The Awards
The regular season is over and for fans of more than 73% of the teams in baseball it means time to focus on what happened to their team, how it can be improved, those bastards that actually made the playoffs and obviously most importantly...Award Season!
Yes award season is just around the corner and I'm not referring to the awards that the baseball writers never seem to get right, I'm talking about the following, most respected awards in pro sports today, that are voted on by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA):
- Connie Mack Award (top manager): announced October 10
- Willie Mays Award (top rookie): announce October 13
- Goose Gossage Award (top reliever): announced October 17
- Walter Johnson Award (top pitcher): announced October 20
- Stan Musial Award (top player): announced October 24
The Toronto chapter of the BBA is allotted two votes per award, as I assume every other city with one major league team is allotted, although I probably should check in to it to make sure that Boston isn't stacking the votes. Votes for these awards are submitted by only the most respected bloggers within each city, with blogs supporting AL teams given a vote for the AL awards and vice versa, blogs supporting NL teams given a vote for the NL awards.
As a proud member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance I have been given the honour of voting for the Goose Gossage Award for top American League reliever, which I get into greater detail today, and the Stan Musial Award for the top American League player.
As a Side...
Before getting into the candidates for this award I feel I need to preface something. I was not looking forward to voting on this award and I will tell you why, there is such a split in the baseball world as to who should be the obvious winner of this award. For most people it's a hands down no brainer that Jose Valverde should win the award, as they believe he has had one of the top 5 best seasons for a reliever of all time! Jose Valverde was a perfect 49 for 49 in save opportunities and only one other closer in major league history has had a "perfect season" and that was Eric Gagne who was not only the best closer for that season, but also won the Cy Young award for his perfection.
On the other side of the coin new statistical metrics suggest that Valverde just isn't that good. In fact, his Wins above replacement according to Fangraphs was 1.0, good enough to finish 19th among AL relievers, and his xFIP of 4.01 suggest he may even be a below average reliever. So how could any sane, rational person vote for this loser???
The Numbers...
Whenever going through potential candidates for an award the first thing I do is start to compile the numbers. Some of the numbers I feel are relevant to this award, in no particular order, include:
Save and Blown Saves
I know they are archaic statistics, however there is still some romance to getting a save and it is a statistic that is important to players and thus has created a mental pressure that some players just can't overcome. Let's call this the Matt Thornton disease. I believe that a closers job is harder than a set up mans' and therefore will give emphasis in voting consideration to closers and the number of saves vs. blown saves will provide a point of separation.
Shut Downs, Meltdowns and SD%
For those who aren't familiar with Shut Downs and Melt Downs, please take the time to go here and read up on the statistic.
I believe this is a much better statistic to evaluate a reliever’s performance than the traditional saves and blown saves statistics. It incorporates the real impact a reliever has on improving his teams chances of winning and likewise his teams chances of losing. Therefore, there are no cheap shut downs and/or meltdowns. Additionally, shut downs and melt downs can be applied to all relievers and are not just limited to closers.
Shut Down Percentage (SD%) is simply the total number of Shut Downs divided by Shut Downs and Melt Downs combined.
Wins Above Replacement (WAR)
WAR is all the rage these days, almost to the point where it is the only statistic that matters. While I do agree with this to a point, I believe that there are some kinks in the statistic, especially for when you are evaluating pitchers. The first kink is that there are two different versions of the WAR statistic out there, one that is used by Fangraphs.com and a different version, albeit with many of the same principles, that is used by Baseball-Reference.com. The main difference between the two statistics is that the Fangraph’s version uses a more projective formula that identifies what a players WAR should be without the luck factor.
The Traditional Numbers
I still believe in the traditional statistics when it comes to evaluating a players season, this means for a reliever I will consider the players ERA, WHIP and Strike Outs. While I recognize that luck plays a factor in ERA and WHIP, these are measurements of what actually happened, and actual performance should be the most important factor for recognizing a player with an award. Strike Outs are important because when compared with the number of innings pitched it identifies how dominant a pitcher was.
Oh and Wins and Losses offer very little in regards to evaluating starting pitchers and therefore offer almost nothing for relievers, these statistics were completely ignored for evaluation purposes.
The Candidates...
For my evaluation of the candidates I began with everyone who qualifies as an American League reliever and whittled down the candidates. The chart below identifies the top 20 AL relievers for the Baseball-Reference version of WAR. I've included this list along with all other important statistics because I feel it highlights well my final group of candidates for AL top reliever.
Chart 1 - Top 20 AL Relievers by Win Above Replacement (WAR)
Name | Team | G | IP | K | SV | BS | ERA | WHIP | FIP | xFIP | FG WAR | BR WAR | Shut Downs | Melt Downs | SD % |
David Robertson | Yankees | 70 | 66 | 99 | 1 | 3 | 1.08 | 1.13 | 1.84 | 2.46 | 2.8 | 3.9 | 37 | 8 | 82% |
Mariano Rivera | Yankees | 64 | 61 | 60 | 44 | 5 | 1.91 | 0.90 | 2.19 | 2.64 | 2.4 | 3.5 | 37 | 7 | 84% |
Jim Johnson | Orioles | 69 | 91 | 58 | 9 | 5 | 2.67 | 1.11 | 3.22 | 3.42 | 1.6 | 3.2 | 31 | 11 | 74% |
Alfredo Aceves | Red Sox | 51 | 93 | 67 | 2 | 3 | 2.03 | 1.11 | 3.96 | 4.42 | 0.7 | 2.9 | 18 | 6 | 75% |
Jose Valverde | Tigers | 75 | 72 | 69 | 49 | 0 | 2.24 | 1.19 | 3.55 | 4.01 | 1.0 | 2.7 | 38 | 5 | 88% |
Greg Holland | Royals | 46 | 60 | 74 | 4 | 2 | 1.80 | 0.93 | 2.21 | 2.67 | 2.0 | 2.6 | 24 | 1 | 96% |
Chris Sale | White Sox | 58 | 71 | 79 | 8 | 2 | 2.79 | 1.11 | 3.12 | 3.00 | 1.4 | 2.4 | 28 | 7 | 80% |
Jesse Crain | White Sox | 67 | 65 | 70 | 1 | 6 | 2.62 | 1.24 | 3.70 | 3.86 | 0.9 | 2.3 | 25 | 13 | 66% |
Vinnie Pestano | Indians | 68 | 62 | 84 | 2 | 4 | 2.32 | 1.05 | 2.67 | 2.80 | 1.5 | 2.2 | 29 | 8 | 78% |
Koji Uehara | - - - | 65 | 65 | 85 | 0 | 1 | 2.35 | 0.72 | 3.03 | 2.33 | 1.3 | 2.2 | 23 | 5 | 82% |
Scott Downs | Angels | 60 | 53 | 35 | 1 | 3 | 1.34 | 1.01 | 3.29 | 3.40 | 0.9 | 2.2 | 25 | 10 | 71% |
Grant Balfour | Athletics | 62 | 62 | 59 | 2 | 5 | 2.47 | 1.03 | 3.77 | 3.57 | 0.4 | 2.2 | 32 | 6 | 84% |
Joe Smith | Indians | 71 | 67 | 45 | 0 | 3 | 2.01 | 1.09 | 2.91 | 3.57 | 1.2 | 2.1 | 20 | 9 | 69% |
Aaron Crow | Royals | 57 | 62 | 65 | 0 | 7 | 2.76 | 1.39 | 4.11 | 3.34 | 0.3 | 2.1 | 19 | 15 | 56% |
Jonathan Papelbon | Red Sox | 63 | 64 | 87 | 31 | 3 | 2.94 | 0.93 | 1.53 | 2.16 | 3.0 | 2.0 | 32 | 4 | 89% |
Glen Perkins | Twins | 65 | 61 | 65 | 2 | 3 | 2.48 | 1.23 | 2.41 | 2.92 | 1.7 | 2.0 | 17 | 12 | 59% |
Kyle Farnsworth | Rays | 63 | 57 | 51 | 25 | 6 | 2.18 | 0.99 | 3.16 | 3.21 | 0.9 | 1.8 | 21 | 9 | 70% |
Daniel Bard | Red Sox | 70 | 73 | 74 | 1 | 5 | 3.33 | 0.96 | 2.96 | 3.05 | 1.8 | 1.7 | 35 | 11 | 76% |
Casey Janssen | Blue Jays | 55 | 55 | 53 | 2 | 2 | 2.26 | 1.10 | 2.45 | 3.04 | 1.3 | 1.7 | 18 | 4 | 82% |
Neftali Feliz | Rangers | 64 | 62 | 54 | 32 | 6 | 2.74 | 1.16 | 3.57 | 4.27 | 1.0 | 1.6 | 25 | 7 | 78% |
Near Misses...
This was a much tougher decision than I thought it would be and feel that I should recognize a few players who I gave careful consideration too and in the end they just fell short of making my top 3 finalist list. This includes Koji Uehara who absolutely dominated hitters at an obscene WHIP of 0.72, Greg Holland who had the highest shut down % of any reliever with 24 shut downs versus only 1 melt down, and finally David Robertson who was in and out of my top three finalists up until the very end. I could make a strong argument that David Robertson was in fact the best reliever in the American League in 2011, however, I just felt that by going in this direction I wasn't giving due recognition to 3 other candidates who I believe were slightly better.
The Vote - Goose Gossage Award...
Let me start by saying this, I believe awards should be given to players for their actual performance and while luck may have played a part in inflating someone’s statistics, they are a reflection of what actually happened and you can't change that. Therefore for these awards I placed less importance on projective statistics like xFIP and Fangraphs version of WAR as I'm less concerned about whether a player will be able to repeat his success and more concerned with what they actually did. So without further ado, here is my vote for the top three AL relievers in descending order:
3rd Place - Johnathon Papelbon
I'd hate to think that the final game of the season lost this award for Papelbon, but that just may be the case. His shutdown percentage was second only to Greg Holland, he struck out an amazing 12.2 batters per 9 innings, and put up a mind boggling FIP of 1.53. His traditional peripherals were dominant as well and it just might be possible that he was one strike away from getting my first place vote. That's how close I view my top 3 finalists.
2nd Place - Jose Valverde
In the end, I just couldn't give Jose Valverde my vote for best AL reliever, however going 49 for 49 in save appearances shouldn't be taken lightly, as I said this is a feat that has only been accomplished once before in the history of baseball. Also, he finished with a very good ERA (2.23), WHIP (1.19), finished 5th among AL relievers in WAR, and led the AL in Shut downs with 38. I just think someone else put up a better season and deserved my first place vote.
My 1st Place Vote for the Goose Gossage Award for Top American League Reliever Goes To....
Mariano Rivera
To tell you the truth, I did not see this one coming. It seems every year when I look at the end of season statistics I'm blown away by just how good Rivera was. In 2011, in the toughest division in baseball, Rivera bested both Papelbon and Valverde in ERA (1.91), WHIP (0.90) and WAR (3.5). He also finished with the 2nd most shut downs (37) and 13 more saves than Papelbon as Rivera tallied 44. In my opinion, Mariano Rivera was the top reliever in the American League for 2011.
