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.

Yet soon after midnight, OFFICIAL tweets — if such things exist — confirmed that Lee had indeed signed a 5-year, $115 million deal with the Phillies, with an easy vesting option for a 6th year. The Yankees had offered a bigger 6-year deal. The Rangers had offered an even bigger 6-year deal with an option for a 7th year. Yet Cliff Lee picked the Phillies. Why in God’s name would you choose to play in front of the animals in Philadelphia? When he starts losing it by his 4th or 5th year of the contract, they’re going to be booing his ass off the mound.

Apparently, that contract has a higher AAV than the Yankee offer. Maybe that’s it. Maybe he wants to beat the Yankees and he sees the Phillies as his best shot. Maybe he really likes Roy Halladay. The obvious parallel is LeBron James signing with the Miami Heat, considering the contract totals less than two other offers, but it’s not at all the same. There wasn’t an entire city with an attachment to Lee, considering he’s been on four teams in the past two seasons, and Halladay is the better pitcher. But this deal does create a seemingly unstoppable team, and I don’t see them struggling out of the gate like the Heat.

A rotation of four aces doesn’t have to share the ball like two and a half basketball stars. Halladay, Lee, Hamels, and Oswalt will take the balls on their respective days and dominate the NL to the tune of a combined 3.25 ERA. The NL East is wrapped up for the next two years, possibly three. Sandy Alderson needs to work his magic to set up the Mets to win in three years, not now. Sigh. This is awful.

But it’s almost worth it when I listen to Yankees fans on WFAN who want them to buy every single  free agent on the market crying. Maybe they shouldn’t have spit on Lee’s wife.

Ruben Amaro, Jr.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V31POD2otRk

The real reason Steve Jobs hates Flash – I don’t know if I buy the argument, but it’s a pretty interesting one nonetheless. Personally, I think the move towards “cloud computing” is slowed every time Gmail is down.

The Definitive Guide to Telling Vermont and New Hampshire Apart – Summary: New Hampshire = libertarians; Vermont = dirty hippies.

MLB.tv and the PS3 – “Last week, though, I discovered MLB.tv in a way that is no longer just good enough. It is amazingly awesome, and it’s MLB.tv through a PlayStation3.” Goddamn it.

Yankees Fans Are From Mars… – A comparison Yankees and Mets fans in New York City. It even has a handy quiz that tries to guess which one you are (it worked for me).

The 15 Most Exciting Summer Movies – I only link this list because it has the right movie at #1. I haven’t even heard of a few of the movies on the list. God, this summer sucks.

Hue Shift on Kongregrate – I think I’m the only person I’ve showed this Flash game to that loved it, but I’m posted it anyway. The problem isn’t with me, it’s all YOU people. Rock, Paper, Shotgun liked the game and they know their PC gaming shit, ok??

This post brought to you by Jon Heyman’s Hall of Fame Ballot, provided by Twitter.

just mailed Hall of Fame ballot, beating deadline yet again. voted for alomar, dawson, larkin, parker, morris & mattingly

The first half of those are respectable, even if I would possibly only vote for one. But then it just gets worse as it goes along. Actually no, that’s unfair to Mattingly, as his peak was legitimately great. Jack Morris? His case boils down to, “Did you see Game 7 of the 1991 World Series?!?!”

But Joe Posnanski has been going on, and on, and on, about Bert Blyleven > Morris, so I figured I’d go with a New York flavored debate. Even if there technically isn’t any debate, considering Keith Hernandez isn’t on the ballot anymore. He almost didn’t make it past the first ballot! He only received 5.1% of the votes first time around — that’s 0.2% away from being totally snubbed.

I’m not even sure if I’m arguing here if Hernandez should be in the Hall of Fame or not. I’d probably put him in, but I think you can make the case for keeping him out. What I can’t see making a case for is Mattingly over Hernandez. Mattingly is all peak, and his peak isn’t even THAT amazing. It’s not like he was Albert Pujols for the 4 years he was truly great. Hernandez has a more steady and unconventional career, one with a barely discernible peak. In the end, Hernandez accumulated more total hitting value and is actually the better career hitter. But as a first baseman, I’m sure hitting a dozen home runs a year doesn’t exactly impress Hall of Fame voters.

If you want to go by OPS+, Hernandez has Mattingly beat 128 to 127. Mattingly’s top 3 seasons do beat Hernandez’s: 161, 156, 156 to 151, 147, 143. But OPS undervalues OBP. Let’s use wRC+, the new-fangled stat on Fangraphs that utilizes wOBA and park and league adjusts it. It’s superior to OPS+ for sure. Hernandez gets a boost here. Career 131 to 128, and his best seasons stack up better, too. But hey, this is all just stats! Hall of Fame voters won’t listen to that. When they look at Mattingly they see more home runs and a career average beginning with a 3. Game over.

What about fielding? I think anyone who saw them both play would say that Hernandez was the better fielder, but I guess I’ll have to pull out more stats here. Total Zone (there’s no UZR data that far back) has Hernandez blowing Mattingly out of the water. Hernandez contributes a win a year with a glove, while Mattingly is just above average. But you don’t need to look at the stats, everyone thought Hernandez was phenomenal — he has the most Gold Gloves of any 1st basemen (11). Admittedly, Mattingly is second with 9.

So we’ve established Hernandez was more valuable over his career both at the plate and in the field. The extent of the latter could be left for debate, I guess? It was never a debate for my dad, but he’s a Mets fan.

But let me do some typical sportswriter bullshit now. I already started it by talking about Gold Gloves, so I’m going to continue. Mattingly has more All-Star game appearances (6-5) and more Silver Sluggers (3-2). He also had 145 RBIs one season! Hernandez only broke the 100 RBI barrier once. But Hernandez was on not one, but TWO World Series Champions! Mattingly managed to play for the NEW YORK YANKEES for 14 seasons and he only reached the playoffs once. And once he retired and was replaced with a player with a functioning back, they won the World Series! If that’s not a loser, I don’t know who is. But apparently, a loser can still be a TRUE YANKEE.

In other bullshit arguments, Mattingly and Hernandez both have 1 MVP award, they both were in the top-5 in voting 3 times, in the top-10 4 times, and in the top-20 7 times. I think that qualifies as a wash.

I really think any sort of debate comes down to Mattingly’s peak versus Hernandez’s fielding. Mattingly’s peak just isn’t impressive enough or long enough to outweigh Hernandez’s ridiculous fielding. Total Zone gives Hernandez about 10 wins or 100 runs over Mattingly. Even if you want to cut that in half, that’s still 50 additional runs saved by Hernandez’s fielding. You could take those runs and spread them over his five 90-something-RBI seasons and he’d have six 100 RBI seasons instead. Perhaps that would impress the BBWAA more.

Notice how I haven’t mentioned WAR this entire post? Well, here we go. Straight from BaseballProjection.com.

Hernandez 61.0 WAR
Mattingly 39.8 WAR

And now here’s a handy graph. Really, I would have rather not done this (I’m lying), but I feel like people like pretty graphs!

Hernandez is so awesome, Seinfeld needed a two-part episode to contain him. I rest my case.

Oh, and vote Bert Blyleven and Tim Raines in, you fucking dolts.

The half-billion dollar shopping spree paid off. The Yankees have opened their new monstrous stadium with a World Series Championship. I still can’t believe SI picked the Mets instead. How could have anyone picked a team other than one with All-Star caliber players at almost every single position, a decent pitching staff, and the best closer anyone will ever see? Oh well, hindsight is 20/20 and all that bullshit.

If Game 6 wasn’t over when Hideki Matsui hit the double that made it 7-1 in the 5th, the Phillies were buried when Chase Utley struck out with two on to end the 7th. So Utley has to share the World Series HR record with Reggie Jackson, unfortunately. Ryan Howard did manage to put himself on top of the World Series record book, though, with his 13th strikeout of the series. Without him, the Phillies had almost no chance to pull out the series; only Utley going apeshit kept the Phillies going this long. I told you Utley was awesome.

I was hoping for a Game 7, but five days’ rest wasn’t enough for Pedro, apparently. Meanwhile, Andy Pettitte gave the Yankees all they could have hoped for on three days’ rest. Mike Francesa proven wrong. And a 41-pitch non-save for Mariano Rivera? No problem.

I wonder what Mike Mussina is doing right now.

How did I ever decide to root for the Phillies?

Actually, in practice I’ve been seemingly going back and forth by player this entire World Series.

Cliff Lee? Wow, he’s a pimp, I want him to throw a shutout.

Jimmy Rollins? Shut the fuck up and strike out, please.

A-Rod? You fucking suck. Six Ks? Is Kate Hudson on the rag?

Chase Utley? Oh my God, you truly are my forbidden crush.

Mariano Rivera? No way I want to see the Phillies beat you.

Shane Victorino? Die in a Hawaiian volcanic eruption.

Perhaps I need to take this advice, and just look at the bright side of each possible outcome. If the Yankees lose, A-Rod still doesn’t have a ring, Yankee fans turn on every possible player, and the Yankees lose any possible claim at team of the decade. If the Phillies lose, they won’t be the first NL team to repeat in over 30 years, Philly doesn’t become the new Boston, and Jimmy Rollins shuts up.

As for comments on the actual game tonight, it was another pitchers’ duel that this time fell on the Yankees’ side. Pedro’s line was dangerously close to my prediction (three runs instead of four), and A.J. Burnett pitched a great, if not brilliant, game. And then of course Mariano Rivera threw 39 pitches in another ho-hum two-inning postseason save. That was the 14th two-inning save of his postseason career, and the 33rd time he pitched at least 2 innings in any situation. Piece of cake.

Succeeding Rivera as Yankee closer will be the worst job in the world.

Cliff Lee looked like didn’t even break a sweat tonight. He made a behind-the-back play later in the game, and also nonchalantly tagged Posada on the ass on another play. He struck out 10 while walking none (the first man to do that since 1903), and only lost his shutout due to a Jimmy Rollins throwing error. I do question the wisdom of keeping him out there for 122 pitches when he has to come back on three days’ rest (possibly twice), but that’s what Charlie Manuel does. This is the manager who left Pedro Martinez in a game for 130 pitches in a regular-season game.

The only man who had Lee figured out was Derek Jeter, of course. A-Rod didn’t fair quite as well, striking out three times and laying the foundation for imminent bashing in the New York Post. The rest of the team didn’t do much better, with the lineup behind Jeter only accounting for three hits. Lee was simply dominant throughout, and the Yankees crowd was consequently subdued almost the entire night.

The supporting star behind Lee was Chase Utley, who supplied enough offense to beat the Yankees by himself. Two solo home runs — I told you he was awesome. If he wins the World Series MVP, I hope it’s sponsored by this:

The man would have fit nicely on the Yankee teams of the 1930s, I’m sure.

So now the story turns to Pedro Martinez pitching tomorrow, and my prediction is for a six-inning, four-run performance. You’re not in the NL anymore, old man! The big question is which A.J. Burnett will show up, especially since having to start Jose Molina isn’t exactly going to help the Yankees’ lineup top tonight’s pathetic performance. I hate to say must-win, but I’m going to say it. If the Yankees lose to Pedro tomorrow, they are in the proverbial shit.

(Thanks to Hootie on GAF for the GIF.)

When the inevitability of this matchup became clear, I had no doubt in my mind that I’d be rooting against the Phillies. My allegiance would be with New York City in the battle against the shithole that is Philadelphia. Philly might have Rocky and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but fuck them, I thought. Their fanbase is probably the worst group of human beings collected this side of an African dictatorship. And they’re not too bright, either.

This is not to mention the team itself. I’ll just quote myself here:

Shane Victorino is a little piece of shit Hawaiian who plays dirty; Jimmy Rollins runs his mouth and wins MVPs due to it, even when he doesn’t deserve it; Ryan Howard is an overrated slugger who strikes out on a lefty slider seemingly every time I see him at the plate; and Brett Myers beats his wife and puts his kid in a Confederate flag shirt.

The Phillies advancing through the postseason on the back of Ryan Howard — while Chase Utley throws away double play balls — is a personal nightmare for me. Utley is a better baseball player than Howard, yet he will probably never win an MVP award, and everyone is on Howard’s jock due to his performance in nine games. Cole Hamels received the same treatment last year and he turned in a down year in 2009 and has now been supplanted by a 38-year-old in the rotation. Pedro Martinez may be no ordinary 38-year-old, but it’s still quite a shift in one season. The small sample size of the postseason means jack shit.

This brings us to the Yankees, and Alex Rodriguez’s tale of redemption. This is where I start thinking it’d be fantastic if the Yankees lost. Who wouldn’t want to see A-Rod fail miserably in the World Series and watch the entire Yankees Universeâ„¢ turn on him once again? I get chills imagining the boos that would cascade down if he grounded into a double play to end Game 7. Isn’t it beautiful to envision the typical Yankee fan turning on a player just as quickly as he was deified? Two series may have seemingly wiped out any bitterness of postseasons past, but a 2-20 performance by A-Rod culminating in a World Series loss would only bring back the cries for A-Rod’s head. He would have proved himself yet again to not be a True Yankeeâ„¢.

Is hope for this outcome enough for me to root for the Phillies? It just might be. You may be asking why I hate A-Rod so much, and it’s a reasonable question. It’s not the money, because every baseball player makes too much money. It’s not his sexual history, because anyone who has sex with Madonna has to be scarred for life. It’s that everything, EVERYTHING he does looks rehearsed and devoid of true joy. Maybe it’s just his face — and my urge to punch it — that clouds my judgment, but I see him as some soulless entity who was created solely to be very, very good at baseball.

An addition consideration is that perhaps I still hate the Braves more than the Phillies. Sure, the Phillies embarrassed the Mets in 2007 and 2008, but that was just as much (if not more) a product of the Mets collapsing than it was of the Phillies rallying. Should I hate the Phillies for the Mets’ bullpen being worthless last year? Or for Jose Reyes forgetting how to hit in September of 2007? Maybe I truly appreciate the team the Phillies have put together, even if I hate them. The organization didn’t sit on its hands after a World Series championship — they went out and got Raul Ibanez (which I thought was a bad move, admittedly), and then during the season picked up Cliff Lee and Pedro Martinez for peanuts. They built a championship team without shelling out almost half a billion dollars for three players.

I didn’t know where I’d end up at the end of this post, but it looks like I’m falling on the side of the Phillies. I don’t even know myself anymore.

C.C.’s final line for the night: 8 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 5 K, 101 pitches

That’s pretty economical — I’m sure C.C. wasn’t even tired by the end of his outing, only hungry. I should probably add those 5 postgame BLTs to his final line. You know it’s a good C.C. game when he has a 1:1 hit-to-BLT ratio.

So it’s looking like a Yankees-Phillies World Series, as LA is on the precipice of annihilation, much to the chagrin of Pat Sajak and this little girl:

The ALCS is supposed to start tomorrow, but somehow I can’t see it getting kicked off, considering it’s been raining all day and the precipitation looks to continue for the next couple of days. So not only will my tennis lesson on Saturday be canceled — shut up — I might not have a game to watch that day, either. Not to mention it’s chilly as fuck for mid-October in New York. What the hell is up with that?

[Insert obligatory anecdotal GLOBAL WARMING IS BULLSHIT comment.]

My other baseball annoyance of the day was arguing with a Phillies fan about the MVP of their team. It hasn’t been anyone but Chase Utley for four years. Sure, Ryan Howard loves his HR and RBIs, but Utley does EVERYTHING — especially getting on base in front of Howard. I need to find out a way to look up how many times Howard hit Utley in. Baseball-Reference, don’t fail me now.