It only took one day. One day to remind us of the save's utter fecklessness, and to make us wonder anew why it hasn't been retired to the junk pile, along with the game-winning RBI and the hold.
I refer to the Opening Day tilt between the Phillies and Reds, very possibly a match-up of divisional basement residents. In that game, the Phils held a 4-1 lead going into the bottom of the ninth when they brought in their closer, Mr. Jeanmar Gomez.
Jeanmar the Bullpen Keystone
Ol' Jeanmar earned his closer stripes by notching 37 of 43 saves last season, and also by sucking somewhat less than the rest of the Philadelphia bullpen. In his 69 innings, he allowed a 1.46 WHIP, a .289 batting average and 4.85 ERA. Baseball-reference.com suggests his value was less than replacement level.
Maybe some of that was the immobile, aging defense the Phillies rostered behind him. With the detritus cleared out, maybe Gomez is a better pitcher than those numbers indicate.
Saving the Victory
Well, don't tell yesterday that. Needing three outs to earn a save, Gomez got one, allowed a Zack Cozart single, fanned another and the watched mighty Scooter Gennett take him yard. I don't know anything about the single, but I doubt the dinger could be blamed on Ryan Howard's iron glove, even if he were still playing.
Gomez settled down to coax out number three for a 4-3 win and the save.
Gomez earned the save solely because the Phillies had the foresight to craft a three-run lead. Consider this:
- Had Gomez entered a 2-1 game he would have earned a loss.
- Had he entered a 3-1 game a blown save would stain his record.
- A 5-1 score would not have provided him with a save opportunity.
This is a very wise policy. At this rate, the Phils will win all their games, Jeanmar will break the saves record and small children 50 years from now will sing paeans to his door-shutting powers. The 18.00 ERA will be lost to history.
Which should be the fate of the save.
I'm going to go out on a limb and opine that Dellin Betances is awesome. The gigantic, Brooklyn-raised Yankee reliever sports a career ERA of 2.16, a WHIP of one, and 400 strikeouts in 254 innings. Those numbers put him in the company of the two best relievers in baseball -- Aroldis Chapman and Kenley Jansen.
What makes Betances especially valuable is what you might call Andrew Miller Syndrome: Betances is Joe Girardi's Swiss Army Knife, heading to the hill whenever he's needed. In three years, he's made 217 appearances -- mostly in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. He's entered games with no days' rest about as often as he's pitched with days off. And half his pitches are thrown in high-leverage situations.
A mere 22 saves belie his prodigious value to the Bronx Bombers.
The Betances Arbitration Debacle
You might have heard that Betances took the team to salary arbitration, requesting a tenfold raise to $5 million, citing projections that put his financial worth at about $15 million to the team. The Yankees countered with $3 million, citing precedent. No other non-closer has ever won more than $2 million in his first year of arbitration.
The Yankees' case is based on a flaw in the arbitration rules, which were constructed on an old paradigm that over-values closers and saves. Without the saves to make his case, Betances was forced into the untenable position of having to argue that he is a closer, which he patently isn't, although patently false arguments seem to be the strategy du jour in America.
Needless to say, the Yankees won the arbitration case and Betances will simply double his career earnings this season.
A Great Set-up Man > A Lousy Closer
The larger issue is that the arbitration system makes no sense. Had Betances simply pitched at the same level of production all ninth innings, instead of seventh and eighth innings, he would have cited Aroldis Chapman's $5 million arbitration salary from three years ago and probably exceeded that. The irony there is that Betances pitches in more high leverage situations as a fireman than he would as a closer, who is often asked to protect two- and three-run leads.
Compare Betances with Phillies closer Jeanmar Gomez, a replacement-level pitcher who is Betances' inferior by every measure except saves, 37 of which Gomez fell into last season despite a 4.85 ERA. And by salary: those 37 saves earned Gomez a $4.2 million contract for 2017.
Take a look at the difference between these two pitchers over the last three years:
Betances: 217 games, 245 innings, 5.3 hits/9, 3.4 BB/9, 14.3 K/9, 1.93 ERA, 8.5 WAR
Gomez: 179 games, 205 innings, 10 hits/9, 2.7 BB/9, 6.4 K/9, 3.68 ERA, 1.5 WAR\
One More Thing, Randy Levine...
There is one more point to make, and that is that Yankees president Randy Levine must have been channeling his inner Jim Dolan in the aftermath of the arbitrator's decision, and now he owes Betances an apology. Levine's denigrating public rant about Betances and his arbitration strategy was mean-spirited and gratuitous. He is going to have to live with the consequences if Betances leaves town as a free agent when he's eligible because the boss treated him poorly in public.
