Not the point. The point is Yankee fans tend to deify Rivera and speak of him as though he was "unhittable," infallible, automatic (made all games 8 inning games), etc. As though he was on a completely different level from all other closers. He wasn't. He was a great closer, no question, the best ever, but he also blew a lot of saves, allowed a fairly high percentage of inherited runners to score, and so forth. and given the inherent limitations of a closer, nowhere near top 10 or 20 all time IMO.
And sure, if given a lead and an overwhelming majority of his appearances started with a lead and the bases empty, he very likely would preserve that lead. But as we have seen, that is true for closers in general statistically. Again, yes he was the best of them, but not IMO by such a margin that he should be deified.
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Last edited by Peter_Spaeth; 01-25-2019 at 03:36 PM.
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