Who cares? Mo is awesome, and the greatest closer of all time, bar none. Why do we need so many different stats to back up that fact? Isn’t the saying “stats are for losers”? Mo is a winner through and through. He gets the results. I only expect STATS to come from deluded fools who claim Trevor Hoffman is the best closer of all time. (No disrespect to the Hoff, but the Sandman > Hells Bells.)

The work and effort is really impressive, but I have a little problem with the conclusion that he’s been worth 2 championships. My conflict is two-pronged–one, I don’t think it’s accurate to say that he’s been worth two championships. Andy Pettitte, for example, was worth one more win (33% more) than Mo. Does that mean Pettitte’s worth 3 championships? What about the other guys?

This is supported through a statistical standpoint. Per Fangraphs, he’s averaged 9.2IP in the playoffs and 72.2 in the regular season. That means that Mo pitches ~7.63 more times in the regular season than in the playoffs. That means that Mo’s PREWAR should be extrapolated to the amount of innings, not the amount of games played, which means that 4.17 x 7.63 = 31.83. Now, you state that this has to be divided by 11 wins, but the losses also count especially because you’re using years that are not championship years. Thus, the average of all possible outcomes of a championship year is a 18.67 (rounded up to 19)-game postseason. When you divide 31.83 by 19, you get 1.7 championships. Rounding up in full is impossible since you are giving him more credit than possible, so he is wholly responsible for 1 championship and mostly for a second. This does not account for what Ben Kabak said at RAB, which is that replacement-level closers generally don’t play on postseason teams (think 2007 Joe Borowski v. 2009 Brian Fuentes) and the difference is probably smaller still. In fact, crudely using regular-season WAR, Mo’s was 2.0 when the average playoff closer’s was 1.35. That means that the average playoff closer was 67.5% as valuable as Mo, which, multiplied by the championships Mo is worth, is about 1.13. Thus, the difference between the average playoff closer’s championship worth and Mo’s championship worth is half a championship, which sounds much more accurate.

Sorry to ramble on like this, but your post was, again, very impressive and did a lot to stimulate great discussion.

The follow up I have planned is to compare him to other postseason relievers. i’m a little under the weather at the moment, but I hope to get it up by the end of the week.

Maybe I missed something…you say earlier in the article when discussing Hairston that Replacement players aren’t the Yankees bench, but rather the Pirates bench (as an example). I don’t disagree with the math, but attributing 2 championships to Mo when those high leverage innings would have been pitched by the next best reliever available (certainly well above replacement level), seems disingenuous.

What if it were compared to the next best reliever on the Yankees for that year? That might give a better indication of his true impact.

I’m unemployed and trying to break into journalism. I got nuttin’ but time =). Have some other ideas on tap first, but this is an idea worth exploring.

You know what could also be done here? Take each game individually that he’s pitched, and figure out how much he increased the Yankees chances of winning the WS in that game. A high-leverage save in the ALDS isn’t te same as a high-leverage save in the WS. Too much work, I know. Just a suggestion if you ever have some time on your hands

Hey I’M writng a novel. It’s not like I have it easy.

Speaking of which, I’m procrastinating…

You’re doing that just to spite me =P

[Golf clap]

I can’t say I disagree…