Rivera is the greatest closer of all time. So what?

Brad, Mason, Rob and I have been having an argument by text about Mariano Rivera. Brad, a Yankee fan, has been talking up Rivera's greatness, and his critical importance to the Yankees success over the past decade and a half.

I disagree.

I'll make 4 points.

First point: Rivera is probably the best closer of all time.

I have great respect for Mariano Rivera. He has been the top player at this position (or close to it) for a very long time. He has been incredibly consistent, and reliable. He will get in the Hall of Fame. Since other closers of lesser quality have already gotten in, he should too. He also appears to be a good guy, modest, and respected by teammates and opponents alike. To me, only two other closers in can be discussed in the same breath as Rivera: Trevor Hoffman, and Dennis Eckersley. The latter is already in the Hall. Hoffman will likely follow (he retired in 2011 I believe).

So what follows is NOT an attack on Rivera, and how good a closer he is. I'm not even going to spend much time talking about his career stats here, because for the most part I don't think they're relevant for what I'm going to argue.

Second point: the save, like 'wins' for a pitcher, is pretty close to a meaningless statistic.

Why does Rivera have more saves than anyone else in the last two decades? Well, obviously one reason is that he's been better than other closers. Another is that he's stayed healthy and effective for a very long time. But another big reason is that he's played for teams that have won between 90 and 110 games virtually year. This means he's had more save opportunities. It also likely means that he has come into more games with 2 and 3 runs leads than many of his peers, making his saves easier. So: coming back at me with song and verse about Rivera's save numbers tells me nothing. Its a weak argument.

Third point: Closers are closers not because they are very good pitchers, but because they aren't.

Baseball pitchers don't go through Little League, Babe Ruth, college and lower minor league ball training as closers. Pitchers become closers, because they aren't good enough (lack the pitch variety or stamina) to be starters. Or because they get hurt, and can no longer do what a pitcher is supposed to do, so they try to 'save' their careers (and their arms). A starter, in theory, can get 27 outs while keeping the other team under 5 runs if they're average, under 4 if they're good. Or, to put it differently, if Rivera were good enough to pitch quality starts consistently, he'd be a starting pitcher. Why? Because a starting pitcher who gets quality starts is more valuable than a closer is. Or to put it differently, the vast majority of starting pitchers in baseball would be effective -- perhaps dominant -- closers. So why aren't they closers? Because they're more valuable as starters, that's why.   A closer plays no role in helping his team to a lead, or in keeping that lead when it is most vulnerable.  In the first 8 innings, he gets no hits, fields no batted balls, records no outs.

For this reason, I would submit to you that in most years of Rivera's career, he was perhaps the 3rd or 4th MOST VALUABLE PITCHER on the Yankees (behind Mussina, Cone, Wells, Clemens, etc). When even a middle quality starter for the Yanks pitched 200 innings, he got 600 outs.  A closer like Rivera pitches in less than 1/3 of his teams games, and in only 1/9 of that 1/3.  It stands to reason that he is thus less valuable to his team than someone who pitches 3 times as many innings, and does so when the outcome of the game is still most in doubt. 

4th point: closing baseball games is easy.

Closing baseball games is easy, particularly in the 9th inning closer era. Starting pitchers have to go through the lineup at least twice, sometimes more. This means they must adjust as hitters adjust to them; they must vary their pitches; they have to pitch from the stretch sometimes. As they tire, they must find ways to get hitters out. Closers don't have to deal with any of this, usually. They come in with the bases empty. Hitters only see them once, so technically speaking, they really don't have to 'pitch' at all -- they can get by with just 2 or 3 pitches (1, in Rivera's case). Late innings in close games, their managers have generally put in stronger defensive players behind them, making their job easier.

The notion that getting the last 3 outs somehow requires some kind of extra inner-fire or intestinal fortitude, and that this characteristic is rarely found, is palpable nonsense. Rivera doesn't get guys out with mental toughness. He gets guys out with pitches, and the defense behind him. For the reasons I've stated above, a starter requires far more mental toughness (and mental work) to do his job, than a closer requires to do his.

The overwhelming majority of pitchers who have pitched in the 9th inning with a lead have left the game winning. Let's look at numbers. Statistical studies of MLB history indicate that teams that have gone into the 9th inning ahead have won 95% of the time -- over all of baseball history. Teams winning after the 6th inning win over 80% of the time. Teams winning after 1 inning win 70% of the time.
 
These numbers have varied little over time, and HAVE NOT GONE UP in the era of the 9th inning closer. The 1978 Mariners won the lowest percentage of games they led after 8 innings in history -- and they still won 80% of them.  This tells us that any individual closer is unlikely to have a significant impact on the number of games a team wins in a given year, beyond what any average pitcher has done over nearly a century of baseball.

This tells us that while the emotions might heighten in the 9th, when the game is coming to an end, your chances of success are higher (and the challenge is thus lower) if you pitch only the 9th inning than if you were to pitch in any other single inning prior to it.

Let's say 3 guys are trying to cut down a tree. The first guy ('starter') takes 18 whacks at the tree. The second guy ('middle reliever') takes 6 whacks at the tree. The third guy ('closer') takes 3 whacks at the tree. The tree falls. Rank these 3 guys, in order of greatest importance.

Point 5:  individual closers make very little difference to a team.
 
Look at the Red Sox this year. They've used Koji Uehara as their ninth-inning guy in recent months, after Andrew Bailey and Joel Hanrahan broke down earlier this season. All of a sudden, Uehara looks like the best reliever in the league since the All-Star break, with a 27-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio and five hits allowed in 21 innings. That's Koji Uehara, a 38-year-old right-handed journeyman with a fastball that barely breaks 90 mph, and who had 14 career saves in four years prior to 2013. We might also note that the 2012 Yankees lost Rivera in May, and promptly replaced him with another guy (Soriano) who got 42 saves. In other words, the 'job' of closer isn't a difficult one. The hard and important work has already been done.

95% of all pitchers, in all of baseball history, who have pitched in the 9th inning with a lead, have walked off with their team winning.  Now, you can argue that that 5% really matters -- over a 162 game season, that's approximately 8 games a year, that teams lose when they go into the 9th with a lead. Since even middle-quality closers generally succeed in 70-80% of their opportunities, that means that you could put Joe Closer in and potentially hold 5 to 6 of those 8 leads. Since Rivera has been very effective, let's say he holds 7 of them...but we should of course note that he has played for consistently very good (and often great) teams, and thus has come into many games with 2 and 3 run leads.

A very popular measure that sabremetricians use to figure out how valuable players are to their teams is Wins Above Replacement (WAR): the number of wins that a player added to a team, above what an average player at that position would have added. They can calculate WAR for a player in a single season, or over a career. According to Baseball Reference, Rivera is ranked 209th -- right next to Tim Hudson, and below such sure fire Hall of Famers as Chase Utley and Andruw Jones. And of course, his WAR is somewhat inflated by two things: his longevity, and the fact that his replacement value is measured by the win differential if he were replaced by another closer. WAR counts saves. As I noted above, the save is a deeply problematic statistic. As a consequence, WAR actually overrates the value of closers. WAR tells us that even the greatest closers are only worth about two more wins per season than their eighth-inning counterparts.

Does that make Rivera a great baseball player, a great pitcher?  No.  The closer (particularly the 9th inning closer, which Rivera typified) is vastly overrated by fans and pundits alike. Arguments that Rivera belongs on a list of the greatest Yankees of this era (let alone all-time) are foolish. Obviously if we include intangible things -- consistency, character, face of the franchise, public persona etc -- then Yankee fans are entirely within their rights to consider him a great Yankee. But an all-time great player? No. We overrate the closer, because that's the person on the mound during that dramatic moment when the game is about to end. But the closer is arguably one of the least important players on the winning team that night, particularly if he comes in with the bases empty (as Rivera virtually ALWAYS does).

I'll go further. Arguably, no closers should be in the Hall of Fame. Why not middle relievers in the Hall of Fame too? Show me how a top-notch middle reliever, often pitching the 7th-8th innings (more, if the starter doesn't pitch well), is less valuable than a closer. An out in the 9th inning is the same as an out in 7th inning. Why not put 3rd down situational backs in the football Hall of Fame? We're talking about 'positions' that have only existed for a very small percentage of the history of the sport -- positions that in fact DON'T EXIST, in terms of the rules of baseball. Many people have argued that the creation of these 'positions' has been bad for the game, and that a franchise could make better use of its talent and resources by getting rid of one or both.

Closers are the placekickers of baseball. They spend almost no time on the field, and thus have no impact whatsoever on the vast majority of plays/innings. 95% of games are won by the team that goes into the 9th with a lead, regardless of who pitches that 9th inning. Closers are statistically interchangeable, easily replaceable, and in most ways unnecessary. But closers are different from kickers in one important sense: they are less valuable to their teams than placekickers are. A team cannot do without a kicker, and expect to win games consistently. A baseball team can (and, for most of the 20th century, did) win without ANYONE serving as the closer.

Now, since there are closers in the Hall of Fame already, we cannot justifiably keep out great closers now or in the future. So on that basis, Rivera will and should get into the HOF. But since most of those 70s/80s era closers tended to go 2 or even 3 innings, most of the best ones were arguably more valuable to their teams than Rivera has been to his. Rivera's longevity and consistency would temper this judgment. So, since there is a precedent, he should be in the Hall of Fame. But if we were taking the Hall seriously, and only putting in great pitchers, no closer would get in. None.

This is a hard argument to make, and I don't particularly want to make it.  Rivera's greatness is sort of like what they say about beauty -- you know it when you see it.  And there is something truly amazing about a guy being able to get outs and dominate with just one pitch, for almost two decades.  I grant all of that.  But the argument I'm making above isn't really about Rivera.  Its about all closers.  I could make it about Gossage, Eckersley, Hoffmann, etc etc.  While its slightly less true about Rivera because he's the greatest of the lot, it is nonetheless still true.

The needle and the damage done? PEDs and the baseball Hall of Fame

This year, for the first time, the Tainted Five of baseball's Steroid Era are eligible for the Hall of Fame:  Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, and Rafael Palmeiro.

And Royce Clayton is on there too.  This article is not about Royce Clayton.

The arguments below were handcrafted late one night in Providence's venerable Ivy Tavern, with cloudy headed input from Brad and Mason, and intellectual performance enhancements provided by the always lovely Rob Duncanson.  By the end of the evening, I had somewhat surprised myself by arriving at the following conclusion:

Clemens, McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro and Bonds should all get in the HOF. 

Clemens and Bonds should be first ballot and unanimous Hall of Famers.

Here's the argument.

1.  Perhaps this is obvious, but let's start here:  Clemens, McGwire, Palmeiro, Sosa, Bonds, and perhaps Jeff Bagwell would all be slam dunks for the HOF if performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) were not an issue.  Clemens and Bonds would be first ballot -- even unanimous -- HOFers.  Sosa, McGwire and Palmeiro would all get in in their 2nd or 3rd years, easy.  For Bagwell, it would depend upon who was up against him (he's not getting in over Greg Maddux or Frank Thomas, for example).  In the case of Bonds and Clemens, I would argue that you have the two greatest baseball players of the post-Ruth era.  Brad argued last night that if Bonds and Clemens had both quit at precisely the time when most people believe they started using PEDs (1998-199), they would have been 1st ballot HOFers even then.  I agree. 

2.  Again, obvious, but let's just say it:  all of the above players are now eligible for the HOF, and have been connected, either directly (through testing or confession) or indirectly (rumor, second-hand testimony, sharp and immediate changes in on-field production, the leaked Mitchell Report), to the use of PEDs at some point in their careers.  Palmeiro is the only one who tested positive (in 2005) since drug testing was included in the MLB collective bargaining agreement, with clear penalties attached.  There is no concrete evidence that Palmeiro used for any period before that particular test.  And he served his suspension.  MLB policy then and now doesn't ban a player from baseball for violating the policy.  It carries a series of specific punishments.  You serve the punishment, you can come back and play.

3.  The first testing for steroids took place in secret in 2003.  The names (though not the aggregate data) were supposed to remain secret, as part of the collective bargaining agreement.  MLB officials, in a dishonest power move that both violated labor law and the confidentiality rights of individual players, chose to leak some of that information -- but not enough of it to either provide concrete evidence of guilt, or allow the players to defend their innocence.  For that reason, I don't consider the leaked names on that report to be valid evidence.  I also hasten to point out that drug tests and samples aren't 100% reliable.

4.  While baseball implicitly banned the use of steroids in 1971, and explicitly did so in 1991 (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1151761/1/index.htm), it did not put any machinery in place to enforce that ban until 2003, and didn't ban HGH until 2005.  Because of this, we have no way of knowing who used pre-2003 and who didn't, when, and how much. 

5.  We also don't know, by the way, what effect steroid use has -- on players at different positions, on players with varied skill sets, etc.  Were the career numbers of these players 'enhanced' by the use of PEDs?  Perhaps.  But since they played in an era when hundreds of others were also using (hitters against Clemens, pitchers against Bonds and rest), in an era of franchise expansion (diluting the opposing player talent pool), smaller stadiums, a lively ball, and vast improvements in nutrition, sports medicine, and off-season training, there simply is no objective and fair way to sort any of this out.  Many players have testified that they used steroids or HGH to help them stay on the field and fight through injuries.  What if that actually turns out to be the most reliable benefit of PED use?  Is that actually cheating?

6.  Should these guys be banned from Cooperstown because they 'broke the rules'?  Did they break the rules?  I'm not so sure.  Do recreational users of marijuana break the law when they smoke a joint?  Technically, yes (though thankfully the laws themselves appear to be changing).  But outside of African-American ghettos, marijuana use is fully tolerated by our entire law enforcement apparatus, and the larger culture.  As I noted above, MLB banned the use of steroids in a 1991 memo.  All players, agents, and the union received the memo.  Presumably team owners and general managers did too.  The official message was:  you are not allowed to use PEDs.  The unofficial message, however -- the one that was in actual operational practice in clubhouses and weight rooms across the league -- was that PED use was just fine.  MLB could have enforced its official ban.  It chose not to do so (in part because they profited financially from this oversight).  There is, therefore, a sense in which trying to hold these guys accountable now constitutes an unfair moving of the goalposts, of holding them accountable after the fact for things that were tolerated by all relevant authorities at the time the events took place.

7.  The Hall of Fame is not a rule or law enforcement body.  MLB has its own procedures for that.  if MLB hasn't banned a player for life, its rules should work like laws do more generally -- you break a law, you serve your time, you're done.  No double jeopardy.  Just because our bigoted mass incarceration system locks young men of color into a lifelong 2nd class status despite having already served their time, doesn't mean baseball has to do the same thing. 

8.  PED use was seen as 'just fine' by MLB because the culture of using any edge to get ahead pre-dated the period we're discussing.  Players long before the so-called Steroid Era used PEDs of various sorts.  Amphetamines were widely used for over a half-century, by players who are already in the HOF.  Steroid use began in the 1970s, when their use wasn't even illegal, let alone banned by baseball.  Pitchers cheated by scuffing balls, using spit and vaseline; teams stole signals (most famously the 1951 NY Giants); batters put cork and rubber balls in bats. 

And don't even get me started on the fact that MLB enforced a white monopoly until 1947, which really should justify giving the individual statistics of ALL PRE-JACKIE ROBINSON PLAYERS a big fucking asterisk.  White supremacy as a PED -- how is that for an argument?  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Ty Cobb.

9.  Bonds and Clemens are, according to most people, assholes.  That doesn't disqualify them from the Hall of Fame.

A-Rod, Raffy, and PEDs in the post-Steroid Era
My argument to this point has been aimed primarily at trying to sort out the HOF credentials of players in the Steroid Era, when PED use wasn't tested or punished, and therefore was effectively legal. 

But what about players in the post-2003 era (random testing, with punishments, started in 2004 -- there were no punishments for flunking the 2003 test), on whom we have concrete evidence of use, because they flunked a test, or because they admitted use?

If you are a Hall of Fame voter, how do you evaluate these guys?  I think you have to take them on a case by case basis.  Look at the total arc of the career, the evidence you have of use at a specific time, and then assess. 

Presumably evidence of PED use during the prime productive years of a borderline HOF player might keep him out, all things considered, but that would depend upon the player.  With Alex Rodriguez, as you'll see below, you could remove his 3 best years, and he would still be a slam dunk first ballot Hall of Famer. 

I do not think it is justified to simply refuse to consider a player for the Hall of Fame, if he has once flunked a test.  Flunking the test comes with a 50 game suspension.  Once served, he has been punished.  He has not been banned from baseball.

So we assess their entire career, keeping in mind that it is essentially impossible to tell with any degree of accuracy what impact the PED use actually had on their performance.

I'm thinking here of A-Rod and Palmeiro, but perhaps also of Manny Ramirez (and some day, Ryan Braun).  Keep in mind I am disregarding, as I have noted above, the supposedly confidential 2003 test.  Manny and Palmeiro have tested positive in the mandatory testing era.  So has Ryan Braun. 

Let's pretend I'm a HOF voter, A-Rod retires tomorrow, and its 2017 -- his first year of eligibility.

A-Rod's name was on the 2003 test I'm disregarding, but he has since admitted use over a 3 year period (2001-2003) while with the Rangers -- a 3 year period that was of course prior to when players were tested and punished.  In other words, it fell during the period when MLB consciously and actively tolerated widespread PED use, when it could have chosen not to do so.  Based on my argument so far, we should just include his 2001-2003 seasons, and move on, putting him in the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

But A-Rod actually admitted use, and gave us a specific time period.  So let's be more strict than my argument would allow.

I still don't see any way that one could argue to keep A-Rod out of the HOF, when his time comes. 

A-Rod was an astonishing, awesome baseball player while in Seattle, and during his first few years in NY, and there is no evidence whatsoever linking him to PED use while he was in either place; but as I argued above, since PED was effectively legal in MLB during his Seattle years anyway, evidence wouldn't be relevant if it did exist.  He put up ridiculous numbers in 2001-2003, when he has admitted using.  But he put up the same numbers in 2005 and 2007, during the random testing era.  And from 1996-2000, when we have no reason to think he used (and again, as I've argued, we really can't argue that it would matter if he did).

A-Rod said he used while in Texas to stay healthy and on the field, to justify that huge contract.  Perhaps, perhaps not.  The reasons aren't relevant.  How should the discerning HOF voter assess this?

Let's take a harsh look at it, and eliminate all 3 years (2001, 2002, 2003).  Pretend he didn't even play.  That is almost certainly not fair to A-Rod, since his career arc before and after indicates that he would have put up terrific numbers anyway.  And again, he used during a period when PEDs were ubiquitous, and unpunished.

His career numbers WITH those 3 years:
In 19 seasons:  2900 hits.  Almost 1900 runs.  647 HRs, and 1950 RBIs.  a .300 batting average.  and just over 300 steals.  A batting title.  5 HR crowns.  2 RBI titles.  MVP 3 times, and in top 3 three other times.

His average over 162 games:  42 HRs, 125 RBIs, 122 runs, 20 stolen bases.  Over 19 years.  CRAZY.  And did the best of it while playing short, where no one else has ever put up numbers even close to this.

His career numbers WITHOUT those 3 seasons:

His career numbers:  458 HRs.  1545 RBIs.  1516 runs.  .300 BA.  Over 200 stolen bases.  2 MVP awards.

162 game average, in 16 seasons:  36 HRs.  123 RBIs.  120 runs.  22 stolen bases.

If a guy averages -- AVERAGES -- 36 homers, 123 RBIs, and 120 runs a year FOR SIXTEEN YEARS...sorry friends, he's going in the Hall of Fame, first ballot, not close.  To give you some perspective, the best year HOFer Mike Schmidt ever had was slightly inferior to what A-Rod averaged in the 16 years we're discussing...and we've excluded 3 of A-Rod's best seasons.

The Palmeiro/PED question is much easier to parse.  While A-Rod supposedly used right in the middle of his most productive years, Palmeiro flunked one test (after passing all previous ones) in 2005 -- his last year in baseball, and at least two years past any seasons you could call reasonably productive.  In all likelihood, he took a little something to help him stay on the field long enough to get his 3000th hit.

Palmeiro wasn't the player A-Rod has been (who is?), but he ended his career with over 500 HRs and 3000 hits.  His 162 game average was 33 HRs, 105 RBIs and a .288 BA.  He didn't just reach 500 homers -- he got to 569.  Palmeiro seems almost pedestrian when measured against peers like Griffey, Bonds and A-Rod.  But when measured against everyone else (and the vast majority of players in baseball history), he was exceptional.  He should be in.the Hall of Fame.



It is a fun parlor game to try to figure who used, and when.  Fans can speculate endlessly.  We enjoy it.  But when push comes to shove, I don't believe we have the evidence or the ethical grounding to keep Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, Palmeiro and McGwire out.

Fire away, boys.