Closer Reliability Report-2008 Season

This season I will be verifying the validity of a MLB Team's announcement of a particular player as their closer, especially at the beginning of the season. For past years, 20 Save Opportunities or greater is defined as a closer, for the current year, anyone who posts a save will be tallied.

Throughout the year I hope to answer certain questions...Does age or years of service as closer predict reliability?, Do certain statistics such as ERA, K/BB ratio, or dominance predict reliability of a closer?, Do certain types of pitchers (i.e. power, finesse, etc) have greater predicted reliability?, are closers affected by a change in park or league after a trade?, and also what predicts a future closer. Will also evaluate the first season closers, of the 30 projected closers, there are who are six (or 20%) being named for their first full season--so there should be a high amount of volatility.

The average number of season as a closer is 3.4, with the maximum at 13 by Trevor Hoffman.

Table 1.
Opening Day Closers

Name	Team	L	DOB	SaC
Borowski,Joe	CLE	AL	5/4/71	3
Capps,Matt	PIT	NL	9/3/83	1
Cordero,Chad	WAS	NL	3/18/82	3
Cordero,Francisco	CIN	NL	5/11/75	5
Corpas,Manny	COL	NL	12/3/82	1
Gagne,Eric	MIL	NL	1/7/76	3
Gregg,Kevin	FLA	NL	6/20/78	1
Hoffman,Trevor	SD	NL	10/13/67	13
Isringhausen,Jason	STL	NL	9/7/72	8
Jenks, Bobby	CWS	AL	3/14/81	2
Jones, Todd	DET	AL	4/24/68	8
Lidge,Brad	PHI	NL	12/23/76	4
Lyon,Brandon	ARI	NL	8/10/79	0
Nathan, Joe	MIN	AL	11/22/74	4
Papelbon,Jonathan	BOS	AL	11/23/80	2
Percival, Troy	TAM	AL	8/9/69	9
Putz,JJ	SEA	AL	2/22/77	2
Rivera, Mariano	NYY	AL	11/29/69	11
Rodriguez,Francisco	LAA	AL	1/7/82	3
Ryan, BJ	TOR	AL	12/28/75	2
Saito,Takashi	LAD	NL	2/14/70	2
Sherrill, George	BAL	AL	4/19/77	0
Soria, Joakim	KC	AL	5/18/84	1
Soriano,Rafael	ATL	NL	12/19/79	0
Street,Huston	OAK	AL	8/2/83	3
Valverde,Jose	HOU	NL	7/24/79	2
Wagner,Billy	NYM	NL	7/25/71	10
Wilson,Brian	SF	NL	3/16/82	0
Wilson,CJ	TEX	AL	11/18/80	0
Wood,Kerry	CHC	NL	6/16/77	0

Coming Next...Week 1 Results