Rangers WAR since the start of 2010

1) Hamilton (+8.5)
2) Wilson (+6.0)
3) Cruz (+5.1)
4) Lewis (+4.1)
5) Kinsler (+3.9)
6) Young (+3.4)
7) Lee (+3.1)
8) Guerrero (+2.6)
9) Andrus (+2.3)
10) Murphy (+2.1)
11) Feliz (+1.9)
T12) Oliver/Holland/Borbon (+1.5)

We have a pitcher who throws 100mph and has at least decent secondary pitches, and yet, because he throws an average of 1 meaningful inning per week, he is of no more value to us than our 4th OF and a shortstop who had an abysmal .299 wOBA last year. He is only slightly more valuable than a 40-year-old 7th-8th inning pitcher and noodle-batted Borbon. He is only 1/3rd the value of our previous closer moved to a starter's role. Barely more than half the value of one of the worst defensive infielders in baseball history. And so on.

Meanwhile, the Rangers apparently plan to run Matt Harrison, Dave Bush, and whatever other scrubs they can find out there every few days all year.

Hooray for "closers."

Serious question: who would you have close?

I would like to see him in more tie games or even more two inning saves.

I don't think Feliz is being wasted as long as Ogando is starting ... if Feliz was starting Ogando would probably be closing. So you get one of the two regardless and clearly the older Ogando is mentally committed to an SP role while Feliz isn't.

given my general disagreements with Rangers... i'll still bite. if anyone had to close i think you would have to go with Kirkman or Strop. Sink or swim. Time for some balls to drop kids. If Scheppers was on the DL i'd put him in the mix too. otherwise we'd have to trade for a closer.

Look Strop has the best pure "stuff" and is the closest in ability to Feliz. If he could get his $hit together he'd be a dream come true. but what this is year 3 of shuffling him btw AAA and the bigs. I just dont see him figuring it out. Right now he's like the CD of the BP. Kills in AAA loses it in the bigs. maybe its mental i dunno. That being said... we kinda through Feliz to the wolves last year and it paid off. maybe if we did the same with Strop it'd stick.

However i'm sure Rangers will adamately disagree and pull up some stats on how DO/AR is the best option at closer..... which anyone with a brain that doesnt need numbers knows is BS.

Sure Feliz hasn't been used in many close games, but there really havent been many chances to use him. There have been maybe 3 times that Wash could have used him but chose not to; I cant recall them off of the top of my head right now, but that seems about right. In the Yankees series, he got the save in the only time that he was used and he was used right. You're not going to bring him in in a 12-5 game, and you're not going to put him out there in a 4-3 game in the 5th inning...alot of these games over the past few weeks havent had a real good chance to use him in the 8th or 9th inning because they are lost or won before we even get there. I really see no problem with how he has been used and think the problem is really as result of how the game has not presented itself with a good opportunity to use him wisely. Plus he was on the DL for 2 weeks and there were 5 or 6 games that he probably could have helped us win. I think he will get plenty of chances over the course of the season, once the team gets healthy, and really 1.9 WAR isn't too shabby for him

Serious question: who would you have close?

Oliver, Hunter, Harrison...

Closers are so overrated. Yes, blowing 1-run leads or tie games late sucks. But so does throwing some scrub every 5th day. In fact, that sucks a whole lot more than the occasional blown save.

I don't think Feliz is being wasted as long as Ogando is starting

What Ogando is doing is irrelevant. Feliz is a +1.9 WAR since the start of 2010. That's it. +1.9.

That's a joke.

There you go with your WAR argument again, when you know that a good number of experts dislike the way WAR devalues the worth of a closer - or any relief pitcher for that matter.

I agree that WAR is terrible way to determine a late inning reliever's worth. I think we have seen over the last 2 weeks, when we didnt have Feliz available, how difficult it can be to shut a team down in the late innings of a ballgame, let alone close the game out, and that some guys just aren't meant to do it day in and day out. There really is not anybody currently in the bullpen that is as qualified to do it for an extended amount of time as Neftali and he's the only guy down there that I would trust to do it.

I would rather throw a "scrub" every fifth day than have a bullpen that will blow at least 2 or 3 leads during those 5 days. I have a feeling he is going to start seeing some 4 or 5 out saves in the near future. Somebody has to come in and close a team out for a change and Feliz is that guy.

There you go with your WAR argument again, when you know that a good number of experts dislike the way WAR devalues the worth of a closer - or any relief pitcher for that matter.

I do?

Link(s)?

I think we have seen over the last 2 weeks, when we didnt have Feliz available, how difficult it can be to shut a team down in the late innings of a ballgame

And we also saw how awful Matt Harrison and Dave Bush can be.

We also saw a very unlucky HR/FB rate over a very small sample size.

Don't kid yourself though. WAR fairly values closers. Closers just aren't as valuable as starters, on average, for many obvious reasons.

Rangers100 - when I said that you know that many people believe WAR is unfair to relief pitchers, I was referring to the fact that if you just type that into google, you will get hundreds of links to blogs and articles by all manner of writers who will say exactly that. Here's a sampling from just a few near the top - I could have gone on and on:

“Although there has been quite a bit of debate with regards to the true replacement level for relief pitchers”

“I don't know if Wins Above Replacement really "works" for relief pitchers. Maybe WAR doesn't give relievers enough credit."

“WAR, as you probably know, doesn’t think much of relief pitchers. The very best relievers in the game are generally worth +2 to +2.5 wins over a full season, or about the same as an average everyday player. This has caused quite a few people to state that WAR doesn’t work for relievers, because the results of the metric don’t match what they believe to be true about relief pitcher value.”

“Most people will tell you that WAR is not a particularly fair way to judge relievers.”

“I don’t love WAR for pitchers, so if we use FIP, Soriano ranks tenth among all relievers at 2.66 over the last two seasons.”

“Relievers are, in general, failed starting pitchers who are given an easier task that their skillset will allow them to handle. They are selectively managed to face hitters whom they have the best chance of getting out, and they get to throw at maximum effort on nearly every pitch, giving them greater velocity over their shorter appearances. Nearly every starting pitcher in baseball could be a useful relief pitcher. Very few relief pitchers could be useful starting pitchers.”

(that last one seems to relate the same bias you are expressing in your argument.

Here's an article by a Mets blogger that highlights some WAR problems with regards to pitching:

http://www.patrickfloodblog.com/2010/07/16/war-problems-part-two/

I don't disagree with your premise that Feliz would help the team more as a starter, and I don't disagree that in many cases there are relievers who are, essentially "failed starters," if you want to look at it that way.

All I'm trying to point out is that if WAR is the one reason why closers are essentially valueless in your way of looking at it, there are people in the know who don't think that WAR is the best way to measure the value of a relief pitcher.

Watching the posts on this thread this morning I have to say I agree with both perspectives re: WAR and RPs and Closers.

I think many grab onto WAR as a tool to allow comparisons across the entire roster because there isn't another tool that does that effectively.

PERHAPS ... there needs to be a different measure for RPs and Closers which I'm dubbing the Quality Inning (QI). I'm making this up but basically a QI would represent a quick tidy inning which gets the offense back at bat quickly.

Ideally the pitcher to earn a QI would face no more than 5 batters, throw 15 or fewer pitches, and would need to earn a Hold. the RP cannot give up more than one non game tieing run if his team has the lead.

Every Quality Inning effectively shortens the game by an inning which puts more value on the work of the SP toward the percentage of "contested" innings. Trying to shoehorn use of WAR for RPs and Closers just so there is a common measurement just doesn't equate to the value of the SP ... nor should it.

Maybe I'm talking about Holds here or some derivative of it that focuses on efficiency and would reward a RP who pitches 2 QIs in an outing with greater value than a simple Hold.

if you just type that into google, you will get hundreds of links to blogs and articles

Sorry, but "Google it" doesn't do much for me. You can find countless people on the internet arguing for all kinds of stupid beliefs and ideas.

Anyway, I'm aware that some people, like you, do not like WAR. But that doesn't tell me anything. It's not an argument for why WAR shouldn't be used here. If you'd like to make such an argument, please do.

All I'm trying to point out is that if WAR is the one reason why closers are essentially valueless in your way of looking at it,

I didn't say they are essentially valueless. They're just not nearly as valuable as solid starters.

PERHAPS ... there needs to be a different measure for RPs and Closers which I'm dubbing the Quality Inning (QI). I'm making this up but basically a QI would represent a quick tidy inning which gets the offense back at bat quickly.

The problem with that approach is you introduce BABIP luck and defense ability (as with ERA).

xFIP and WAR are plenty for giving very good evaluations of both closers and starters.

Starters on average get paid a lot more than closers. Why? Because they're much more valuable.

Okay, well I already took too much time compiling that thing above, and I honestly don't care enough about WAR or any of this to spend any more time trying to fashion some kind of argument that will be acceptable to your grace. Everything I quoted above came from blogs and baseball sites (they were written by the bloggers and writers, not fans), not just average people spouting their "stupid beliefs and ideas" as you say. If you want to pretend like there's not a segment of the baseball blog-o-sphere that disagrees of your use of WAR to discredit and devalue the worth of relief pitchers, then by all means, pretend away!

I agree SPs ought to be valued higher than RPs and Closers too ... the difference in their role is that significant that the SP is a completely different position than the RP or the specialized RP ... the Closer.

I understand the QI as I would define it does put other factors into play ... but that's the way the game is played. An RP who reliably produces a 3 or 4 pitch inning with 2 ground outs and a fly ball out would be a god. I"m not valueing K's much with my thinking which would be a sole achievement ... but the idea is to limit the swings of the opposition and driving up the emotional frustration factor.

The good RP minimizes the number of pitches the opposition ever sees of him through a series or season.

I think the issue is that starting pitchers will get you to the playoffs and push you through them. But the difference between a decent, good, and great closer is magnified profoundly in the postseason simply because of the stakes involved. Closers and setup men matter far more later in the season in a race for a playoff spot or in a heavily contested series.

But the difference between a decent, good, and great closer is magnified profoundly in the postseason simply because of the stakes involved. Closers and setup men matter far more later in the season in a race for a playoff spot or in a heavily contested series.

Tom Verducci:

Of the past 20 World Series teams, seven -- or roughly one out of every three pennant winners for a decade -- found their World Series closer after Opening Day. That list includes such unproven closers as Feliz, Manny Corpas, David Price, Adam Wainwright and Bobby Jenks.

Closers are easily come by. It's just one inning.

I honestly don't care enough about WAR

Why not? Could it be that learning about it would challenge your erroneous but cherished beliefs about the game?

If you want to pretend like there's not a segment of the baseball blog-o-sphere that disagrees of your use of WAR

Bizarre. I just got through telling you that I realize there are people who disagree with "my" use of WAR just as you do. Just as all kinds of people disagree with all kinds of easily proven facts.

Like I said, that doesn't really tell me anything.

Since you are good at ignoring half of what I've written - the half that provided an answer to your holiness, let me say again that I am not anti-WAR, I was never trying to say that I think relief pitchers are more valuable than starters, and I agree that Feliz would be more valuable as a starter if he could do such a thing. I was assuming that you understand the arguments sports writers make against WAR with respect to relief pitchers, and was only trying to point out that they certainly exist. I'm not beholden to you to spend an hour explicating all that to you in minute detail, especially not when you twist my words and act like a dick with your smug attitude.

Frankly, I cringe every time the 8th Inning comes around,
unless the Starter is on the mound.

Frankly, I cringe every time the 8th Inning comes around,
unless the Starter is on the mound.

That's all the more reason to not have Feliz permanently pinned to the 9th inning.

The bad bullpen is going to make for even fewer meaningful outings for Feliz.

Through 39 games our best arm has still thrown 1 inning in a game that was 1-run or less. Simply unreal. A complete waste.

I never seen somebody buy into WAR as much as you have.

I never seen somebody buy into WAR as much as you have.

What baseball sites do you regularly read?

THis one. By the way, Hamilton's WAR is no longer 8.5. You don't contribute to the team wearing ski cap and with your arm in a sling Cruz certainly isn't posting a 5 WAR this year is he?

Watch the games. I still have that memory of Feliz freezing A-Rod on the last pitch of the ALCS. Far more satisfying than crunching WAR numbers, which is like driving your car by looking in the rear view mirror.

WAR is a cute little gimmicky tool, an offshoot of all the fantasy nonsense. Someone will come up with even a cuter tool in a couple of years that the Saber guys will all flock to,

Watch the games, it's far more fun.