Friday, August 12, 2011

Rivera and Papelbon Compared

Or, Riveralbon as I like to call them.

Lot's of talk lately about closer Jonathan Papelbon's contract, as it is up at the end of the season. With Daniel Bard waiting in the wings, many are ready to dump Pap and hand the job over to his wingman. Just for comparison's sake, I messed about on baseball-reference today and came up with a chart matching up Papelbon's six seasons as Boston's full-time closer, alongside Mariano Rivera's first six after taking over his job from John Wetteland in '97 for New York.


Rivera
Year   Age W L  ERA  G GF SV   IP  H  R ER HR BB SO ERA+  WHIP SO/9 SO/BB
1997    27 6 4 1.88 66 56 43 71.2 65 17 15  5 20 68  239 1.186  8.5  3.40
1998    28 3 0 1.91 54 49 36 61.1 48 13 13  3 17 36  233 1.060  5.3  2.12
1999    29 4 3 1.83 66 63 45 69.0 43 15 14  2 18 52  260 0.884  6.8  2.89
2000    30 7 4 2.85 66 61 36 75.2 58 26 24  4 25 58  170 1.097  6.9  2.32
2001    31 4 6 2.34 71 66 50 80.2 61 24 21  5 12 83  192 0.905  9.3  6.92
2002    32 1 4 2.74 45 37 28 46.0 35 16 14  3 11 41  163 1.000  8.0  3.73

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/12/2011.

Papelbon
Year   Age W L  ERA  G GF SV   IP  H  R ER HR BB SO ERA+  WHIP SO/9 SO/BB
2006    25 4 2 0.92 59 49 35 68.1 40  8  7  3 13 75  517 0.776  9.9  5.77
2007    26 1 3 1.85 59 53 37 58.1 30 12 12  5 15 84  257 0.771 13.0  5.60
2008    27 5 4 2.34 67 62 41 69.1 58 24 18  4  8 77  199 0.952 10.0  9.63
2009    28 1 1 1.85 66 59 38 68.0 54 15 14  5 24 76  254 1.147 10.1  3.17
2010    29 5 7 3.90 65 53 37 67.0 57 34 29  7 28 76  111 1.269 10.2  2.71
2011    30 4 0 3.14 49 44 26 48.2 40 18 17  3  8 64  132 0.986 11.8  8.00

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/12/2011.

Papelbon became the full time closer at age 25 (Keith Foulke was on the outs at the time), while Rivera was 27 (having to wait his turn on a team with an established finisher that had already won a World Series title). Each had at least 35 saves their first five years in the role (238 total for Rivera, 214 so far for Pap), but the thing that jumps out at me is Papelbon's ERA. Last year's 3.90 is certainly higher than one would like it to be, and while this year's 3.14 is respectable, it certainly doesn't match his ungodly numbers from his first four years. Rivera on the other hand never topped 3.00. Yet, looking at the adjusted ERA+, the numbers suggest that Papelbon pitched better than his traditional ERA shows. Pap's strikeouts per nine are much better as well.

Obviously, Rivera is superhuman and the greatest closer of all time (even though chinks in the armor are starting to show over the last three games). But the numbers show that maybe the Red Sox should think twice about letting Papelbon walk off into the sunset this offseason.

P.S. I admit I screamed for Pap's head on numerous occasions last seasons. It's the nature of the job.

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