Who Will Close in Minnesota?

We’ve already gone over the trade of Matt Capps from a real-life angle, but most fantasy managers really only want to know one thing: who’s closing in Minnesota now? Incumbent interim closer Jon Rauch has not been great, but he hasn’t been terrible either.

The kicker about this one is how similar these guys are. Just look at their FIPs right now – Capps has a 3.46 FIP, Rauch a 3.42 – and you realize that maybe the Twins didn’t need a second dude just like the first in their bullpen. The comparison runs even deeper than that, as Capps (7.43 K/9) and Rauch (6.34 K/9) are not the traditional closers, but instead are two relievers that rely on control (Capps has a 1.76 BB/9, Rauch a 2.11 BB/9). But already we have a clue here that Capps is teensy bit better, because he is slightly better in both categories.

The nail in the sabremetric coffin, for Rauch, is groundball percentage. He’s a flyball guy, with 33.4% career flyballs and 37.3% this year. Capps, at least this year, is a comparative grass-guzzler, with a 48.3% groundball rate this year. On the other hand, we should be careful not to put too much stock into this number – his career number is much more modest (37.8%), and Capps is now (199 BF) not far past the total batters faced benchmark (150) for groundballs.

Ah, but Capps has 26 saves! Whoo!

The fact that the team traded for him, and his numbers are just slightly better across the board, probably means that Rauch is out of a job. But since the two are so close, Rauch owners should probably hold on to their now-devalued asset for just a little bit to see how things shake out. (That is, unless they can pick up Drew Storen in Washington, who is the favorite there if just because of his recent draft status and age, but that’s enough for another post.)

I’ll leave you with some Twins-centric anger from Aaron Gleeman, who excoriated the trade today on his website, because hey, who better to rant about a move than a die-hard fan of the main team involved:

In reality they traded Ramos for a setup-caliber reliever who accumulated saves on bad teams and is thus overrated and soon overpaid. Among the 93 pitchers who’ve logged 150-plus relief innings in the past three calendar years, Capps ranks 38th in xFIP, 49th in FIP, 50th in ERA, 61st in strikeout rate, and 85th in opponents’ average.

You’d think the Twins would have learned something about the created-not-born nature of the closer role and often spurious value of saves from Rauch’s relatively successful stint filling in for Nathan, but instead they just paid a premium for a guy whose perceived value and ability are much higher than his actual value and ability solely because of his role and save total. Capps is a good reliever, but the Twins paid for a great reliever and did so for all the wrong reasons.