Fact of the Day

I know there’s a couple ways to slice this data but it’s still striking: by ERA+, Joe Borowski is the only pitcher to save 40 games with an ERA worse than the league. As you can see from the list, Randy Myers with 38 saves was the prior record holder. September was the only month of the season when Borowski had an ERA below 3.38, and the 3.38 mark was in June when the league hit .370 against him.

6 thoughts on “Fact of the Day”

  1. I dunno – the list is somewhat quirky. Tug McGraw ’73 is on it. So are guys like Bruce Sutter ’85 and Jeff Reardon ’86.
    And interesting that Myers is on this list, twice. BTW, Crank, you mentioend last week that Myers was the only Mets closer you ever trusted. Presumably that’s because they traded him before he was the guy who was #2 on this list. Out of curiousity, do you think Myers-for-Franco was a good trade?

  2. One of the worst trades the Mets made. They would’ve won the division in ’90 if they’d kept Myers. Franco had the first of many September swoons that year, and Myers headed the Nasty Boys.

  3. Franco was obviously the better long-term performer. But Myers was better than Franco during the years when the Mets were still good, so I’d have to consider it a poor trade.

  4. Not true, the Mets don’t make bad trades. Oh yeah, and if you didn’t know NYC, the Yankees somehow lost to this team from Cleveland. If you want highlights, the first 35 minutes of ESPN’s Sportscenter explains to the rest of us what happened. So, what’s this Cleveland place?

  5. While I’ve wondered all year about why Cleveland insists on using Joe B. as their closer when there appears to be a better option if you look at his game log this year you’ll find that he gave up 14 of his 37 earned runs in 3 games (2 in April in which he gave up 6 and 4) in just 1 2/3rds innings. His ERA in his other 64 innings is 3.23. So his overall is perhaps not as bad as it appears but it does speak to the possibility that he could single-handedly cough up a game and in a short-series that often times is death.

  6. I think that in the regular season, it’s actually easier to use a guy like Borowski or Todd Jones as a closer behind lights-out setup guys, rather than use them in the seventh or eighth, when inheriting a three run lead and leaving with a one run lead is not considered success.

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