The Wetteland - Giving up Runs in a Save

In Sunday's Blue Jays-Royals game, Toronto led 5-2 in the bottom of the ninth. Jays closer Francisco Cordero gave up a run and put runners at the corners with one out.

With the tying run at first and the winning run at the plate in Brayan Pena, Cordero induced a 4-6-3 double play to end the game.

I thought, give Cordero a Wetteland.

Saves like that one remind me of John Wetteland, specifically Game Six of the 1996 World Series. I loved Wetteland, but watching him in the ninth was often a heart attack. If he came in with a three-run lead, he'd give up a run or two and put the tying and winning runners on base before slamming the door.

Like in Game Six. The New York Yankees led the Atlanta Braves three games to two and, with a 3-1 lead in the ninth inning, stood three outs away from the championship.

After putting up a zero in the seventh, young set-up man Mariano Rivera had just retired Chipper Jones, Fred McGriff and Javy Lopez down 1-2-3 in an eight-pitch eighth inning. Joe Torre turned to his closer Wetteland to finish the game.

Atlanta got one-out singles from Ryan Klesko and Terry Pendleton to get a rally started. That brought up pinch hitter Luis Polonia. Two nights earlier, he fouled off four 0-2 pitches from Wetteland before flying out to the warning track on a great catch by Paul O'Neill to end Game Five.

Polonia struck out swinging and the Braves were down to their last out. Marquis Grissom kept them alive with a single to score Klesko and cut the lead to 3-2. With the tying run in scoring position and the go-ahead run on first, it came down to diminutive second baseman Mark Lemke. A .246 career hitter, Lemke hit .272 in 62 postseason games, including a .286 lifetime mark in the World Series.

He worked the count full and hit a foul pop up by the Atlanta dugout on the third base side. Charlie Hayes reached over but couldn't quite get it, tumbling down the stairs for good measure. Hayes got another chance on the very next pitch and squeezed it for the clinching out.

Wetteland was dynamite in the series and was named Most Valuable Player. He saved the final four games as New York came back from 2-0 down to win.

But like I said, Wetteland in the ninth was often a roller-coaster of emotion. My memories were confirmed. Of his AL-leading 43 saves in 1996, he gave up one or two runs in nine of them, appropriately tied with Jose Mesa for the most in the majors.



I am now inventing a new statistic: The Wetteland. A pitcher records a Wetteland when he enters a game with a lead, gives up at least one run, yet hangs on to record the final out and pick up the save.


That got me thinking about which pitchers have the most games in which they gave up one or two runs and still recorded the save.

* Because of the quirks of the save rule, it's possible to come in with a lead of more than three and still record a save. I've limited the runs allowed to two max. to see who's entered in tight games, walked the tightrope, but still got the job done. It eliminates long relief saves when a guy pitches the last three innings of a blowout win and gets credit for a save.


Here's the top 20 for most saves of one or two runs allowed:

	Wettelands
Trevor Hoffman	53
Mariano Rivera	48
Lee Smith	47
John Franco	45
John Wetteland	43
Jeff Reardon	43
Dan Quisenberry	42
Dennis Eckersley	41
Bruce Sutter	40
Troy Percival	40
Todd Jones	40
Robb Nen	39
Rod Beck	37
Gene Garber	36
Rick Aguilera	36
Hoyt Wilhelm	35
Randy Myers	35
Francisco Cordero	35
Jose Mesa	34
Roberto Hernandez	34

There's Wetteland in the fifth spot behind such luminaries as Hoffman and his successor Rivera. But is it fair to simply use the raw total to make this list? Of course Hoffman and Mo will lead the category because of their staggering number of saves overall.

Here's that same list but with now they're listed with their career save total and the percentage of those saves that were Wettelands:

	Wettelands	Career SV	PCT
Dan Quisenberry	42	244	17.2
Gene Garber	36	218	16.5
Hoyt Wilhelm	35	227	15.4
Bruce Sutter	40	300	13.3
John Wetteland	43	330	13.0
Rod Beck	37	286	12.9
Todd Jones	40	319	12.5
Robb Nen	39	314	12.4
Jeff Reardon	43	367	11.7
Rick Aguilera	36	318	11.3
Troy Percival	40	358	11.2
Francisco Cordero	35	328	10.7
John Franco	45	424	10.6
Jose Mesa	34	321	10.6
Dennis Eckersley	41	390	10.5
Roberto Hernandez	34	326	10.4
Randy Myers	35	347	10.1
Lee Smith	47	478	9.8
Trevor Hoffman	53	601	8.8
Mariano Rivera	48	606	7.9

The top four on this list pitched in the early days of the "closer," often pitching two innings or more in finishing a game. The top four averaged 2.22 IP during these saves. Wetteland has the highest percentage among post-Eckersley, one-inning "modern" closers, working 48 innings in his 43 saves. Quisenberry, Garber, Wilhelm and Sutter averaged a 4.08 ERA in their Wettelands while Wetteland had a 9.38 ERA in his.

The average percentage among the top 20 is 11.84. I wanted to look further to find guys who strayed from that average on both sides. So I looked at my Wettelands leaderboard and compared it to the all-time saves leaderboard.

First up, closers who gave up runs in a very low percentage of their saves. These are the five who rank in the top 20 on the all-time saves list, but were way down on my list, indicating that they'd have a low %.

	Wettelands	Career SV	PCT
Billy Wagner	32	422	7.6
Goose Gossage	26	310	8.4
Tom Henke	27	311	8.7
Rollie Fingers	33	341	9.7
Jeff Montgomery	32	304	10.5

Wagner even has a lower percentage than Rivera. Fingers and Gossage earn bonus points as well for being "old-school" closers who often worked in the eighth inning or earlier.

These three are in the 20th-40th group on the saves list and boast low percentages:

Wettelands

Career SV

PCT

Doug Jones	23	303	7.6
Joe Nathan	18	265	6.8
Gregg Olson	15	217	6.9

Now for the reverse. Here are guys who I saw on my leaderboard but are out of the top 50 on the overall saves list.

	Wettelands	Career SV	PCT
Danny Graves	33	182	18.1
Jeff Brantley	26	172	15.1
Antonio Alfonseca	24	129	18.6

Makes sense when you go back to Wetteland's nine Wettelands in 1996. Here are seven seasons to hit double digits in Wettelands:

	Year/Team	Wettelands
Antonio Alfonseca	2000 FLA	12
Rod Beck	1998 CHN	11
John Wetteland	1999 TEX	10
Brad Lidge	2009 PHI	10
Bobby Jenks	2006 CWS	10
Danny Graves	2004 CIN	10
Ron Davis	1982 MIN	10

Alfonseca, born with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, was dubbed "El Pulpo" (The Octopus). He led the majors in saves in 2000 with 45, despite a mediocre 4.24 ERA (104 ERA+). Graves, as I mentioned in my Sparky Lyle post, is the Wild Card-era leader in saves of six or more outs:

Danny Graves	22
Derek Lowe	21
Mel Rojas	17
Keith Foulke	16
Scott Williamson	13

Despite his propensity for Wettelands, Wetteland did have an excellent career. Here are the all-time ERA+ leaders among relievers (min. 700 IP):

	ERA+
Mariano Rivera	206
Billy Wagner	187
Tom Henke	157
Joe Nathan	151
John Wetteland	149
Troy Percival	147
Dan Quisenberry	147
Hoyt Wilhelm	147
Francisco Cordero	144
Mark Eichhorn	142

Yes, Rivera's is less than half of the league average for his entire career. Anyway, Wetteland finished in the league's top five in saves for nine consecutive seasons (1992-2000). He's got a ring and some World Series MVP hardware. He even got four Hall of Fame votes before falling off the ballot in 2006. His 330 career saves rank 11th on the all-time list, though any day now he'll be passed by Cordero, whose Wetteland on Sunday was his 328th career save.

Wetteland's saves were never boring and he added a new stat to the baseball lexicon, or at least the lexicon in one fan's head.