On Thursday, MLB announced that Kansas City Royals closer Greg Holland won the first Mariano Rivera award as the outstanding relief pitcher in the American League for 2014.
As great—and deserving—as Holland is for this season, did he really deserve the award over teammate Wade Davis, or Yankee set-up man Dellin Betances?
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Greg Holland had all the traditional measures on his side. Holland had a great 1.44 ERA with 46 saves in 48 chances. That gave Holland the best save conversion rate in the A.L. as well as a terrific K% rate of 37.5.
That’s dominant.
However, teammate Wade Davis might have been even better. Davis compiled a 1.00 ERA, the first player in 70 years to exceed 50 innings pitched with an ERA of 1.00 or less. Davis did not give up a home run all season and did not even give up an extra base hit until August.
Davis’ K% rate was an even more impressive 39.1. Davis also gave up fewer walks (BB% of 8.2% to Holland’s 8.3%) and allowed fewer base runners (a Walks, Hits per IP of .85 vs. .91 for Holland).
If we look at the modern catch-all statistic of Wins Above Replacement, Davis checks in with a bWAR of 3.7 compared to 2.5 for Greg Holland. Betances was arguably even more impressive than Davis, also with a 3.7 WAR value that ranks fractionally ahead of Davis’ mark but isn’t visible due to rounding.
The only thing that Greg Holland has that Davis does not is 46 saves to Davis’ 3. Davis, however, showed himself fully capable of handling “closer” duties when he notched those 3 saves in September while Holland missed time due to a minor injury.
White Cleat Beat
Here we get to the crux of the matter. MLB renamed it’s reliever award this season to the Mariano Rivera award in the A.L. and the Trevor Hoffman award in the N.L.—each league’s award is named for the career saves leader in each league.
It should come as no surprise that 2 closers won the awards: Greg Holland in the A.L. and Craig Kimbrel in the N.L.
The award is granted not just on the number of saves, but is selected by a small panel of retired relievers in each league. While this is an improvement on the old days of the Rolaids relief award based on compiling saves, it’s still a system heavily leveraged toward the “save” statistic.
The panel is comprised of former closers, while the award itself is named after career save leaders. Do you really think these guys are going to undermine their own Hall-of-Fame cases by recognizing that a spectacular non-closer might be more valuable than any other relief pitcher in the league?
Someday, baseball thought might shuck off the artificial over-valuation that has become engrained in our collective baseball consciousness by the “save” statistic. However, that day looks a long way off as long when such awards presume their importance.
Next: How the Heck Is Lorenzo Cain Not A Gold Glove Finalist?