still 2.73. That’s over five times higher than Jeter’s. But there is an important point here, as WPA and WPA/LI do not factor in defense at all. Jeter playing shortstop is worth something — quite a bit actually. This is evident when you look at both players’ regular season Wins Above Replacement (WAR) total and see how far ahead Jeter is, despite Rivera being slightly ahead in WPA/LI. This is why for any other team I would emphatically say that Jeter is the more important and valuable player. But Rivera has been the perfect man for the perfect time and place in baseball history. He has arguably been better at his position than anyone other player, for the team that needed it most. Rivera has been used basically twice as much in the postseason as in meaningless April-September games.

I’m going to play fast and loose with some metrics here, but looking at the value of Rivera’s ~2.00 FIP seasons, he has probably been worth around 6 WAR in the postseason; Jeter, depending on defensive metrics, has been worth anywhere from 5-6 WAR. But WAR is context-neutral, and, as I’ve tried to show, Rivera has, in the aggregate, outperformed Jeter at the crucial moments. This is not to say that in an alternate universe, Jeter wouldn’t have performed better and Rivera would have seemed more human. Given a choice in 1995, knowing both of their true talent levels going forward and their career regular season performances, you would take Jeter. But looking back, Rivera has been more integral to the Yankees’ postseason success, and for them that’s literally all that matters.

Now watch Rivera blow up this October against the Red Sox.

If I didn’t make it clear with the last post, I’m keeping track of all these tweets because I know they eventually disappear (into the Library of Congress archives), and I also like to expand on the 140-character comparisons.

Once again, hit the jump for the fun with numbers.

5/7

Cal Ripken Jr.: 3185 hits, 8893 outs. Tony Gwynn: 3141 hits, 6662 outs.

This is just to show that not all 3,000 hit club members are made alike. Career-wise, Ripken is probably the worst hitter out of all 27 members. Meanwhile, Tony Gwynn was able to slap the ball around wherever he wanted, even at 350 pounds.

5/8

Jamie Moyer: 2362 K, 1122 BB. Tom Glavine: 2607 K, 1500 BB.

I don’t like Tom Glavine. I believe he’s only going to make the Hall of Fame because he was so durable and played for the winningest team of the 90s (for some reason, there’s no easy google search to confirm this, and I’m not doing the math to compare them to the Yankees). He also got half a foot off the plate until Questek came around. What better way to belittle him than to compare him to Jamie Moyer? This has nothing to do with that final game of 2007, nope.

5/9

Perfect games: 19. Unassisted triple plays: 15. Four-HR games: 15.

Sure, the unassisted triple play is all luck — as opposed to the other two — but they are all cool numbers anyway.

5/10

Livan Hernandez: 1.04 ERA. Livan Hernandez: 5.18 xFIP.

What this means is that this Cuban defector is due to fall back to earth. Hard.

5/11

David Wright, Career: .308/.389/.519. David Wright, 2010: .293/.417/.552.

His 2010 numbers have fallen a bit in the past few days, and now he’s even more in line with his career stats, at least when it comes to OBP and SLG. Sure, he’s striking out an obscene amount — which is frustrating as hell — but he’s still by far the best hitter on the Mets. And also one of the better hitters in baseball.

5/12

Brady Anderson: 210 HR, 315 SB. Derek Jeter: 228 HR, 308 SB. @PixelGorilla

Proof that I give my fans what they want. PixelGorilla asked for a Brady Anderson comparison, so I gave him one.

5/13

Tom Glavine: 4413.1 IP, 118 ERA+, 1.74 K/BB. Bert Blyleven: 4970 IP, 118 ERA+, 2.80 K/BB.

More Glavine hate, sorta. Or more just pointing out that if Glavine is a no-doubt Hall of Famer, than so should be Blyleven.

5/14

2010 Nationals, May 14th: 20-15. 2009 Nationals, June 19th: 20-46.

This is just mind-blowing. I can’t believe the Washington Nationals are 20-15. And they haven’t even called up Strasburg yet. Fuck me.

I’d say this is as good a time as any to gush about the guy who will become — if he isn’t already — the best position player the Mets have ever had.

In the 868 games he’s played, he’s racked up 143 HR, 575 RBI, and 126 SB, while hitting at a .308/.391/.517 clip. Of course, during the SNY broadcast of tonight’s game, Gary Cohen had to put Wright in company with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio, saying that only those three New York players reached 1,000 hits in that few games with that many home runs. That’s stretching it a little bit, but Wright’s career is certainly off to an awesome start and anyone that booed him this past week deserves to have beer poured on his head.

Looking at those HR and SB totals got me thinking that Wright could possibly become a member of the 300-300 club — a club I didn’t realize included Reggie Sanders and Steve Finley until I just looked it up. Sure, it might also include Barry and Bobby Bonds, Willie Mays, and Andre Dawson, but those two other guys kinda sour it, don’t they? At least if we’re talking about Hall of Fame status. Both of them are behind even Jim Rice in career WAR!

But then I thought of another stat to add to that club: a .300 average. That eliminates all but Willie Mays (yes, Barry Bonds’ career average is only .298). If David Wright somehow manages to maintain that all-important .300 number, people will be talking about him in company with Willie Mays all the time. The Hall of Fame couldn’t be far behind.

Sure, I may be perpetuating the idea of these stupid arbitrary clubs, but even I have to admit they’re kinda fun sometimes. Everyone loves round numbers, and the beauty of a .300-300-300 club cannot be denied. I probably should have named this post after the idea because it’s so awesome.

Plugging Wright’s career stats into the quick and dirty Bill James career assessments formula, he has a 91% chance of reaching 300 HR, and a 72% chance of reaching 300 SB. I’d say the former percentage is spot-on, but even I’m not that optimistic about 300 SB. I feel like a player’s SB totals decline faster with age than his HR counts, but I forget if this has actually been proven or not. But it seems obvious, doesn’t it? Either way, the .300 average might be the toughest to end his career with.

Admittedly, the 300-300 club is going to explode in the next few years, as Alex Rodriguez, Alfonso Soriano, and Carlos Beltran are all locks. And Mike Cameron and Bobby Abreu will probably enter it as well. Even Derek Jeter has a shot. But out of all those, A-Rod and Jeter (the two Yankees, of course) are the ones who would be hitting over .300. And A-Rod isn’t a lock for that batting average milestone, since he’s signed with the Yankees for I believe the next 28 years. He’s bound to continue his decline and he’s sitting at only .305 right now.

In ten years we might be looking at a snazzy .300-300-300 club that everyone can love, and it will possibly contain Mays, A-Rod, Jeter and Wright.

Man, people will only hate New York even more once this is plastered all over ESPN. But I hope you’ll remember you heard it here first.*

*Or at least pretend that I’m actually the first person to ever say this. I did the requisite Googling and I didn’t find anything, but nothing on the internet is original.