the guts, the pluck, the spirit, the moxie, the cojones, the courage, the bravery, the backbone, the grit, the fire, the fearlessness, the toughness, the determination, the audacity, the boldness, the spine, the mettle

Whatever the reasons for this phenomenon—and I’m sure I’m missing some reasons—I’d love to create a cliche. I’d love for this cliche to be: The toughest three outs in baseball are the first three outs.

I'm pushing for the 5th, 12th and 19th outs.

This would seem to be an indictment of the current policy of robotically pulling pitchers after they throw a scoreless inning because it's now the "Nth" inning, and that's the new guy's "role."

I agree. I fear that the closer gets to throw the 9th only because management stupidly overpaid for their services and actually believe that one inning saves are a valid statistic.

I think the causation might be the other way sort of. The closer demands to throw the 9th because he knows that getting saves will get him more money in the future. Management doesn't want to piss him off, so they let him do it.

Before I get into this, though -- and, yes, we are going to go pretty deep into this -- I would like to say a few words about how baseball’s immenseness and complications seem to lead people to just say stuff that sounds right in their minds. I thought I might have mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, but maybe I didn’t: I was watching a game on television and Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano struck out looking. Tim McCarver was doing the game, and he immediately said something like: “We just saw an extremely rare thing. Robinson Cano almost never strikes out looking.”

I thought: How could he possibly know that? Did McCarver happen to have a list of batters who rarely strike out looking right in front of him? Did one of his fine statisticians happen to scan that list the second it happened and whisper it in his ear? Did he recall the statistic from some previous conversation? Not impossible, I suppose. But not likely. I think it’s much more likely that McCarver simply deduced that Cano probably doesn’t strike out looking much. He probably could not remember seeing him strike out looking. And, hey, it does SOUND right. Cano doesn’t strike out all that much looking OR swinging (he’s never whiffed 100 times in a year) and he’s a hacker so it just figures that he probably wouldn’t strike out looking very often.

But the point is not whether he was right or wrong.* The point is, I’m guessing McCarver had absolutely no idea if it was true beyond what his gut was telling him. I’m sure it just SOUNDED right. So he said it.

*It took a while, but I did look it up: Cano does not strike out very often looking, but it’s not exactly a Royal wedding kind of occurrence. Last year, he struck out looking 2.2% of the time, which is a fairly low percentage but wasn’t in the Top 25 among hitters with 400-plus at-bats. The year before that it was 1.3% of the time, which did put him in the Top 10, but still well behind guys like Miguel Tejada and Jason Kendall. The year before that it was 1.6% which put him about 20th. Like I say, he doesn’t strike out looking a lot, but it’s hardly noteworthy. Vlad Guerrero now THERE’S a guy who hardly ever strikes out looking.

This is no great crime, of course. I think this tendency for people to say what just sort of sounds right to them -- without actually checking to see if it is true -- is an immutable part of the human psyche. I would guess we all fall for it. I would also guess that in the last three days at least one person, and probably more than one -- from an array of friends, relatives, neighbors, co-workers -- has told you something directly in your field of expertise or line of interest that is undeniably and unquestionably wrong. But it SOUNDS right, at least to them, so they say it. And say it. And say it. And, often, they say it with conviction. I can only imagine how many times someone went up to Albert Einstein to tell him some right-sounding point about the theory of relativity.

Getting 45 saves versus 5 (or less) definitely helps a reliever get more money, but I don't think teams would necessarily value a closer with 45 saves more than a closer who only got 35 saves because he was brought in to more tie games.

I have heard, true or not, that some relief pitchers have it in their contract that they can only be used in save situations or only a limited # of times in non save situations.

I have heard, true or not, that some relief pitchers have it in their contract that they can only be used in save situations or only a limited # of times in non save situations.

In my experience, I always found that the toughest outs were the first ones when entering the game whether you were starting or relieving.

...Whatever the reasons for this phenomenon—and I’m sure I’m missing some reasons—I’d love to create a cliche. I’d love for this cliche to be: The toughest three outs in baseball are the first three outs. it may not sound true. And it doesn’t really fill our irresistible need for clarity and finality

Teams score more runs in the first inning than any other inning...

Therefore, the toughest out to get is the 79th. It's literally never been done.

C'mon, I want one of you to go total nerd on this. Of the 27 outs, which has more batters between the previous out and this one?

Inning Out  OBP
1      1   .337 
6      1   .334
3      2   .331

Inning Out  OBP
2      2   .288
9      0   .289 
2      1   .307
8      0   .307

IMO it's an interesting reflection of the late inning use/expectation of relievers, i.e., bringing relievers in at the start of an inning, that 2 of the easiest 4 outs to get were leading off the 9th inning and the 8th inning.

OrderPos. PA
     6th 363
     7th 352
     8th 343
     5th 328
     4th 322
     1st 305
     3rd 298
     2nd 290
     9th 269

Getting 45 saves versus 5 (or less) definitely helps a reliever get more money, but I don't think teams would necessarily value a closer with 45 saves more than a closer who only got 35 saves because he was brought in to more tie games.

I agree. I fear that the closer gets to throw the 9th only because management stupidly overpaid for their services and actually believe that one inning saves are a valid statistic.