N.Y. TIMES
...on a late-spring afternoon in the twilight of a career, Rivera set down the Los Angeles Dodgers in order — flyout, strikeout, strikeout, the last against Yasiel Puig, the Cuban phenom born a few months after Rivera went pro 23 years ago. And in his three outings since, Rivera has allowed 2 of the 11 batters he has faced to reach base, resuming at age 43 his parsimonious ways, having allowed in his 19 big-league seasons one batter to reach base per inning.
Since his debut in 1995, Rivera has thrown 1,2482/3
innings and allowed a combined 1,253 walks and hits. His career WHIP — walks
plus hits divided by innings pitched — is almost exactly 1.00.
How remarkable is that? Of the roughly 1,000 pitchers
who have thrown at least 1,000 innings in a span going back nearly a hundred
years, Rivera is the only one to keep batters off base at such a high rate. The
average WHIP today, according to Elias, is 1.29, a full 29 percent higher.
Rivera’s only peers played a century ago. They are Addie Joss of Cleveland
(0.97) and Ed Walsh of Chicago (1.00), the only pitchers, according to Elias, to
throw at least 1,000 innings and post career WHIPs of 1.00 or less. Joss and
Walsh, who retired in 1910 and 1917, played in the dead-ball era, when pitching
dominated; Rivera has thrown his cutter through two decades of steroid use and
often booming offenses.
Six of the 10 leaders in
career WHIP are in the Hall of Fame, including Joss and Walsh. Among the
other four are Rivera and Pedro Martinez, who are shoo-ins for the Hall, and
Trevor Hoffman, who might make it, too. The closest active pitcher is the
Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw (28th, at 1.117).
“It’s essentially the pitcher’s equivalent of on-base
percentage,” said Michael Fishman, the Yankees’
director of quantitative analysis, likening WHIP to O.B.P., a staple stat to
measure batters.
By just about every metric, simple or complex, Rivera
is the greatest relief pitcher ever. His 634 career saves and 2.20 career E.R.A.
are tops among relievers. His adjusted E.R.A.+ — a new statistic that accounts
for pitchers’ abilities across different ballparks and epochs — is far and away
the best in history.
And his postseason numbers are even better. In 141
postseason innings, Rivera has a laughably low 0.70 E.R.A., a WHIP of 0.76 and
42 saves.
Okrent and Fishman said that Rivera’s game nonetheless
defies objective analysis.
“To me, the miracle of Mariano is that he only throws
one pitch,” he said of Rivera’s cut
fastball. [This is a great video which precisely analyses Rivera's great success.] “It just doesn’t make any sense.”
As batters who have faced Rivera will say, they do not
hit Rivera hard for the same reason he has dominated them with but one pitch:
that pitch is uniquely good, with late movement that has broken an enormous
number of their bats.
If others attribute Rivera’s success to his cutter,
Rivera attributes his cutter to Christ. Stitched into his glove is “Phil. 4:13,”
the verse in the biblical book of Philippians that reads, “I can do all things
through Christ who strengthens me.”
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... pitcher Andy Pettitte, a winner of 250 big-league games (71 saved by Rivera),
marvels at his teammate.
“His mechanics are perfect,” Pettitte said. “And he
only throws one pitch.”
...He said that Rivera’s WHIP was so low because of his
unequaled ability “to command the zone.” By this he means that Rivera can always
throw a pitch where and how he wants.
For this reason, Rivera is as easy to catch as he is
hard to hit.
“You know where it’s coming,” said Jose Molina, a
veteran catcher who caught Rivera over three seasons, from 2007-9. “He’s going
to hit his spot.”
That spot, [Yankee catcher Chris] Stewart added, is “usually in to the lefties, away from the
righties.”
Everybody knows this — Rivera, the catcher, the
umpire, the batter, the fielders, too. And so, when Rivera takes the mound,
there is an inevitability about what will happen that is largely absent in
sports.
Everybody knows this — Rivera, the catcher, the
umpire, the batter, the fielders, too. And so, when Rivera takes the mound,
there is an inevitability about what will happen that is largely absent in
sports.
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Because Rivera retires nearly every batter he faces,
he can pitch over and again. This is the greatest benefit of his low WHIP.
“It’s quick innings,” Larry Rothschild, the Yankees’
pitching coach, said.
Reliever Dave Robertson, who often pitches just before
Rivera, added, “It means he’s available tomorrow.”
Rivera has few tomorrows left on the field. But on the
last day of spring in his last season, he seemed only happy, singing a Spanish
song as he sat at his locker in his uniform, preparing to do what he has done
better than any other pitcher for 100 years: prevent batters from advancing the
90 feet from home plate to first base.