Many saves, high ERA

In honor of Kevin Gregg, I played around with Baseball Reference’s Play Index and came up with a list of closers with the highest ERA.  More specifically, these are the pitchers with the most saves in a season among those with an adjusted ERA of 70 or less. 

    Player            SV ERA+   ERA  Year Age
+----+-----------------+--+----+------+----+---+
    1 Shawn Chacon      35   69   7.11 2004  26 
    2 Mike Williams     28   69   6.14 2003  33 
    3 Derrick Turnbow   24   66   6.87 2006  28 
    4 Jose Mesa         24   61   6.52 2003  37 
    5 Brad Lidge        23   60   7.21 2009  32 
    6 Matt Capps        21   64   6.41 2009  25 
    7 Rob Dibble        19   62   6.48 1993  29 
    8 Dave Smith        17   65   6.00 1991  36 
    9 Willie Hernandez  15   67   5.74 1989  34 
   10 Darold Knowles    15   66   5.81 1975  33 

 

Full list here.

Only 2004 Shawn Chacon of (you guessed it) the Colorado Rockies, breaks the 30 save mark.  He had a 1-9 record to go with his 7.11 ERA. 

Five more over 20 and it pretty much dissolves after that. 

In 1998, Mark Wohlers of the Braves managed to get 8 saves in 27 games with an ERA in the double digits (10.18)