Braden Looper, formerly the late inning closer for the Mets, was the winning starting pitcher against them last night. For a pitcher to serve over his career at some point as a closer up racking up a substantial number of career saves and at another point as a starting pitcher with a significant number of career starts is relatively unusual in baseball history. In a post here earlier this month I referred to the “harmonic mean of two numbers” as a statistical method of measuring the combine achievements of players in two different categories: http://metstats.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/multi-tasking/. There the harmonic mean formula ((2*A*B)/(A+B)) was applied in the form of the “power-speed number” invented by Bill James decades ago to measure the combination of power in the form of homers hit and speed in the form of bases stolen. We can use the same technique to assign a “Starter-Closer Number”, which is the harmonic mean of a pitcher’s total number of career starts and total number of career saves.
The current all-time leaders in the career ”Starter-Closer Number” category are:
1. Dennis Eckersley 374.9 (361 starts, 390 saves)
2. John Smoltz 231.6
3. Tom Gordon 177.7
4. Jose Mesa 146.6
5. Ron Reed 143.4
6. Ron Kline 141.0
7. Rick Aguilera 139.1
8. Dave Giusti 138.7
9. Dave Righetti 131.5
10. Firpo Marberry 131.2
Braden Looper moved from 39th place on this list to 38th with his start against the Mets last night, and if he were to maintain his spot in the Brewers rotation every fifth day for the rest of the season, he would finish 2009 in the top 25 in all-time “Starter-Closer Number”.
