Rivera’s Singular Pitch

Neil Weinberg is the Founder of New English D (newenglishd.com) and a writer for Beyond The Box Score (www.beyondtheboxscore.com). You can follow Neil on twitter (@NeilWeinberg44).

With the Yankees playoff odds dwindling, it seems likely that Mariano Rivera is down to his final dozen or so appearances in the major leagues. He’s been touring around the league and getting wonderful sendoffs and incredible respect everywhere he goes because of his sustained brilliance and excellent character. No one needs to tell you that Rivera is the greatest relief pitcher of all time because you already know that whether you place a lot of stock in save totals or not.

Rivera’s numbers hold up to every kind of scrutiny imaginable. He is the all-time saves leader, but that’s the product of a strange movement in baseball to pigeonhole relievers to the point of inefficiency. Good relievers in save situations will accumulate saves, the real mark Rivera leaves on the game is remaining an elite reliever for so long when so many burnout after a few short seasons.

A quick scan of his statistics confirms his impact. In 1,214 innings in relief, he has a 2.07 ERA and a 2.68 Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), which is a statistic that estimates how many runs a pitcher is expected to allow based on their strikeouts, walks, and homeruns allowed. Among relievers, no one is even close to his 39.0 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), which measures a player’s total contribution to his team.

Using a statistic called ERA-, which simply adjusts a player’s ERA based on the ballparks he pitches in and compares it to league average during his era (100 is average and lower numbers are better), only one qualifying relief pitcher has prevented runs more effectively than Rivera. That reliever is Craig Kimbrel, who hasn’t yet turned 26.

If you consider every pitcher who has thrown 1,000 or more innings in their career, no one has a better ERA compared to their run scoring environment. Rivera is 51% better than league average during his career and his next closest competitor is Pedro Martinez who stands at a comparatively pedestrian 34% better than average.

Certainly, starting is more difficult than relieving and I wouldn’t make the case that Rivera is better than the best starting pitchers in the game’s history. But there isn’t really any question that he’s the game’s best reliever for his peak and his longevity. During his victory lap season, thousands of words have been written on his career and we were treated to a wonderful moment at the All-Star Game when he took the mound alone.

There have been many excellent tributes and I encourage you to read them all, but what fascinates me about Rivera is that he’s done it with a single pitch, the cut-fastball, for almost his entire career.

It’s remarkable because so much of baseball is a battle between the pitcher and the hitter over control of the strikezone and the pitcher’s biggest advantage is the ability to throw different pitches with different velocity and movement. Rivera throws the same pitch every time. He locates it well and it’s a great pitch, but you know the cutter is coming. It’s like if Crash Davis told hitters that Nuke LaLoosh was bringing the fastball but they still couldn’t touch it.

Using Pitch F/X, which has data back to 2008, we can see just how amazing it is that he’s been so successful during his career without any sort of offspeed offering. It’s important to know that the pitch classifications are not perfect and there will be some error involved, but if you scan the list of pitchers with at least 200 IP since the start of 2008, those who relied on one pitch 70% of the time or more haven’t held a candle to Rivera.

Certainly some of the one-pitch arms have been above average to very good, but most of them are either using a knuckleball or pumping high velocity fastballs with which hitters can’t catch up. Jansen is trying to follow Rivera’s lead with the cutter and Balfour has managed to use a four-seam fastball without 95 mph behind it with good success.

Just 4% of the 396 pitchers with 200 innings since the start of 2008 threw one pitch 70% of the time or more. And just 2% of the same group has an ERA that is at least 42% better than average. Rivera is the only one on both lists.

It’s reasonably obvious to any baseball fan that Rivera is on the Mount Rushmore of relief pitchers and has done so with a very limited repertoire. What’s less obvious is how extremely difficult is it to be that good with basically just one pitch. It’s a great pitch, but when a major league hitter knows it’s coming, you shouldn’t expect it to be this good.

The strategy involved in every at bat is based on what a pitcher will throw and where he’ll throw it, but Rivera only utilizes the latter and does it to the tune of some of the best results in baseball history.

Rivera is another one of those players on which everyone can agree. He racks up saves and performs in the postseason, but advanced statistics also agree that he’s the best. It’s amazing because it shouldn’t be that way at all. He shouldn’t be able to do what he does with one pitch, but that really just adds to his legend because he’s done with one pitch what few others have accomplished with four.