UPON CLOSER SCRUTINY
Occasionally someone gets overloaded with closers and asks, "Which should I play?" In the past, I have answered with "Play the ones at home," because it seemed quite logical that closers get more saves at home than on the road. why is this logical?
1) Home teams win at a higher rate than road teams. So, there are more games where saves are possible at home.
2) A blown save at home has a greater chance of allowing the pitcher to escape with a win or a no-decision, since the home team gets at least one more at bat in response to the blown save.
But, it occured to me that I was taking this belief on faith, and so I went and got the 2001 stats for closers to see what the REALITY is regarding home/road splits for closers. Ultimately, I discovered some of what I expected did have merit - but not always.
I looked at only the top 25 closers last season (by total saves).
Some quick tidbits:
1a) Of the 25 closers, 9 had 4+ more Save OPPORTUNITIES at home. 1b) Of the 25 closers, 6 had 4+ more save opportunities on road.
So, in terms of save ops, home did have an edge, but a very slight one. Over the entire list, the home edge in save ops was actually only +2. Out of 25 closers, with 932 total save ops, that's definitely ignorable. (When looking at actual saves, instead of just ops, the numbers came out similar, though there were actually 2 MORE saves on the road than at home).
HOWEVER, in regards to WINS, only two of the 25 closers had more wins on the road, (Kim and Lowe both had 3 wins on the road and only 2 at home). All told, the aggregate edge in total wins was +41 at home. All in all, closers lose more games than they win, (not a surprise). The sample went 89-106 overall. But they were actually 65-64 at home, and only 24-42 on the road. Clearly, a significant edge in chance of getting wins at home, compared to on the road.
So, the conclusion I reached is that it IS generally better to start closers at home. While total saves home and away will be nearly equal for the vast majority of closers, the WINS for your closers will by higher in home games, (making your FP average just a bit higher at home) for over 90% of closers.
There ARE some exceptions - specifically those rare teams that have great road records. Seattle in 2001 (and in the first half of 2002) have been markedly better on the road, and Sasaki has benefited by netting quite a few more save opportunities (and saves) on the road. So, while as a general rule, platooning closers at home is a good move, it is important to research YOUR closers to make sure they are not exceptions to the rule.
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