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Originally Posted by Ike348
True but WAR stands for "wins above replacement player". If a readily available replacement player would have cost his team 6 more games than my close, than my closer would technically have 6 "wins above replacement". Of course, you can't actually assign a saves value to a replacement player.
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A save can be blown in any inning in any situation, and definitely not all save situations are created equally. That's why it's impossible to use saves in a WAR context. As an example look at Mark Eichhorn from 1986. 14-5, 1.72 ERA, 157.0 IP, 7.4 rWAR, but only 10/14 in save situations. His running mate Tom Henke had a slightly better save percentage at 27/35, and went 9-5, 3.35 ERA, 91.1 IP, but only 1.5 rWAR. Eichhorn was pitching earlier in the game and probably in the higher leverage situations, which is what led to a higher blown save rate, but clearly he was the more valuable pitcher. Henke's stuff is what led to his use as a closer, but hitters could not touch Eichhorn (at least not that year) and his funky sidearm delivery.