Story by Ken Duke | Photos by Tanner & Travis Lyons
In baseball, a closer is the relief ace who comes out of the bullpen to preserve a small lead and “save” the game. A lot of people think New York Yankee great Mariano Rivera was the greatest closer in baseball history.
But what about closers in bass fishing? We’d all agree that a strong final round is critical if an angler is going to have a chance to win or earn a high finish. Who’s the best closer in the NPFL this year?
To answer that question, we’ll turn to my favorite statistic, “Angler Against Average” or AAA.
What is AAA? I’m glad you asked! It’s a scoring system whereby angler performance each day, each event, each season, or over the course of a career can be calculated. Just divide an angler’s catch weight by the average catch weight of that day, event, season, etc. A score of 1.0 is average. If an angler’s AAA score is 1.25, he is 25% better than average. If it’s 0.5, he’s performing 50% below average.
Over the course of a competition day or even a season, AAA may loosely follow the tournament or Angler of the Year standings. What I like about it is that it’s more nuanced than AOY points, which are linear (250 for first place, 249 for second place, etc.), and AAA allows for greater precision of comparison across seasons or careers.
The points system for Progressive Angler of the Year has a lot to recommend it. It’s simple and straightforward. If you win a tournament, you get 250 points. Second place gets 249, and so on.
AAA is more complicated and more precise. If you win the tournament by a wide margin, it reflects that. You get more value than a single AOY point.
Is that geeky enough for you? If not, keep reading these “A Closer Look” stories. I’ll have you begging for mercy or begging for more soon enough.
Now, back to our question: Who’s the best closer in the NPFL this year? For this, we’re only going to look at performances on Day 3 of the four events that are in the books.
The answer is Drew Cook … and it’s not close (no pun intended). Cook is strong every day of the tournament. He scores at 42% better than average on Day 1 and at 39% better than average on Day 2, but he’s a whopping 81% better than average in the final round — significantly better than second place.
Why? Who knows? We’ll have to ask Drew for that … and we will, Maybe he’s able to expand his pattern as the tournament progresses. Maybe he just finds a higher competitive gear as the event goes along. Whatever it is, Drew Cook is someone you do not want to see in your rear view mirror if you have a meagre lead going into Day 3 because he’s definitely going to catch ’em.
Here are the top 10 closers so far in 2024. As you can see by their AAA numbers, they’re all well above average when it comes to producing in the finals. I’ve included their Progressive AOY ranking so you can see there’s definitely a correlation between closing ability and points … though in a couple of cases they don’t tell the full story.
# Angler AAA AOY
1. Drew Cook 1.81 2
2. Patrick Walters 1.65 28
3. Trent Palmer 1.62 5
4. Hunter Sales 1.61 3
5. Jason Williamson 1.61 12
6. Louis Fernandes 1.57 6
7. Kyle Welcher 1.54 1
8. Zack Birge 1.53 32
9. Rob Wroblewski 1.48 31
10. Jesse Millsaps 1.48 11
Cook, Palmer, Sales, Williamson, Fernandes, Welcher, and Millsaps are self-explanatory. They’re all strong closers and all in the top dozen of AOY because they’re also well above average on Days 1 and 2.
Patrick Walters was a standout on all three days of events prior to the stop at Saginaw Bay. Tough Days 1 and 2 in Michigan dropped his numbers for those days, but he bounced back with a stellar Day 3 to prove he’s one of the best bass anglers in the world even when things aren’t going his way.
Zack Birge’s AAA numbers don’t match up with his AOY ranking (32nd) until you realize he missed the season opener at Logan Martin in Alabama. Had he fished that event and posted what for him is an ordinary finish, he’d rank in the top five of AOY.
Rob Wroblewski may have the most interesting numbers. He’s a standout on Day 3 — 48% better than average — but his weights hover right around average on Days 1 and 2. Once he figures out the path to a faster start, he’ll charge up the AOY leaderboard.
