The closer thread

[sk7326]

Not at all? He certainly deserves consideration, considering his great stats (ERA, Whip, K/W etc) and his importance to the team down the stretch in key save opportunities.

 

It's an interesting situation, where the number of saves is almost irrelevant, just as in some cases the no. wins has become less important for starters. Somebody got a save last night, for example, pitching 3 relief innings with a 10-1 lead.

 

I think he has been the best reliever in the AL. But to me, for a reliever to win any Cy Young, he has to be extraordinary (and maybe Uehara qualifies - he has a case), and the field of starters has to be meh. Scherzer, Felix and Darvish have been plenty good to not warrant a reliever getting onto the podium.

[Orange Juiced]

I disagree. The 9th inning can have special significance, and not just for fans, depending on the closeness of the game. The difference between the 9th inning of a 1-run game, and the 6th inning of a 1-run game, is measured by the difference in win probability and 'leverage'. Statistically, a team has significantly less chance of winning a game they trail by one run in the 9th vs. a game they trail by one run in the 6th.

 

So statistically the 9th is indeed special. The real question, presumably, is how this affects the pitcher who has to pitch the 9th vs. the pitcher who has to pitch the 6th.

 

And the only people can answer this are the people who actually do it.

 

Here's a leverage index, to your point: http://www.insidethebook.com/li.shtml

 

To keep things consistent, let's compare top 8 vs. top 9, nobody on base, no outs, under the same conditions:

 

Even score

Top 8: 1.9

Top 9: 2.4

 

Up 1 run

Top 8: 2.2

Top 9: 2.9

[sk7326]

I disagree. The 9th inning can have special significance, and not just for fans, depending on the closeness of the game. The difference between the 9th inning of a 1-run game, and the 6th inning of a 1-run game, is measured by the difference in win probability and 'leverage'. Statistically, a team has significantly less chance of winning a game they trail by one run in the 9th vs. a game they trail by one run in the 6th.

 

So statistically the 9th is indeed special. The real question, presumably, is how this affects the pitcher who has to pitch the 9th vs. the pitcher who has to pitch the 6th.

 

And the only people can answer this are the people who actually do it.

 

Well - they can answer it to a certain degree, although when you listen to ex-ballplayers on TV, there is good evidence they barely know why they were good in the first place (see Joe Morgan in particular). The win probability thing is a reasonable argument. That being said, you'd like to think an average pitcher can get 3 outs without giving up a run. And it's not speculation - Mark Melancon is not a special pitcher (we SAW that). Neither is Andrew Bailey, Brandon League, Fernando Rodney. They have all been successful at closing. It's also not a particularly specialized skill - teams switch who is in that role all the time to no great detriment. Now rotating guys in the 9th inning is dicey - it does seem like having a pitcher pitch the 9th has some value (the reason the 1996 Yankees kept Wetteland closing though his setup man was a lot better). But as far as WHO it is? There are a LOT of guys qualified - it's just whether the manager chooses him or not.

[rjortiz]

His walk rates (Rodney) are right in line with his career numbers. BABIP is .300, which is around "normal". It was last year's .220 which was the outlier. He is a very ordinary pitcher - but stuff plays up a bit in the pen.

 

His walk rate in 2013 is 5.34. His career walk rate is 4.51. That's about 4-5 batter a year to add to WHIP. His BABIP is .309, which is .16 points higher than the league average of .293. He's a power pitcher, and there's evidence to suggest that he controls his BABIP to a small extent. If you lower his BABIP for the year to .285 (career BABIP), that saves about 3-4 hits. The new totals based on a career BB/9 and a career BABIP calculate to a 1.28 WHIP, which takes him from below average to slightly above.

 

I agree with you on your last point. My point was that Rodney isn't an awful pitcher, and that it isn't unreasonable to suggest an improvement.

[sk7326]

His walk rate in 2013 is 5.34. His career walk rate is 4.51. That's about 4-5 batter a year to add to WHIP. His BABIP is .309, which is .16 points higher than the league average of .293. He's a power pitcher, and there's evidence to suggest that he controls his BABIP to a small extent. If you lower his BABIP for the year to .285 (career BABIP), that saves about 3-4 hits. The new totals based on a career BB/9 and a career BABIP calculate to a 1.28 WHIP, which takes him from below average to slightly above.

 

I agree with you on your last point. My point was that Rodney isn't an awful pitcher, and that it isn't unreasonable to suggest an improvement.

 

I do agree that some pitchers can control BABIP - but that has to be something demonstrated over time. That Rodney's BABIP numbers tend to veer to the .280-.300 sort of range, essentially an "average" result, seems to show no evidence that he is one of those pitchers. And the walk rate thing - I'm not sure how much it has skyrocketed. His career walk rate is 11.5% (including his outlier 5.3% of last year), this year is 13.3% - above normal but not his worst year doing this.

[User Name]

I disagree. The 9th inning can have special significance, and not just for fans, depending on the closeness of the game. The difference between the 9th inning of a 1-run game, and the 6th inning of a 1-run game, is measured by the difference in win probability and 'leverage'. Statistically, a team has significantly less chance of winning a game they trail by one run in the 9th vs. a game they trail by one run in the 6th.

 

So statistically the 9th is indeed special. The real question, presumably, is how this affects the pitcher who has to pitch the 9th vs. the pitcher who has to pitch the 6th.

 

And the only people can answer this are the people who actually do it.

 

You're cherry picking situations to play up the leverage argument.

 

How many times does the setup man come up to pitch to the heart of the order with men on base and a one-run lead? If he gets through that, then the closer gets the bottom of the order with a one-run lead but in a clean inning.

 

Who faced the highest leverage situation there? You can't just go ahead and use the highest-leverage situations to try and defend the "9th inning is different" argument. In fact, i bet i can dig up seasons where, with a steady relief ace-closer combo, the main setup guy (ace) saw more high-leverage situations than the closer.

 

The 9th inning is not some magical animal like the unicorn. While it's true that some guys have a mental block and just can't do ti, the rule is that a great setup man makes a good closer, and there's plenty of evidence to back this up. A good relief pitcher will be good in any role, with the occasional outlier.

 

You want proof? you've got Koji right there. People here were moaning about his lack of experience closing, and look how that's turned out.

[rjortiz]

I never implied that his BABIP had to do with his BB/9. Command and control are not the same thing. You essentially made up an argument out of thin air. Nice research though. And Rodney has been awful this season. A spade is a spade.

 

Command: Ability to throw strikes.

 

Control: Ability to consistently throw the ball where you want it in the strike zone.

 

We are just going to have to agree to disagree about this. This is becoming more of an argument of the definition of the word awful.

 

If you want to counter my argument about Rodney, what you need to look at are his pitch charts.

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/pitchfxg.aspx?playerid=494&position=P&season=2013&date=0&dh=0

 

Rodney's pitch charts are at the bottom.

 

What about them? I see a bunch of dots on a graph. They only tell us where and how the ball crossed/missed the strike zone. They say absolutely nothing about intent, and even if they did, you are showing me a graph of one player. You would have to demonstrate that players with similar graphs/intent had a high enough correlating effect on BABIP. We could judge the argument based on that data.

[rjortiz]

I do agree that some pitchers can control BABIP - but that has to be something demonstrated over time. That Rodney's BABIP numbers tend to veer to the .280-.300 sort of range, essentially an "average" result, seems to show no evidence that he is one of those pitchers. And the walk rate thing - I'm not sure how much it has skyrocketed. His career walk rate is 11.5% (including his outlier 5.3% of last year), this year is 13.3% - above normal but not his worst year doing this.

 

Would it be unreasonable to suggest that Rodney could have a BABIP closer to .285 as opposed to .309, and that his walk rate could be closer to 11.5% as opposed to 13.3%?

[rjortiz]

Koji is a legitimate CY candidate. It's time the media recognized that. The network types have been paying scant attention to the Red Sox, who have spent most of the year in first place.

 

He's really good, but he's not even remotely close to Scherzer.

[User Name]

Would it be unreasonable to suggest that Rodney could have a BABIP closer to .285 as opposed to .309, and that his walk rate could be closer to 11.5% as opposed to 13.3%?

 

Would it be unreasonable to suggest neither of those things happen based on recent history and overall career numbers?

[rjortiz]

Would it be unreasonable to suggest neither of those things happen based on recent history and overall career numbers?

 

Not at all. He could even be worse. I don't understand your point though. I haven't denied this possibility. On the other hand, you have stated that there is "no logical explantion" to expect an improvement.

[Bellhorn04]

You're cherry picking situations to play up the leverage argument.

 

How many times does the setup man come up to pitch to the heart of the order with men on base and a one-run lead? If he gets through that, then the closer gets the bottom of the order with a one-run lead but in a clean inning.

 

Who faced the highest leverage situation there? You can't just go ahead and use the highest-leverage situations to try and defend the "9th inning is different" argument. In fact, i bet i can dig up seasons where, with a steady relief ace-closer combo, the main setup guy (ace) saw more high-leverage situations than the closer.

 

 

s*** UN, I really didn't think I was cherry-picking. Generally speaking the leverage increases each inning. Of course sometimes the middle of the order will be up in the 8th. And sometimes they'll be up in the 9th.

 

If you want to prove your theory maybe you could check out Robertson & Rivera...they've been a tandem for several seasons.

[User Name]

s*** UN, I really didn't think I was cherry-picking. Generally speaking the leverage increases each inning. Of course sometimes the middle of the order will be up in the 8th. And sometimes they'll be up in the 9th.

 

If you want to prove your theory maybe you could check out Robertson & Rivera...they've been a tandem for several seasons.

 

My money's on Bard/Papelbon 2011.

[Bellhorn04]

My money's on Bard/Papelbon 2011.

 

And that would be a winning bet.

 

(H/M/L PA's)

Papelbon 120/49/86

Bard 132/70/86

 

So although I'm pretty sure the total population of 9th inning PA's would have more high leverage PA's than the total population of 8th inning PA's would, you've pointed out an example where an 8th inning guy can be assigned more high leverage situations than the closer.

[VA Sox Fan]

Uehara brightest star for the Red Sox

 

Posted by Peter Abraham, Globe Staff August 29, 2013 12:21 PM

 

 

The key to the Red Sox has been their balance. Before the season ends they could have nine hitters with 50 RBIs but nobody with 100. Outside of third base, every position on the field has provided above-average production (based on OPS+) over the course of the season.

 

The same is true of the starting pitching. There hasn't necessarily been an ace but there are four starters worthy of trust.

 

The one big star? Try Koji Uehara.

 

The closer has an 0.64 WHIP and is striking out 12.2 batters per nine innings. Opponents are hitting .142 with a .442 OPS against him. Of his 850 pitches this season, 73 percent have been strikes. Thirty three of his 59 appearances have been perfect. His ERA + is a comical 348.

 

Check out these statistics since June 10: 34.2 IP, 11 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 46 K. He is riding a streak of 21.2 consecutive innings without giving up a run.

 

Uehara has been so good lately that it's a surprise when somebody gets on base or even hits the ball hard against him.

 

All this from a player who reported to spring training as a middle reliever and was said to need extra rest because he was getting older.

 

Who's to say how long this lasts? Uehara is in fact getting older (he's 38) and this is the best run of his career. But the lesson here is that trading for closers (like Andrew Bailey and Joel Hanrahan) isn't very efficient. Sometimes you just need to stumble across them.

 

Meanwhile, Mark Melancon has an 0.91 ERA, an 0.82 WHIP and an ERA+ of 394.

[User Name]

If we make a list of solid setup men who have transitioned into good/great closers, i think it would also help disprove some of the magic surrounding the 9th inning.

[Bellhorn04]

I don't think the 9th inning has any special magic as such. It is what it is - it's the end of the game. The end of the game is different from the beginning and the middle of the game. That applies in just about every sport.

[jung]

The end of the game is different in the sense that post season is not the same as regular season. Even regular season crunch time is not the same as early season when teams are really sort of feeling each out and learning what they will need to do to beat a particular opponent regularly.

 

End of games, the hitters are more focused and the adrenaline is really flowing. It is really all chemistry. The pitcher has to either have the talent to overwhelm those hitters who are so focused and/or he has to match their intensity. That is it...not really more complicated than that.

 

Ins't it interesting that our very successful closer brings so much intensity to the mound and succeeds.

 

You can groom a guy to do the job. You can have a bunch of relief guys and pick somebody. Just about the worst thing you could do IMO, is develop this idea that Mariano sits at the top of the pyramid and if you just pay the right guy some scale based on what Mariano gets, you will get performance equivalent to that pay scale. Good luck with that one! You will almost surely overpay and it just boils down to a matter of degrees. Glad Ueh is doing as good as he is doing. Happier still that the Sox may well have finally learned their lesson about closers. Totally ecstatic that the starting pitching has been as good as it has been even without Buch.

[SoxSport]

I think he has been the best reliever in the AL. But to me, for a reliever to win any Cy Young, he has to be extraordinary (and maybe Uehara qualifies - he has a case), and the field of starters has to be meh. Scherzer, Felix and Darvish have been plenty good to not warrant a reliever getting onto the podium.

 

I just said he deserved consideration. If I had a vote, it would be for Scherzer right now, though he stunk today in Detroit. Oakland stacked the lineup with LHd hitters, and he was throwing fastballs right down the middle while the announcers were saying his out pitch against LHders was the curve.

[sk7326]

I just said he deserved consideration. If I had a vote, it would be for Scherzer right now, though he stunk today in Detroit. Oakland stacked the lineup with LHd hitters, and he was throwing fastballs right down the middle while the announcers were saying his out pitch against LHders was the curve.

 

I know Scherzer will win it - and he is a clear Top 2 pitcher this season, so it would not be any sort of travesty. King Felix and Scherzer are the only two fair choices - Darvish is the best of the rest but a definite step down. King Felix has the edge innings, the xFIP is close, and Scherzer faced lesser lineups (just going from game logs and such).

 

Just as a general thing, the volume of innings makes it very hard for a reliever - especially a 1-inning guy - to have a ton of consideration for me. Uehara has been outstanding - and he filled a role they needed filled, with the extra bonus of actually being able to net a 4-out sort of save from time to time if they need it. Farrell's deployment of Uehara has been baffling at times, but that's not Koji's fault.

[SoxSport]

I was thinking maybe they should have a stat called "quality save". There are saves, and then there are saves where the closer saves a 1 run game. That's a quality save--a real one. Not these phony 2 and 3 run saves, or where the manager waits until the tying run is on base before he brings in the closer. Or the save when a guy comes in with a 10-1 lead, and gets a save because he pitches 3 innings.

 

The save stat smacks of PR. It's for agents and fantasy players. Koji, for example, has been getting a ton of 1 run saves lately where every game has become crucial. But it doesn't show up in the save stat.

[Bellhorn04]

I was thinking maybe they should have a stat called "quality save". There are saves, and then there are saves where the closer saves a 1 run game. That's a quality save--a real one. Not these phony 2 and 3 run saves, or where the manager waits until the tying run is on base before he brings in the closer. Or the save when a guy comes in with a 10-1 lead, and gets a save because he pitches 3 innings.

 

That's not a bad idea.

[sk7326]

The save was made up by a writer to enhance box scores and give relievers credit. It became a subject of arbitration awards - where arbitrators tend to really only know stats casual fans do. Also, when LaRussa made the 1-inning closer fetish such an en vogue thing, the entire balance got shifted. The days of the Rich Gossage-Mike Marshall sort of relievers are gone, and frankly it is a disappointing thing just in terms of how it helps manage bullpens.

[jung]

Gone as well are the Gibson, Drysdale, Ford, Kolfax, Marachal kind of starter. Hence

the new categories between the Starter and the Closer. Not sure what baseball is going to do about the reestablishment of pitching as the dominant feature of baseball. Even widespread use of PED's has not staved that off enough to matter.

 

Football's biggest problem is obviously concussion. Baseball's is a bit more basic. Does Baseball want four hour 10-9 ballgames or three hour 4-3 ballgames?

[mvp 78]

3 hour 10 - 9 ballgames.

 

It shouldn't take 45 seconds between a pitch. Also, relievers shouldn't need pitches to warm up when they get to the mound (maybe 3 or so).

 

What they should do is just move start times to 6 pm and have more afternoon games.

Edited August 30, 2013 by mvp 78

[Dojji]

People, people, people...

 

You have a really low opinion of people who spend their lives playing and managing the game of baseball, don't you?

 

The fact is that the closer model works. There is no way around this. Whether you think it's the most viable solution, it is *a* viable solution. It is a system that has stood the test of real-world baseball for years and produced real-world results. You can puff and wheeze and whine about potential better solutions, but the closer model is time tested, and has been for years. Dismissing it as a fetish, or a superstition, or any other language that suggests that the model is somehow faddish or ineffective is dishonest -- and insults your intelligence more than it insults the two generations of closers that have gotten it done at the highest level of their sport.

 

More to the point, it's worth analyzing why it works. One-inning closers produce positive wins for their team, and it's a model that's easy to implement with interchangable personnel, which is the real world situation in any given major league bullpen. It's the fact that personnel are in fact interchangable that fuels the argument against the closer, but if you look at it for more than about 2.65 seconds, you'll realize that the fact that the parts of a bullpen are interchangable is exactly why the model is effective. In a facet of the sport where the personnel change literally all the time, the role is more important than the man filling it.

 

What that means is that the closer's model is more adaptable than people give it credit for. If you have a closer who can consistently go longer than one inning, of course you toy with the idea and let them try it, but you often don't, so you build a framework of a closer model around 1 inning performance, which most closers can handle, and then you have a system that's easy to adjust to the real situation of the 6 or 7 people you have working for you in the bullpen.

 

Finally, the relief ace model has one really big flaw -- it effectively requires the manager to be Miss Cleo. If you're trying to save your best arm for the highest leverage situation, the question then becomes, how exactly do you know that any given situation is the highest leverage? You might have 2 out, second and third with a 1 run lead in the 6th, you bring in your stud, he gets the out, gets through the next inning, and then the guy in the 8th loads the bases with one out. Oops!

 

Given the common meme about the intelligence of whoever your manager happens to be, expecting him to have that kind of finger on the pulse of the game is a bit of a tall order. Better to give him a modular system that allows for adjustments and usually doesn't require prescience to pull off correctly. It's a common sense adaptation that given the nature of the sport, someone was going to think of anyway.

 

That besides the fact that establishing a heirarchy with the closer on top gives relievers something to strive to become. That's almost as important all by itself as any other consideration.

 

The relief ace and other non-closer models are something you file right along with piggy back starters and making every game a bullpen game with no one pitching more than 3 innings. It's an idea you pull out of the hat when the situation is right for it, but it's nowhere near as robust and survivable a model as what people are already doing.

[Bellhorn04]

The days of the Rich Gossage-Mike Marshall sort of relievers are gone, and frankly it is a disappointing thing just in terms of how it helps manage bullpens.

 

However, this may be the equivalent of saying 'the days of the Nolan Ryan sort of starter are gone'. Part of it is the game has changed, but you also have to consider the possibility that guys like that are pretty rare physical specimens.

[mvp 78]

However, this may be the equivalent of saying 'the days of the Nolan Ryan sort of starter are gone'. Part of it is the game has changed, but you also have to consider the possibility that guys like that are pretty rare physical specimens.

 

And now with guaranteed contracts in the $100M+ range, there is more incentive to not blow out someone's arm.

[Bellhorn04]

And now with guaranteed contracts in the $100M+ range, there is more incentive to not blow out someone's arm.

 

That's right.

 

Billy Martin had a lot to do with the modern thinking on pitch counts and inning counts when he blew out the arms of his entire rotation with the A's in 1980.

[Dojji]

However, this may be the equivalent of saying 'the days of the Nolan Ryan sort of starter are gone'. Part of it is the game has changed, but you also have to consider the possibility that guys like that are pretty rare physical specimens.

 

Pretty much. How many of those guys were around for more than 3 seasons compared to today? We have a better idea what needlessly destroys relievers arms today than we did 30 years ago, and our bullpen management (among other things) reflect the best available application of that knowledge. I'm sorry you find it personally disappointing guys, but it's not going back.