You are confused. My argument was not "managers and GMs say this can't be done," it is "no pitchers in modern history have ever done what you claim is possible." Can you really not see the difference? Yes, relievers in the past threw 110 IP, at performance level X. Today they throw 75 IP, but at performance level 2*X. You can't just assert that it's possible to do 110/2*X, and demand that others prove you wrong.

I don't think I did that. In any event, I'd settle for having them pitch the proper 75 innings.

However, it does not follow that because current bullpen usage is sub-optimal, the bullpen model which held in the 1970s is superior.

Nobody has said that as far as I can tell. I've been saying that the bullpen of today is better, but has a way to go, and unfortunately it's not going to improve, as long as the save stat is still getting credence. The save stat is preventing optimum bullpen usage, it's that simple, to not see that is to ignore the game going on right in front of you.

#141 Yeah, but really is 5 years an indication of a problem? Eck only had 4 great years under fairly gentle handling.

Some pitchers are going to break under almost any workload. The issue is how you go about maximizing value in both the short and long(er) term. Don't sweat the real long term because you don't own that. Not that there's any indication that James' propose handling is long-term destructive.

In contrast, I once went through the established starters of the 1969 season and it was startling the number of guys who had been pushed too hard and had broken. There's empirical evidence that old starter workloads were just too heavy for most pitchers to handle.

dlf -- as I've pointed out many times before, James has quite literally never advocated (or even used the words before that article) closer by committee. Other statheads have to be sure, but James wasn't advocating old style handling (best reliever first in)

And in the article I'm quoting from, there is a clear role for the relief ace. It's just not designated save accumulator. The relief ace would absolutely know his role under those handling rules. (It's late, it's close)

I agree. The problem is that for every Duane Ward who gives you huge value, you're going to lose out on several more potential Duane Wards who either get hurt or don't pitch as well with a less structured workload.

First of all, Ward's workload was pretty structured. Anybody who watched the Jays then could absolutely predict when Ward was coming in.

Second, what evidence do you have to support the assertion that Ward's handling is generally destructive?

I've been saying that the bullpen of today is better, but has a way to go, and unfortunately it's not going to improve, as long as the save stat is still getting credence.

Well, I think a lot of people (Bill James for one) have been advocating for a significantly larger and less structured role for a relief ace. To Ron, I'd say that "late and close" is a role, but it is not nearly as structured a role as "9th inning, lead <3 runs". Also, one of the major keys to contemporary reliever usage has been the strong preference for your best pitchers to start an inning. A relief ace / "late and close" role is one with a much higher percentage of middle-inning appearances. That's a role, but it's a role that the contempoary system has gotten away from in a quite definitive way.

I'm proposing that the role of the relief ace should be basically the same, except that a lot of +3 9ths should be shuffled to secondary relievers, while all tied 9ths should be assigned to the relief ace. That's a shift which retains the basic structure of the role, and the high level of structure in bullpen usage that dominates the game, but moves a few innings around for purposes of optimization.

Second, what evidence do you have to support the assertion that Ward's handling is generally destructive?

I'm looking at Mike's data showing improved outcomes in the super-structured bullpen era, and GuyM's data showing the increased effectiveness of contemporary bullpens in important situations.

Quoting GuyM from the last page:

In short, everything we know tells us that the less often you use a pitcher (within reason), and the fewer innings you ask him to pitch, the more effective he will be. This is perhaps the most important truth that baseball has discovered over the past 3 decades -- vastly more important than the importance of OBP -- and yet many fans continue to miss this simple truth.

I've always felt (without actually doing the analysis) that part of the problem with reliever usage these days is they've substituted frequency for innings. So instead of asking a pitcher to pitch 100 innings over 60 games, they're pitching 75 innings over 75 games. I think extra rest days would allow them to pitch more overall innings.

Today they throw 75 IP, but at performance level 2*X. You can't just assert that it's possible to do 110/2*X, and demand that others prove you wrong. It's like observing that some Olympians run 100 meters in under 10 seconds, while others run 800 meters at a much slower rate, and so we should just enter some of those 100-meter guys in the 800-meter races and blow the field away by running at their sub-10 second pace.

You're begging the very question at issue. The blithe assumption that someone like John Axford (not to single him out, since there are dozens like him) is pitching at a "faster pace" than someone like Danny Darwin or Rich Gossage (*) is just that -- a blithe assumption. Certainly, their strikeout totals don't show it -- in years like 1977 and 1980, Gossage's strikeout rate was significantly better than Axford's adjusted for environment (**). Axford might have had two decent seasons as a "closer" because he was used correctly -- or, just as likely, had two decent seasons that were merely a function of momentum and small sample size.

And even if it's true, you have to account for the fact that the "pace" at which a modern closer pitches means that he's leaving 60+ innings of slack that a Gossage or a Darwin wouldn't have left for someone else to pick up. Those innings have to be pitched by someone presumably not as good as Axford, with the attendant risk that the manager picks the wrong pitchers to pitch them.

(*) 141 IP, all in relief at a 212 ERA+ in 1973; 133 IP, all in relief at a 244 ERA+ in 1977; 134 IP, all in relief at a 181 ERA+ in 1978, etc.

(**) Gossage 1977 -- 10.2 K/9, league 5.4. Gossage 1980 -- 9.4K/9, league 4.6. Axford, 2011 -- 10.5 K/9, league 7.3. Axford, 2012 -- 12.1 K/9, league 7.7.

In short, everything we know tells us that the less often you use a pitcher (within reason), and the fewer innings you ask him to pitch, the more effective he will be. This is perhaps the most important truth that baseball has discovered over the past 3 decades -- vastly more important than the importance of OBP -- and yet many fans continue to miss this simple truth.


If this is true -- and it likely is -- then it calls the typical methods of cross-era comparisons into question for starting pitchers as well. If 21st century starters were able to pitch at a faster pace, then they were engaging in a structurally different activity than their predecessors and things like ERA+ don't really work as well as everyone assumes.

This is probably the most plausible explanation for the dearth of 70s/80s era pitchers in the HOF, and for the generally higher top-end ERA+s in the 90s and 21st c. Pedro Martinez was asked to go balls out as long as he could; Dave Steib's marching orders were completely different.

You can certainly make it more structured than "late & close". Like "8th inning tied or ahead by one".

I'm never very convinced with the 'we can't fix it 100% so why bother at all' arguments.

Just as many of us aren't going to clamor for a solution (partial or complete) to a condition that is not generally agreed to be a problem.