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May 12, 2005
In A Time, Not So Farr, Farr Away
Runs Saved Above Average (RSAA) is a Lee Sinins creation. It is the amount of runs that a pitcher saved versus what an average pitcher would have allowed. It is similar to the statistic Pitching Runs detailed in the book Total Baseball - except (1) both have different ways of park adjustments and (2) Total Baseball added a procedure to take into account the amount of decisions the pitcher had while Runs Saved Above Average does not.
Just now, I was wondering for a moment, who were the top 5 Yankee pitchers in the 1990's, in terms of RSAA? Thanks to my handy-dandy sabermetric baseball encyclopedia, I was able to run the following quick list:
NEW YORK YANKEES 1990-1999
Top 5 RSAA Leaders
1 David Cone 103
2 Mariano Rivera 86
3 Andy Pettitte 78
4 Jimmy Key 52
T5 Steve Farr 29
T5 John Wetteland 29
You'd expect Mo to be on this list. Pettitte too. Cone and Key shouldn't shock anyone. And, Wetteland was a good pitcher.
But, the name that few would expect, and who is on the list, is Steve Farr.
Top Five. Farr, yes. David Wells, Mike Stanton, El Duque, and Jeff Nelson, no. Go figure.
I think this says a little something about Steve Farr (in that he was one of the Yankees better pitchers when he was in NY) and a lot about the state of Yankees pitching in the early 1990's.
I wonder if Steve Farr showed up at a Yankees Old Timer's Day, would the fans give him the proper appreciation? There's no reason not to - he was fine when he was here.
Posted by Steve Lombardi at May 12, 2005 04:31 PM