Our own Joe Lucia wrote about Joakim Soria’s struggles this season earlier this week. Joe Posnanski (he’s pretty good too), did likewise at his blog, noting that a lot of closers have a good few years but they don’t tend to endure. Mariano Rivera immediately comes to mind as a guy that has been very good for a very long time, but who else has done that in recent history. A relatively average season for a closer in the last few years has been around 30 saves and an ERA in the 3.25 to 3.5 range. Season better than that posted by pitchers in the last 15 years? Let’s go to the list:
Mariano Rivera – 13 such seasons. Best closer of all time. Not a shocker.
Trevor Hoffman – 11 seasons. All-time saves king, for now at least.
Billy Wagner – 9 seasons. Best strike-out rate for all pitchers with at least 600 career IP (11.9 K/9).
Joe Nathan – 6 seasons. Fantastic for the Twins after coming over from San Francisco, but missed all of 2010 and has a 7.63 ERA this year.
Jason Isringhausen – 5 seasons. Had a very nice stretch for Oakland and St. Louis later in his career.
Robb Nen – 5 seasons. Great ERAs every other year, and very good ones otherwise (3.29, 1.95, 3.89, 1.52, 3.98, 1.50, 3.01, 2.20). Injuries ended his career at age 32.
That’s all of the guys with at least 5 seasons with 30+ saves and an ERA below 3.25. Six in 15 years* (73 pitchers that did it at least once).
* I thought maybe the arbitrary end point was really cutting things down. If you don’t limit the time-frame – that is, go all-time – there’s still only 16 pitchers that have done it at least 5 times, and only 8 who have done it 6 times. So it really is relatively rare for a closer to have that kind of sustained success).
There are six more pitchers at 4 seasons:
Jonathan Papelbon, who had 3.90 ERA last year and is at 3.42 in 2011. Fransisco Rodriguez, who had the saves in 2009 but not the ERA, and the ERA but not the saves last year. Bob Wickman (yeah, really), who has a long solid career. Keith Foulke, who had a short run as one of the game’s top closers. Troy Percival, who posted a lot more high(er) ERAs than I expected. And Roberto Hernandez who’s more in the Wickman mold.
Twelve closers had 3 seasons, including Soria – a distinction he shares with such all-time greats as Kazuhiro Sasaki, BJ Ryan, Armando Benitez, Eddie Guardado, Jeff Shaw, and Ugueth Urbina. All fine pitchers, to be sure, but I have to think the Royals were hoping Soria would someday approach the top names on the list (and he still may – he’s only 27 after all). It wouldn’t be surprising though, if Soria has more decent than overpowering seasons left in his career.
