Closers merely conclude what is usually a foregone conclusion.

tell that to the cardinals this year.

For a minute, I thought ESPN was reporting that Jim Caple had the most overrated position in sports.

Dang, I just submitted this.

Don't just read the excerpt; it really is a great article (for ESPN.)

Indeed, my post was going to be: Reporter!

What drives me crazy about the closer "position" is that it's gotten to a point where even when it's clear the closer is going through a stretch where he doesn't have his best stuff, he's still thrown out there to "close" the game because, well, he's the closer! Nevermind if someone else in the pen is currently throwing the ball better. And, hoo boy, if a manager where to temporary relegate a "proven closer" for a bit, then it's a gigantic Favre-ian level controversy. (Yes, I know I'm exaggerating.)

Caple starts by saying that win probabilities in "save situations" have remained constant across all eras and reliever usages, then proceeds to talk about the good old Gossage days when they called them "firemen" - and win probabilities were still the same as they've always been.

tell that to the cardinals this year.

Funnily enough, Tony LaRussa is probably the originator of the modern "closer" role.

Managers love modern bullpen roles, because it removes all responsibility from them. If you use the guys in their defined roles and they blow the game, well, the relievers simply didn't do their job. It's become the GM's job to find better relievers, not the manager's job to figure out how to use the relievers they have.

This is why every team needs four or five or six decent relievers, as opposed to the two or three you needed in before the LaRussa era.

I liked this:

Goose Gossage, newly enshrined in the Hall of Fame, pitched when relievers actually worked for a living and were called firemen, not closers. Back then, a team's relief ace came to the rescue when needed, regardless of the inning. They didn't need a "save situation." If the alarm bells were ringing, smoke was filling the stadium and mothers were ready to toss their babies from the upper deck, they raced to the mound. No wonder they needed bullpen carts back then -- they were in such a hurry to douse the flames, they should have had Dalmations riding with them. Contrast that with today's closers who show up to claim credit with the reporters after the set-up men already have the flames under control.

win probabilities were still the same as they've always been.

Which is actually an indictment of the "closer's" role. Bullpens are much larger, more expensive (relative to the payroll as a whole), and more specialised than they were in years past, and it hasn't done anything to help teams win ballgames.

then it's a gigantic Favre-ian level controversy. (Yes, I know I'm exaggerating.)


I hear the IOC will suspend the Olympics during breaking Favre news.

Caple starts by saying that win probabilities in "save situations" have remained constant across all eras and reliever usages, then proceeds to talk about the good old Gossage days when they called them "firemen" - and win probabilities were still the same as they've always been.

Win probabilities with a lead in the 9th inning. He doesn't say whether win probabilities with a lead in the 7th and 8th have gone up or done. If his theory is correct, they should have gone down. The indictment of the modern closer isn't that closers don't help you win if you lead in the 9th - they do. But its at the same rate of success as back in the 70s when closers were used differently. And the bigger indictment is that modern closers aren't asked to pitch in the 7th and 8th, when presumably more leads are being blown because inferior relievers are being used.

Caple starts by saying that win probabilities in "save situations" have remained constant across all eras and reliever usages, then proceeds to talk about the good old Gossage days when they called them "firemen" - and win probabilities were still the same as they've always been.

Modern closers. They've been like that all down through the ages.

And the bigger indictment is that modern closers aren't asked to pitch in the 7th and 8th, when presumably more leads are being blown because inferior relievers are being used.

They aren't. There has been little change in the distribution of blown leads as bullpen usage patterns have changed. Which is why I suggest that we should look elsewhere when we look at reasons for the changes in bullpen usage, besides on-field results.

-- MWE

Thank goodness he got Papelbon's thoughts on the subject... I'm a big fan of his scholarly treatises on baseball statkeeping.

They aren't. There has been little change in the distribution of blown leads as bullpen usage patterns have changed.

Interesting. Can you cite a source? I'd be curious to see how little change there has been.

Whitey Herzog had a lot of success with a closer by committee.

I only see two years in Herzog's career where he actually did this: 1976 and 1977 in KC.

-- MWE

Can you cite a source?

My own research, which will be published here sometime before I go to SF in October.

-- MWE

"Whitey Herzog had a lot of success with a closer by committee," Beane says. "Although now that I think back on it, I'm not sure they called it 'closer by committee' back then. I think then it was just called 'using your bullpen wisely.' Then closers became 'specialists.'"

Interestingly:

Geren opens up the closer role

hasn't done anything to help teams win ballgames

You don't know that, because you don't have a control group showing what would have happened if they had not changed anything. They didn't just spontaneously decide to change bullpen usage one day for fun. Things gradually evolved (or de-evolved) in response to other factors in the game - probably the most prominent being limiting all pitcher workloads to try and prevent injury. (I know; someone's going to cite some study showing that pitcher injury rates haven't changed, either.)

I only see two years in Herzog's career where he actually did this: 1976 and 1977 in KC.

There's also 1985 in St. Louis. Before that season started, Bruce Sutter walked away as a free agent, leading to the general MSM reaction that the Cardinals were doomed because they had no closer. For the bulk of the season, Whitey had the RHP/LHP pair of Lahti and Dayley as the two most trusted relievers - the co-closers, more or less. Of course the bigger story was how much he was getting out of his starters, with a good number of complete games and a good number of other deep in the game performances. And this, the starter mileage, was in turn possible because this was a superb defensive team, playing in a HR-unfriendly ballpark, and those starting pitchers threw strikes. Even as the top two relievers, both Lahti and Dayley were used rather lightly. Then, late in the season, Todd Worrell was called up and was immediately installed as the closer. Worrell's usage pattern was pretty much standard (at the time) closer - the only unusual part of it was putting an untried rookie directly into that position.

A save is what it is. You save the game. It’s a situation in which the tying run is at the plate or on deck and the game is on the line.”

Or you have a 3-run lead to start the ninth. Which you win about 97% of the time.

But that counts the same as coming in with the bases loaded and nobody out up by one run.

Interestingly:

Geren opens up the closer role

Thank you Jebus!

you don't have a control group showing what would have happened if they had not changed anything.

You don't need a control group; you just look at conversion rates with the old reliever usage and compare it to the new reliever usage. Are teams leading late more likely to win than they used to be?

They didn't just spontaneously decide to change bullpen usage one day for fun. Things gradually evolved (or de-evolved) in response to other factors in the game - probably the most prominent being limiting all pitcher workloads to try and prevent injury.

"Trying to prevent injury" is a different goal than "trying to win ballgames". Yes, they're connected, in that a healthy pitcher can help you win ballgames down the road that a pitcher on the DL can't, but they're not the same thing. In any case, I fail to see how assigning roles like "set-up man" and "lefty specialist" and "closer" does anything to help teams win ballgames. There were ways to limit the work of top relievers without pigeonholing them into particular roles. I think that the ninth inning has gained a special status, and the thinking is now that one-inning save situations should be the exclusive province of your best (or one of your best) relievers. The question is, is this the best of all possible worlds?

Things gradually evolved (or de-evolved) in response to other factors in the game - probably the most prominent being limiting all pitcher workloads to try and prevent injury.

I would suggest that the goal was not "trying to prevent injury" but "trying to maximize availability".

EDIT: Or rather "trying to maximize the number of available, effective pitchers"

-- MWE

I think there are actually not as many 3-run saves as people imagine, and further I think most teams' closers actually do on average pitch in higher leverage situations than the other relievers on the team. There are a lot of teams where there isn't a whole lot of difference in ability between the closer and the set-up man, but that's more a contract issue than a winning games issue. The guys who tend to last in the closer role are the guys who are the most durable and the most consistent, and there's a lot of value in that, as opposed to having the perfect pitcher on the mound for every particular leverage index.

I think there are actually not as many 3-run saves as people imagine, and further I think most teams' closers actually do on average pitch in higher leverage situations than the other relievers on the team.

Yes, and yes.

-- MWE

Bullpens are much larger, more expensive (relative to the payroll as a whole), and more specialised than they were in years past, and it hasn't done anything to help teams win ballgames.

But only because all teams have done it. If half the teams were pitching their starters for 8 innings per game and pitching the bonus baby/Rube for the other relief innings, while the other half of the league had a modern, highly paid and specialized relief corps, I think you'd see _drastic_ differences between the winning percentages.

My sense of closers is this: a lot of guys could do an adequate job closing; it's not as hard as it's made to seem, nor the talent to do it as scarce as it's made to seem; closers are on the mound in a lot of really tight situations; the great ones excel in those situations. The game allows for them, they sure don't hurt a team trying to one anything; and having a great one helps you win championships. The role, in a sense, may be overrated, but the best guys doing it surely aren't overrated. They are great pitchers, maybe a little underused, is all.

It’s a situation in which the tying run is at the plate or on deck and the game is on the line.”

actually Johnny boy thats not the [whole] rule- but it would be an improvement...

I think there are actually not as many 3-run saves as people imagine, and further I think most teams' closers actually do on average pitch in higher leverage situations than the other relievers on the team.


Yes, and yes.

Really? not having done research myself, I've read that the designated "set up" man typically pitches in higher leverage situations (on average) than the designated closer- the closer does pitch in higher leverage situations than everyone else though.

I've read that the designated "set up" man typically pitches in higher leverage situations (on average) than the designated closer- the closer does pitch in higher leverage situations than everyone else though.

Not true, mostly because the setup man will pitch more often when the team is behind than will the closer.

-- MWE

You don't need a control group; you just look at conversion rates with the old reliever usage and compare it to the new reliever usage. Are teams leading late more likely to win than they used to be?

Not so. With more runs being scored in general these days you should expect leads to be given up more often than in the past.

With more runs being scored in general these days you should expect leads to be given up more often than in the past.

And as I said before, that does not appear to be happening.

-- MWE

1. All grandmothers will believe that you don't get sick from being out in the cold with no jacket on.

2. All Californians will believe that there's no such thing as "earthquake weather."

What are: Things that will happen before the idea that closers are overrated and saves are not a meaningful statistic gains widespread acceptance.

After I wrote what I did in #20 above, I went back and checked the game logs for 1985, and it's not quite as simple as I wrote. Worrell debuted on August 28, but didn't get a save opportunity until a few appearances later. Each of Lahti, Dayley, and Worrell got save opportunities in September, and each of the three got save opportunities in the post-season. In the World Series, Worrell contributed a magnificent 7-out save in Game 1 and an endlessly rehashed blown save and loss in Game 6. It looks like Whitey did truly have a bullpen by committee in Septemeber and October. He'd bring in one of the three top guns in the 7th or 8th, and then decide later whether to leave him in for the 9th or relieve him. It wasn't a set choice and it wasn't a set order of use.

In 1986, Lahti (who had been very good in 1985) disappeared abruptly (injury?) while Dayley saw his role and importance somewhat reduced, perhaps shading a little toward LOOGY. And Worrell emerged as a 100-inning 80's-style closer.

4 run lead, 1 out to go, 2 runners on base. Does it qualify as a save situation? Yes.

Is it a cheap save? Yes, but I'm going to punch anybody who says it's a foregone conclusion. I take that back. Figgins got the walkoff walk in the bottom 9th, so I'm in a good mood. I won't punch anybody for saying that, but I will think you're a moron.

Certainly I think there's something to be said for not letting your best reliever watch some scrub blow the game because it's the 7th or 8th inning. Still, the automatic sticking of the closer in the ninth with a lead has the advantage of reducing decisions the manager has to make regarding bullpen management, which might not necessarily be a bad thing. If you decide you're only going to bring in your best reliever when the "game's on the line", then you have to constantly decide when the game's on the line. That complicates bullpen management a good deal; now you have to get everybody their work in, without overusing anyone, particularly the ace reliever. And it's going to be tough because the game is going to be on the line in the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings a lot.

If you stick the reliever in the 9th, and use your next best guys as set-up men, you have clearly defined roles that provide peace of brain to the bullpen and simplify bullpen management so that the good guys get the majority of important innings and don't get overworked. What's needed, then, is simply the flexibility to bring the closer in in non-save situations when things are tough. Or better yet, optimizing reliever abilities with game situations. Bring the sinking ball pitcher in when you have men on base and less than two out. Bring the fireballing strike-out pitcher when you need that one big strike out.

Is it a cheap save? Yes, but I'm going to punch anybody who says it's a foregone conclusion.

Yeah, that never would have happened to you guys if you had a proven closer.

Wonder which closer has the record for saves with a one game lead in a year.

Really? not having done research myself, I've read that the designated "set up" man typically pitches in higher leverage situations (on average) than the designated closer- the closer does pitch in higher leverage situations than everyone else though.

In "Winners" Dayn Perry looked at the Leverage Index for modern closers vs the classic Gossage-era firemen. He found that closers nowadays actually having higher LIs than the older guys. The trade-off is fewer innings.

Wonder which closer has the record for saves with a one game lead in a year.

Did you mean 1-run lead?

Well, the record for most 1-run victories in a season is 42, by the 1978 Giants (out of 89 wins). They had 29 saves on the season.

The 1969 Mets had 41 1-run games (in 100 wins) and 35 saves. Then again, they also had a lot of great starting pitching so who knows how many of those were complete games. 51 CG, to be exact. (the '78 SFG had 42 CG).

Now, the 1985 Reds had 39 1-run wins (out of 89 overall victories) and 45 saves. Plus 24 CG. Others of note with lots of saves and 1-run victories:

- 1972 White Sox - 38 of their 87 victories were by one run, and 42 saves (even with Wilbur Wood eating all those innings!) 36 CG.

- 1982 Giants - 38 of their 87 wins were 1-runners. 45 saves. 18 CG.

- 1993 Royals - 38 of their 84 wins were 1-run. 48 saves. 16 CG.

- 1991 Cards - 37 1-run wins in 84 victories. 51 saves and 9 CG. I think we've got a winner.

My hunch is either the 1991 Cards or 1993 Royals have the record for most 1-run saves.

Edited to correct one of the numbers.

Caple didn't ask Kyra Sedgwick for her thoughts?

Which is actually an indictment of the "closer's" role. Bullpens are much larger, more expensive (relative to the payroll as a whole), and more specialised than they were in years past, and it hasn't done anything to help teams win ballgames.

As noted, this is likely to be the case if everyone is following the same model and that model works. A better question as to whether bullpen usage has "helped" might be to look at whether a smaller %age of total runs are scored in innings 7-9 than used to be. Certainly the average reliever ERA+ puts the average starter ERA+ to shame ... and this is especially true for short relievers (and always has been if I remember my "study" correctly, though it increased dramatically in the 90s). K-rates for relievers are higher (again I'd assume especially for short relievers ... though I guess they're all short relievers now) and HR rates are down. If memory serves walk rates are a bit higher but I'd guess the unintentional walk rates are the same or lower.

Basically, I'm fairly certain there is a ton of evidence that the average reliever, and especially the set-up and closer guys, are easily out-performing the starters. I'm fairly certain they are easily outperforming the average reliever of earlier eras though one could argue this is an unfair comparison. My recollection is that the advantage of relievers over starters increased as bullpens shifted to these increasingly specialized roles.

The other piece that folks seem to kinda overlook in these discussions is that just because my team has a lead (and maybe even loses that lead) doesn't mean that my team stops scoring.

I think the other piece that's overlooked is that part of the bullpen specialization we see now was a response to the platoon specialization that we used to see on the offensive side. With larger benches, teams used to pretty heavily platoon and it was fairly easy to get the platoon advantage on offense late in the game. The need for larger bullpens and swapping pitchers in and out for less than an IP became an advantage. Of course that advantage required losing (some of) the ability to gain the platoon advantage offensively.

But yes, I think the biggest force has been the drive to limit starters IP/start and pitches. Under current starter usage, teams need on average about 490-500 relief IP a year. In theory you might be able to get that out of 6 relief spots but it won't be easy. I do think they've gone too far in terms of limiting both starter and reliever work loads, if starters are going to go only 6 per start, you need a lot of relievers. And, yes, the other big driving force I think is some mix of reducing the amount of decision-making and a (mistaken?) belief that uber-specialization makes the roles easier to handle.

Yeah, that never would have happened to you guys if you had a proven closer.

Angels have had a lot of games where they take a big lead and give up just enough runs to make it a save situation for K-Rod. The most ridiculous was the 1 pitch effort against Cleveland. They've been tempting karma quite a bit, and last night it almost bit them.

Closers merely conclude what is usually a foregone conclusion.


tell that to the cardinals this year.

The problem wouldn't be nearly as bad if La Russa would evaluate and slot his pitchers based on their talent rather than their job titles.

Closers merely conclude what is usually a foregone conclusion.

I take it Caple hasn't seen these guys pitch in recent years then: Eric Gagne, Bob Wickman, Octavio Dotel, Armando Benitez, Jason Isringhausen, Derrick Turnbow, Joe Borowski, LaTroy Hawkins, Shawn Chacon, Danny Graves, Ryan Franklin...etc...

Don't you just miss the good old days of relievers? When all-time blown-saves leader Goose Gossage used to blow a save in the ninth, after pitching decently through the 8th? That's when closers earned their money!

In '85 Whitey used a bullpen by committee and at the time it was a big deal.

In 1986, Lahti (who had been very good in 1985) disappeared abruptly (injury?)

IIRC, Lahti threw a crapload of sliders and shredded his arm.

I think that if this idea of "using your bullpen wisely (re-)gained widespread acceptance, it would be good for the game of baseball. But I know that it would deal a devastating blow to the game of fantasy baseball. So I'm conflicted.

I understand the logic behind using your "relief ace" in the most important situations in the game but I do believe there is a psychological benefit when relievers know their roles. When a team has a good bullpen with quality setup men, there's little difference between using your "closer" and your setup guys and I think the benefit of knowing your role outweighs that difference.

The 2006 Met bullpen is a good example. They had two good setup men (Sanchez and Heilman) and Wagner. It worked beautifully even though their best reliever didn't always pitch in the most important situations.

Looking at the title, I have to say I don't think of the closer as a position. I mean, is starter a position?

the benefit of knowing your role outweighs that difference

This certainly may be true, but the original benefit to a manager like Herzog was not so much that the pitchers knew their roles as that Whitey knew them. In his book White Rat he talks vividly about having a plan to win each game, knowing who he'd go to from the bullpen to execute it on a given night. This while other managers basically (to Whitey's mind, anyway) let whoever was pitching throw till he got into trouble and then thought up some solution quickly. Pitchers, after all, will adapt, particularly if they'd like to go on making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to throw 15 pitches every other night. But the manager gains a lot of strategic certainty by having a plan, or at least a flow-chart of alternative plans, to work from, rather than making it up as he goes along. The benefit may be psychological, as in your example, but heck, managing is mostly psychology anyway.

I think that if this idea of using your bullpen wisely (re-)gained widespread acceptance, it would be good for the game of baseball.

It's not a foregone conclusion - considering everything, including how relief appearances outside of the high-leverage appearances are being distributed - that bullpens are being used UNwisely.

It may be true that one pitcher - the closer - "could" be used more efficiently. But the flip side is this: if you use the closer in a high-leverage situation before the ninth, who do you use later on those occasions where he fails? Who do you use tomorrow if the closer pitches two innings today? And how and when do you use the REST of your relievers most effectively, given that you are using the closer in a particular way?

Using the entire bullpen wisely might very well mean that you use the closer less often that you might otherwise.

-- MWE

I take it Caple hasn't seen these guys pitch in recent years then: Eric Gagne, Bob Wickman, Octavio Dotel, Armando Benitez, Jason Isringhausen, Derrick Turnbow, Joe Borowski, LaTroy Hawkins, Shawn Chacon, Danny Graves, Ryan Franklin...etc...

Lately, you can add Huston Street to that list.

He's not to be a closer for too much longer, the way he's going.

Cross-posted from a Dugout last year:

GGC won't apologize for liking the Red Sox Posted: November 27, 2007 at 10:25 AM (#2625966)

Late inning leads are being protected more often. If preserving leads is one way to measure bullpens, the modern bullpen is doing okay. Aft 6 = winning pct with a lead after 6, etc...








Peak periods seem to be around 1987-1990 and 2001-2003 (I am curious about what happened around 1957. Was that year a fluke or did something happen in 1958 that bumped up the trend towards more certain victories?) The differences is percentages from year to year seem small, the range is less than 4% and that includes '57. The correlation with runs per game is pretty weak. I thought that leads might be easier to hold in higher scoring years, but there doesn't seem to be much difference. The 5 year moving average trendline for the 9th is pretty flat, but the other two lines undulate a bit like a sinewave.

However, this might not mean that bullpens are getting better. It could mean that Steve Treder's hypothesis is right and that teams don't have the John Lowensteins on the bench to bat for the Mark Belangers.

I gathered these data from the team inning summary pages at bb-ref. Retrosheet has linescores going back to the dark ages, but I haven't begun to look at 1956 and before. For a non-hacker like me, gathering that data seems time-consuming, but there's probably some simple way to grab it.

If preserving leads is one way to measure bullpens, the modern bullpen is doing okay.

You've got to filter based on the size of the lead, of course. Part of the reason teams are blowing fewer leads today is that there are more multi-run leads in the late innings; the average leverage of a late-inning PA has been going down (even after you adjust for the run environment, which you must do with leverage).

-- MWE

Could a higher offensive environment overall cause more games to be blowouts? That could lead to a higher percentage of certain victories.

Another factor could be, of course, the use of bullpens at all. I'll bet that a lot of workhorse starters used to give up a fairly high percentage of their runs in the eighth and ninth innings of games.

[posted at the exact same moment as Mike Emeigh]

FWIW: The period between 1954 and 1960 saw NL teams move to the fireman model, while AL teams (except for the White Sox) did not. AL teams didn't really adopt the fireman until the early 60s. Casey Stengel, despite having guys like Page, Reynolds (in his later years) and Duren who had the reputation of being firemen, didn't really use a single pitcher in the Face/Labine/McDaniel fireman pattern; he would mix and match a lot.

-- MWE

Could a higher offensive environment overall cause more games to be blowouts?

Yes. But that's only part of the effect. GGC's basic conclusion still appears to be correct, even when you account for the size of the lead.

-- MWE

I should make one other quick point here: The way that teams used the ace reliever in high-leverage late inning situations was nearly constant from the mid-70s until the mid-90s. The defining incident on the front end seems to be free agency, which actually appears to have had teams thinking about "protecting" their expensive assets. The defining incident on the back end seems to be the 1994 work stoppage; although teams were starting to introduce LOOGYs and other non-closing specialists for a couple of years before that, the pace of change accelerated after 1994. (LaRussa was not the ONLY instigator, or even the first one, although he WAS an early adopter).

-- MWE

Salomon Torres just picked up a 3-run save in Cincinnati after Eric Gagne faced the much higher leverage situation with 2 on in the bottom of the 8th. See?

GGC's basic conclusion still appears to be correct, even when you account for the size of the lead.

I would assume so due to the large numbers. the large leads should even out unless one can demonstrate the average run differential has changed (runs scored per game of the winning team versus runs scored for the losing team - the difference).

That was sort of what I was thinking; i.e., in a low offense environment, there will be more 1-run games than in a high-offense environment. But I have no idea if that's true or not. (It would be if the environment got low enough that every game was a 1-0 game . . . )