Opening with the Closer
Thursday, February 5, 2009 13:43
It’s never too early to berate baseball’s managerial decisions.
Not much in life is guaranteed. However, I believe I can guarantee a method whereby a professional baseball team can win at least a half dozen more games a season. All it will take is one simple change. Get rid of the “closer” and change him to a “stopper”.
Seriously, in a game ruled by statistics, I am amazed that this little ritual has survived. Is there another sport that saves one of their best players until they may NOT be needed? Did the Bulls only bring in Michael Jordan for the last shot in the fourth quarter? Okay, not a perfect analogy because these guys can…ahem…“only” pitch one inning. But really, what is the point of bringing in a closer only in the 9th inning? How about in the 7th inning when you are up by one run and they have the bases loaded? No, let’s bring in our second or third best relief pitcher, get down by a run and then never use our best pitcher. Or, we can wait until the ninth inning and we’re up by 3 and facing the 7-8-9 hitters. (Okay, the opponents MAY use a pinch hitter here, but really, if these pinch hitters were the best players on the team they would be playing not riding the pine most of the time.)
You can probably argue until you’re blue in the face about the wisdom of the “ping pong” style, right hander, left hander, right hander, left hander match up games they play to scrape out some statistical advantage. I like to think of this as going through the bullpen until we find the one pitcher having a bad day. I also hate how this has destroyed the pace of a game, but if they think it’s an advantage, so be it. However, how any manager can really believe that only using their closer in the ninth inning is the best strategy is totally beyond me. One might argue there are other “match up” considerations, like a strikeout pitcher, versus a ground ball inducing pitcher, but I rarely hear a manager say he went through that thought process.
Use your best players in the most important situations. Bring them in as “stoppers”. Relegating them to one particular inning and situation (and if you get to the World Series two innings) is moronic. I know their contracts are written for saves, but I’m sure we can switch that to ERA or some other “meaningless” statistic. I’m sure someone can write a simulation program to show that this strategy would result in more wins. But who wants to buck tradition with something as insignificant as winning?
P.S. As a Baltimore fan I can tell you the Orioles have managed (particularly in the second half of the season) to avoid this controversy. They simply make sure they never have the lead in the 9th inning!
Nate Barlow
says:
February 6th, 2009 at 1:55 am
Even as recently as the 80s, complete games were more common, and if a team brought in a closer, they often did go multiple innings and were the stopper you described. Too much specialized pitching these days.
Allan
says:
February 6th, 2009 at 2:15 am
True! I may be wrong to call it a tradition. It's a new tradition, every bit as good as many of the others – like massive deficit spending (okay every society gets to that before it collapses). And then there's the Gatorade bath…can we move on from that one please?