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.

A Disturbance In The Force – BURGER WARS. This would be the post the above graphic originates. The title comes from treating McDonald’s as the black McEmpire and displaying other fast-food places as different-colored pockets of resistance. I have no problem with making McDonald’s evil. Does anyone find it strange that Dairy Queen’s region of dominance is the coldest part of the country? Sure, there’s 5 feet of snow on the ground and the wind chill of -40, but I sure want a DQ Blizzard!

My Roger Ebert Story – Will Leitch recounts how he grew up idolizing the film critic, attended his alma mater, initiated contact with him, met and hung out with him, asked him for advice, and then turned on him with an article entitled “I Am Sick of Roger Ebert’s Fat F—ing Face.”

Jenrry Mejia Looks Like Jenrry Mejia – A plea to not turn the Mets’ #1 pitching prospect into a reliever. I agree with this. I don’t want the Joba fiasco to happen with the Mets. Keep him in the minors and let him develop as a starter and don’t bring him up until he’s ready to START.

Mets as Best Picture Nominees – This is pretty cool — I get to kill two birds with one link. Jose Reyes = District 9 and K-Rod = Avatar are the best comparisons.

8 History-less History Channel Shows – This list is just kinda depressing. Not that I’ve watched the History Channel in years. But that just means I watched more when it showed actual history. I’m not responsible for this, I swear!

Everything I Know About Japan, I Learned From Mr. Baseball – I enjoy linking to stuff that involves Tom Selleck.

Best Single Season WAR (without winning the MVP) – The required weekly link to a post featuring sabermetrics.

Valve’s Big Fat Hint: Steam for Macs? - I really need to dedicate a full blog post to this, but I might as well sneak this in here for now. This has been a big sticking point for me with regards to Macs. No Steam = no sale. Now what do I use as an arguing point?!?

I’ll try not to go into the usual stuff that has been covered on a ton of other blogs. I wish I saved the links, because I’m not going to hunt for them.

My initial gut ballot was: Bert Blyleven, Roberto Alomar, Mark McGwire, Tim Raines. Since then, I’ve reconsidered and would probably add Edgar Martinez, Barry Larkin, and Alan Trammell. So there, seven guys I’d put in before Dawson.

But I’m going to steal and add to an idea presented in this post on The Hardball Times.

Wins Above Excellence:

Time to introduce a new junk stat. For this measure, I’m looking at how many wins a player has above three in a season, though his season total can never be below zero. This gives a player credit for great seasons, and ignores anything where a player is average or below, it neither adds nor hurts a player’s case for greatness. A great player should not be penalized if he hangs around past his peak contributing a only little bit to his teams.

I think three wins is a bit low of a barrier for “excellence.” Two wins is average, three wins is good, four wins is great, five wins is excellence.

Going by Fangraphs’ WAR calculations (which I won’t be using for the historical WAR calculations), last year there were this many players — not including pitchers — that hit each of these WAR thresholds:

3 WAR or above: 75
4 WAR or above: 47
5 WAR or above: 24

I’d definitely define five wins above replacement as excellence. The guys right at the threshold are names like Teixeira, Ichiro, and Sandoval.

But, not many guys collect many wins above 5 WAR. Let’s look at the numbers for the eight Hall of Fame candidates (including the one future inductee):

Oh wait, make that nine. You may have noticed the guy that doesn’t belong. At all. That would be Jack Morris. This is the voting results from this year with Lee Smith taken out, because there’s no point in even adding him to the chart. As you can see, Dawson does not deserve to be on top — and Bert Blyleven should be a no-fucking-brainer. I think  another interesting part of the table is Raines being the second-worst when you use 5 WAR as the barrier (and third-worst with the other two). That ties in well with why he’s been slow in getting support for induction. Trammell was just unfortunate to play shortstop just before the recent influx of heavy-hitting shortstops. His hitting numbers don’t look impressive, and he wasn’t Ozzie Smith in the field. Hall of Fame voters don’t apply position adjustments, apparently.

As always, I must thank Sean Smith at BaseballProjection.com for his historical WAR database. I should probably donate at this point.

I’m sad that Fangraphs already beat me to this post, but I already had the idea in my head when I remembered the article. Yes, it’s only from 10 days ago, fuck you I’m going ahead with it. Albert Pujols might be the most insane hitter on the planet, and also the best player period, but Chase Utley is right there behind him. Utley might not be what you’d refer to as a “five-tool player”, but fuck if he doesn’t do everything you’d ever want a player to do on the baseball field. He even looks like an old-school baseball player while he does it. (a.k.a. white!)

Utley plays second base, a premium defensive position. Maybe it’s not quite catcher or shortstop, but it’s still a “fielder’s position.” Not only does he play such a pivotal position, but he plays it as well as anyone in baseball. At the very least, he’s been a top 3 second baseman over the past 5 years. You want UZR? His UZR/150 for the past five seasons: 17.1, 10.2, 21.0, 21.4, 7.7. And actually, that last one should be higher, because something is not right with Fangraphs’ formula. It should probably be closer to 9.0. But this is besides the point — the point is that Utley plays 2B better than you probably think. Maybe he should jump and twist and shout more, like Roberto Alomar.

Want more evidence? There’s a little site called fieldingbible.com and it utilizes a stat called plus/minus. An explanation straight from the site:

Video Scouts at BIS review video of every play of every major league game and record detailed information on each play, such as the location of each batted ball, the speed, the type of hit, etc.

…

A player gets credit (a “plus” number) if he makes a play that at least one other player at his position missed during the season, and he loses credit (a “minus” number) if he misses a play that at least one player made. The size of the credit is directly related to how often players make the play. Each play is looked at individually, and a score is given for each play. Sum up all the plays for each player at his position and you get his total plus/minus for the season. A total plus/minus score near zero means the player is average. A score above zero is above average and a negative score is below average.

Utley’s score from 2006 to 2008? +85

The next highest score at 2B? +58 from Mark Ellis

(More proof of Albert Pujols being awesome — his score was +82)

Baserunning? Utley has stolen 81 bases in his career while being caught only 11 times. That’s an 88% clip. Not to mention he’s a perfect 21 for 21 this season. Jesus Christ, he is good.

And now of course we come to hitting. We all know it’s the name of the game. It’s what makes an everyday baseball player famous 95% of the time. Either you hit a shitload of home runs or you hit for a really high average. That’s how you get into the Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, Utley really doesn’t do either. Sure, he averages 30 HR a year, but that’s not an eye-popping amount, especially in this era. And his career average is just below .300 at .298. He can’t be that good a hitter then, right? Wrong. (I apologize for that.)

Utley is a great hitter who every season hovers around a .400 OBP, hits 30 home runs and 40 doubles, drives in 100 runs, and also scores 100 runs. His OBP is helped by his massive amount of HBPs every season (over 20), but he does it without wearing some huge piece of armor on his arm — unlike Craig Biggio, that fucking pussy. The guy is good. He’s not Pujols or A-Rod, but he can hit. Over the past five years, his OPS+ is at 136. By comparison, the lumbering first baseman next to him who is such a “great slugger” is at 141. And that guy plays a shitty 1B.

Anything I missed? Fielding, baserunning, hitting? Check, check, check. Fucking? Maybe Jeter has him beat there. MVP = Most Vaginas Penetrated. That Deadspin comment killed me. Intangibles? Maybe Captain Intangibles still has him beat, but Utley does have a ring now, and he played though a hip injury for half a season. He also never talks shit or complains about anything, it seems. Admittedly, he did say “World FUCKING Champions” in front of a crowd no doubt including children, but I can gloss over that; the Philly-ness has to come out sometime. He just plays the game the right way, and I can appreciate that. I’m not saying he’s GRITTY or SCRAPPY, but he goes out there and plays the game, and plays it as well as anyone. Pujols does the same for the most part, but he likes admiring his home runs a bit too much. Fuck him.

I’m going to wrap this up with Fangraphs’ WAR evaluations. WAR = Wins Above Replacement, which basically tells you how valuable a player is over some regular scrub from AAA. Let’s just go straight to the numbers.

Over the past 5 seasons, these are the totals for the top six players/pitchers in baseball:

Pujols – 40.3
Utley – 37.9
A-Rod – 33.7
Roy Halladay – 30.2
C.C. Sabathia – 30.1
David Wright – 29.7

Yes, I made it six just so I could include Wright. What are you going to do about it? The WAR evaluation is obviously not an exact science — even Fangraphs acknowledges this — but it’s probably a good approximation.

Basically, Pujols and Utley own the rest of the league. Yet Utley has never finished higher than 7th in MVP voting during the same stretch in which two of his undeserving teammates have each won one. (For the record, Howard is at 20.4 WAR and Rollins is at 22.9.) Fuck sportswriters. If Utley continues on a regular career path, he’s a Hall of Famer. Hopefully all the old dudes who can’t get past batting average and RBIs are dead by the time he is eligible.

P.S. I still can’t believe Fangraphs did this article 10 days ago. FUCK.