ERA+ is one of those new fancy baseball stats such as VORP and OPS+. Basically, it measures your ERA against the league average, and adjusted for park factors. An ERA+ of 100 is average, below 100 is below average, and above ia above average. Now, here's a look at a few prominent closers and compare them with Mariano Rivera. That's a bit unfair obviosuly, considering that Rivera is the carear and active leader for ERA+ for all pitchers with over 1000 innings, or 100 decisions. Yes, that's right. By this stat, he is the best pitcher to ever play the game of baseball. His Career ERA+ is 199, or a full 40 points higher then the next best player, Pedro.
Mariano Rivera: 2008 ERA+...317, that's 317. That's what, three times the league average.
Fransico Rodriquz; 2008 ERA+...198. That's below River'a career Average.
Joakim Soria: 2008 ERA+...268. So, since K-rod got 12 mil a year for an ERA+ of 198, what does Soria get, who somehow managed to save 41 games for the happless Royals. Yes, the Royals.
I'm just wondering why a team would pay that much for a closer of any caliber besides Rivera. Heck, I wouldn't care what you paid Mariano Rivera, he's the best relief pitcher in history and arguably the best pitcher, if you went by ERA+ that is. You can't buy his kind of dominance and consistency anywhere.
Just something for comparison, so people can understand exactly how rediculous Mariano Rivera's season was. Cliff Lee won the CY Young in a landslide, and his ERA+ was 175, tops among starters, but not anywhere near Rivera. Granted, he pitched three times as many innings. But if we were going to vote on CY Young again, I'd hope to god that no one would rank K-rod ahead of Rivera again. It's not even close. Rivera is the best by a long shot.
ERA+ for the Yankees and Red Sox
I'd also hope that Matsuzaka wouldn't be ranked ahead of Mussina. Did anyone look at the guys WHIP, or the number of walks he had. Sorry, the guy walked 94 people, 94. This year he went 18-3, with an ERA of 2.90 an ERA+ of 158 and 94 walks, last year, 15-2, with an ERA of 4.40 and 80 walks and an ERA+ of 108. Both years he had a WHIP of 1.34. That's a trend people. He walked more and his ERA dropped a run and a half? The Red Sox should be expecting a severe regresion back to league average for Dice-k. Suddenly Beckett, Matsuzaka, Lester doesn't seem so good next to Sabathia, Burnett and Chien Ming Wang. Sabathia by the way, had an ERA+ of 260 in Miluakee. That's down right scary for a starting pitcher.
On a side note, Burnett might have the best stuff in the majors, but his ERA+ isn' that far above League average, Yankee fans should be worried about that. Good thing Joba Chamberlain sports a nice 171 ERA+. Something else that's interesting is the ERA+ of Phil Coke last year when he was a september call up...724. Granted, that's no where near the total Joba Chamberlain put up the year before, 1192. Holy Crap. Guess that explains the buzz around the guy. Guy has an off year, has an ERA+ of 171, nice. Something of note is that the Yankees ended the season with oe pitcher above league average in their rotation. A few of them were more than 20 points below league average. Next year, they won't have a single pitcher below league average in their rotation.
