Always Be Closing: Edwin Diaz Edition

I wanna start a new feature here where I talk about closing pitching, and the statistical comparisons of why it's working now, or not working now, for some teams. And I think you kind of need to start with the guy who's leading the league in saves, Edwin Diaz.

Edwin Diaz has 26 saves right now, and a 2.43 ERA, which is slightly high considering some other closers (like Craig Kimbrel and Aroldis Chapman). Diaz is coming off of a season where he pitched 35 saves (with 5 blown), preceded by a rookie year with 18 saves (with 3 blown). So his track record is slightly similar to the guy the Mariners had employed the year before his debut, Fernando Rodney, who would give you several saves, but at the cost of 7 or 8 blown ones.

Diaz' blown saves may not always be his fault, though, as he is definitely a strikeout artist. His 3 blown saves this season might be attributed to cause of the amount of...non-blown ones. And here is where I talk about the surging, incredible Seattle Mariners, who until recently were in first.

The Mariners are a great team, with a ton of great bats, a pretty sharp pitching staff, and some generally awesome momentum. However, looking at a lot of their wins, I see that they're a bit close, with several different games across the hot streak NEEDING the use of a closer. So this could be attributed to the fact that while the Mariners can hit, they're not exactly great at blowouts quite yet. So, they'd need someone like Diaz more than usual, hence the 26 saves in June.

So, back to Diaz. With the close-game tendency of the Mariners, does Edwin Diaz deserve to be the best closer in baseball right now? Well...he sort of does. Diaz is a perfectly good closer, and while I don't think he's at the level of the elites of closing (Kimbrel, Chapman, Kenley Jansen before I get yelled at by Dodger fans), I do think this season is audition to be considered at that level. It could backfire, and he could go the route of Trevor Rosenthal, but if the question is 'does he have 26 saves because he's good, or because the Mariners are good?', I'd say yes to both. I don't think he's a fluke. I think this has been building for the last 2 years, and COULD be the new normal.

I might keep this section going everytime I write about a closer. It's rather fun to analyze this sort of thing.

Coming Tonight: After a season of medical leave, he's heading up a rotation for a team that has fallen a bit in the last month.