So I’m in the middle of writing a post about Toronto’s three candidates for closer when I decide to take a gander at Twitter. I was greeted by the above tweet. If you’re the type of person who believes a team’s best reliever should be the team’s closer, then you might have to say that Cito is doing something right here. The explanation (or what I had written before I saw this tweet) follows:
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A few days ago I slapped together a post about why I don’t think it’s so bad if Kevin Gregg becomes Toronto’s closer. I wrote it in such a way that assumed all 4 of my readers can read my mind. A commenter (Cole!) called me out and I briefly tried to explain myself in the comments. In the process of calling me out, Cole did raise another good question that made me stop and think:
Are Scott Downs and Jason Frasor actually better pitchers than Gregg?
Seems like everyone (myself included) is just assuming that Gregg’s the pits. I don’t feel like assuming things right now, so let’s take a look at some stats.
Career numbers:
| ERA | IP | K/BB | WHIP | FIP | |
| Frasor | 3.78 | 355 | 2.13 | 1.28 | 3.8 |
| Downs | 3.92 | 509.1 | 2.05 | 1.4 | 4.23 |
| Gregg | 4.10 | 476.1 | 2.26 | 1.32 | 4.00 |
Over their careers, the three seem to be fairly even, although I’d put Frasor ahead slightly based on his WHIP and his FIP. But what a pitcher did years ago doesn’t really factor into how he’s pitching now, so let’s take a look at last year’s numbers.
2009:
| ERA | IP | K/BB | WHIP | FIP | |
| Frasor | 2.50 | 57.2 | 3.5 | 1.02 | 2.99 |
| Downs | 3.09 | 46.2 | 3.31 | 1.26 | 3.33 |
| Gregg | 4.72 | 68.2 | 2.37 | 1.31 | 4.93 |
Frasor’s clearly got the best numbers of the three and Gregg’s clearly got the worst. Add in the fact the Frasor and Downs pitched in the A.L. East and Gregg got eaten up in the N.L. Central and the difference in the numbers seems even worse.
Based on the above, I’d say Frasor’s definitely the best of the three. But since the fireman/closer debate figured so prominently in the debate, let’s take a look at how they fared in high leverage situations.
Before I get to this, let me say that I’m no sabermetrician, so if I’m making a mistake with the stats here or using them in an inappropriate way, don’t be surprised. Basically what I’ve done is look at each pitchers’ WPA and how high the leverage of the situation was when they entered games*. I chose game leverage because to me, a fireman/closer/whatever should be entering at high leverage situations. If he does his job properly, the leverage should go down after that (right?).
Anyway, I took those stats and then I did some division.
Career:
| WPA | gmLI | WPA/gmLI | |
| Frasor | 5.77 | 1.19 | 4.849 |
| Downs | 1.28 | 1.27 | 1.009 |
| Gregg | 0 | .09 | 0 |
Last year:
| WPA | gmLI | WPA/gmLI | |
| Frasor | 2.62 | 1.43 | 1.832 |
| Downs | -0.31 | 1.55 | -0.2 |
| Gregg | -1.07 | 1.45 | -0.3 |
And there you have it. Assuming I’ve handled the numbers correctly, Frasor is by far the best pitcher of the three when thrust into high leverage situations.
I don’t necessarily think that should make him the closer, but that’s just my take on Richmond’s Dilemma. Which I’ll explain later, if you haven’t read the comments on the previous post already.
*I based this on gmLI, which is, according to Tom Tango, “the Leverage Index when the reliever enters the game. Its use is mostly to show a manager perspective, as it indicates the level of fire that the manager wanted his reliever to face.”
