I saw a recent Fan Post about a podcast where Max Kellerman and Steve Phillips were talking stats.  Somebody mentioned that the greatest line from their debate was, "That’s why Billy Beane fools guys like you. He installs mediocrities as the closer, they run up 40 saves, and then he trades them to you for something good".  I have to wonder, is this really true?  Is the closer position nothing more than a revolving door of mediocre players who collect an overrated stat?  So I decided to take a look at the closers for the A’s over the past ten years.  Here are my preliminary findings.

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First, a few notes.  Street was injured for a majority of 2007, but did manage to rack up 16 saves.  As such, I used both him and Alan Embree.  The category "BA Rankings" are taken from Baseball America’s All-Time Top 100 Prospects, which tracks the top 100 prospects from 2007 to 1991.  "1st Year" refers to the first year that the player saw the Majors.

• Huston Street – It did not take long for Street to make his way to the Majors, but that is what you expect from a college pitcher.  Being drafted in the first round would certainly indicate that Street had talent.  He only ranked 97th on the 2005 list of the top 100 prospects, but John Sickels said in February of that same year that he was the A’s third best prospect, and gave him a grade of an A-.  In his first season, Street put up an ERA+ of 253, and won Rookie of the Year honors.
  
• Alan Embree – Embree has never really been a closer, as he has never recorded more than two saves prior to 2007.  All of this changed when Street went on the DL for most of the season.  He was drafted in the fifth round, so somebody thought he would have some talent.  He also made it to 44th our of the top 100 prospects in 1993.  You will notice, however, that he first saw the Majors in 1992.  This was only for four games, and he would go back to the minors until 1995.  He has shown flashes of brilliance (298 ERA+ in 36 games for the Padres in 2002), but has offset these years by crashing back down to sucktitude (58 ERA+ in 2005).  He finished the 2006 season with an ERA+ of 124.  Embree seemingly fits the mold of the mediocre closer, but he was not the closer by design.
  
• Octavio Dotel – The Mets signed Dotel as an amateur free agent in 1993, and within six years he was ranked 45th out of the top 100 prospects in baseball.  Once the Mets traded him to Houston, he established himself as one of the best setup men in the game, with his peak coming in 2002..  In ’04, the Astros jumped at the chance to bring in Carlos Beltran, and sent Dotel and his declining game to Oakland.  His ERA+ was 140 at the time of the trade (it was 176 and 234 the previous two seasons).
  
• Keith Foulke – Foulke was drafted in the ninth round in 1994.  He was the only player on the aforementioned list not to make the top 100 prospects as a minor leaguer (Taylor does not count because the list does not go back that far).  Ostensibly, Foulke would be the type of "mediocre" players Beane turns into super stars.  However, in the six years prior to hi time with the A’s, Foulke managed 34-save and 42-save season. His WHIP was either right at, or just below 1.00, and he once posted an ERA+ of 221..  Mediocre, Foulke was not.  In 2002, however, he only managed eleven saves, and his strikeouts were dropping.  As a result, he was traded away.
  
• Billy Koch – Toronto drafted Koch in the first round in 1996.  He is the only player on this list who made the top 100 prospects twice before getting called to the Majors.  Koch was dominant his first two years (I believe he could hit 100 MPH with ease).  While he set a personal best with respect to saves in his third season (36), his ERA+ was down by almost 100 points.  Since Beane was dangling Eric Hinske, the Jays decided to let Oakland deal with this rapidly declining player.
  
• Jason Isringhausen – Getting drafted in the 44th round would certainly seem like a player is destined for mediocrity, but that was not the case with Isringhausen.  He made quite a leap going from the 44th round to number 37 out of the top 100 prospects in 1995.  In his first season, he had an ERA+ of 145 over 93 innings, a 1.28 WHIP, and finished fourth in the Rookie of the Year balloting.  Over the next two years, his performance decreased (84 ERA+, 1.532 WHIP and 54 ERA+, 2.09 WHIP).  Needing to improve the bullpen, the Mets sent him to Oakland for Billy Taylor.
  
• Billy Taylor – From the time he was drafted (1980 by the Rangers) to the time he saw the Majors, fourteen years elapsed.  He bounced around the minor leagues for four different teams, and was even a Rule V draft pick, though he was later returned to his original team.  He finally got a chance with the A’s.  He had a decent career, as his ERA+ never dropped below 115, and he even reached 33 saves at one point.  At 36 years of age, Beane knew that Taylor was not going to improve, and who knew when he would start his decline. 
  

Looking back on Beane’s closers, it is hard to say that they are a group of mediocre players.  Most of the Oakland closers were drafted relatively high, with two going in the first round and another in the second round.  Even those who were not drafted high (or even at all) had established themselves as one of the best minor league players.  Moreover, by the time they donned an Oakland uniform, their minor league success had, to some degree or another, carried over to the Majors.  Rather than seeking out any old mediocre player, Beane is looking for talented players who are having a mediocre (at least with regards to their previous performance) season.  Kellerman is right when he says that Beane leverages saves to his advantage, but he is looking for a very specific type of player.

There are, however, a few outliers; Taylor and Street.  Street was the first closer of Beane era who was drafted by the Oakland A’s, he has the longest tenure as a closer, and he was a blue chip prospect.  In addition to getting lots of saves, Street’s other stats (at least prior to this season) confirmed that his success is sustainable.  Lastly, the remnants of the reserve clause mean Street will be affordable.  Once Street proves to be ineffective or too costly, Beane will once again interchange closers until a cheap, internal option presents itself.

Of all of the closers during Beane’s tenure, Taylor is the only one who fits the bill of being a "mediocre player" who racks up saves.  Even though Baseball America does not have a ranking for Taylor, the fourteen years between being drafted and seeing the Majors says more than enough.  Taylor was already on the roster by the time Beane became GM, and had racked up 17 saves in ’96.  While other pitchers had a better ERA+, Taylor had the best K/BB ratio.  The job was his to lose.

To say that Beane thinks saves are a meaningless stat would be disingenuous.  Each season (excluding 2007), the A’s have one pitcher who records the majority of saves for the team.  The A’s do not eschew the role of a closer, but they realize that relief pitching is highly volatile.  Most teams generally buy into the notion that they need an established closer to compete, and the ’04 Red Sox provide a very convincing argument.  Thus the A’s buy low hoping for an upswing in performance, and sell when the closer is most appealing to other teams.