Alan Schwarz----Recent access to research allows late inning relievers credit they've deserved

Alan: people have mistakenly assumed so-called closers were only 1 inning pitchers, as Eckersley was. They didn't look at the facts, eg. Goose Gossage had 4.7 outs/save. (Lee Smith had 3.2 outs/ save, & Eckersley 3.3 outs/save). Alan uses free services like retrosheet. In the case of Jim Rice, he looks at home/road splits: Rice ops home=.920; ops away=.789, etc. Steiner asks why so many voters change their votes over the years. Schwarz answer: "They're foolish." They don't do the homework required. Alan writes for the NY Times, whose employees aren't allowed to vote on baseball awards.

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