My Gripe about Saves

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Saves over-inflate young pitchers value, leads to them making too much money, & puts them at risk of being non-tendered.  Not only are they not always pitching in the highest leverage situations, but they often total lower WAR then many non closers.

Examples

Jonathan Papelbon – Should be more $ sings in his name than Ke$ha

-          Averages 37 saves per season over the last five seasons with a career FIP of 2.79

Papelbon has gone to arbitration twice, in which he was awarded 6.25M in ’09 & 9.35M in ’10.  He’s a good pitcher & all, but those are some awfully quick jumps in pay.  There’s no way a set up man, which pitched 2.79 FIP over the same period of time would get paid what Papelbon did through arbitration. 

Bobby Jenks – non-tendered prior to 2011 season

-          Averages 35 saves per season over the last five seasons with a career FIP of 3.16

Jenks has a similar story to Papelbon with the save totals over the past five seasons, pitching decent ball (.37 FIP Variance), & being through the arbitration process twice, but a has had a different result, with his former team, the Chicago White Sox non-tendering him in the winter of 2010.  You can argue that his production has gone down a tad, but you don’t see many pitchers coming off a 2.59 FIP season not being brought back for another season, although some rumors are out there that the White Sox did talk about a two year 10M deal before he decided to switch his Sox to Red.  What does is come down to?  $$$

Matt Capps – non-tendered prior to 2010 season

-          109 career saves, 42 of which came in ’10, with a 3.79 career FIP

The Pittsburgh Pirates decided to let him & his 2.3M salary go following his 4.90 FIP in ’09.  He then spent ’10 proving the Pirates made a mistake posting 3.23 FIP & 1.2 WAR, for only 3.5M. 

Players like the above find themselves in odd situations because a stupid cumulative statistic at the end of close winning games.  Baseball, players, agents, & arbitrators are aware of this & are maximizing players pay because of it.  You could argue that free agents closers get paid what the Papelbon’s of the world make, but generally aren’t worth the financial investment.  Would it be possible for the Papelbon’s of the world to make less through arbitration of free agent closers weren’t so overpaid?  I would like to think so, but doubt the market works itself out in a short term time frame.  Instead of creating a goofy point system for saves & continue to complicate things, why not just nix the stat completely.  I would like to think that pitcher finishing games would get the same pay as a 7th or 8th inning guy that has the same FIP/experience/ect…or maybe pay should vary via leverage indexes….

There’s no real "solution" to my gripe, but it is becoming more & more evident that saves escalate young pitchers pay real quick, causing them to becoming non-tender targets, especially with money conscious organizations or teams without a short term contention window.