Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
May 12, 2008
Committee Meeting

With both the Cardinals and Brewers going to a closer by committee approach (no assigned roles), what happens if it works? What if teams using their best pitchers in high leverage situations actually turns out to be a winning strategy? While I don't think Win Probability Added (WPA) is a good way to evaluate talent, I do think it's a great way to determine when to deploy pitching talent. If La Russa and Yost go into post game press conferences with, "I used X in the seventh because that was when our opponent had the highest probability of winning the game," it will give reporters plenty of food for thought.

La Russa was one of the people who brought us into the whole idea of rigid roles for relievers (although others had played with the idea of assigning roles to a setup man/closer combination, with Davis/Gossage coming to mind). It would be interesting if he's the man to move us out of that mind set.

The Red Sox tried this reluctantly in 2003. They were forced into this strategy by not having anyone good enough to be the closer. Boston moved to the standard model the next season by picking up Keith Foulke. Even with the committee, they game within a pitching change of making the World Series in 2003. If Milwaukee and St. Louis can pull this off, maybe the mind set will change to using the right pitcher in the right situation, rather than waiting for the ninth inning to bring in a closer with a three-run lead.

I suspect pitchers will resist this, however. Right now, teams pay big money for closers. If this is seen as diminishing the need for one great pitcher to finish the game, I suspect pitchers will start complaining about need to know their roles. I hope their managers explain that there will simply be a pecking order, with the best pitcher brought in to handle the toughest situations. Relievers will then be able to use WPA as a bargaining chip, rather than the number of saves they accumulate. In that case, everybody wins.


Posted by David Pinto at 11:05 AM | Pitchers | TrackBack (0)
Comments

The problem is, it will never "work". Relief pitching is possibly the most complained-about aspect of a team, as far as the average fan goes. I remember thinking last year that the Red Sox had a pretty amazing bullpen, but there'd still be talk radio shows that spent 3 hours taking calls after they blew 2 games in 3 nights.

Even if it's wildly successful... just natural variance in performance will lead to a bad week or couple of weeks in closing situations, and I doubt either of those managers has the guts to stand up to the criticism that will follow. If you defy convention, you leave yourself open to criticism, and I think managers aren't good enough yet at taking that.

Posted by: Mike at May 12, 2008 12:00 PM

Maybe I haven't read the latest from each team. But I don't know that "picking one of two pitchers" (Springer, Franklin) to close in the 9th inning, which is what I understood LaRussa to say, really qualifies as closer by committee. It's not that much different than standard practice. Many teams effectively have a primary and secondary closer.

What I read from Yost seemed to be more like a possible closer by committee (i.e., pick whomever is available and pitching best). However, we'll have to wait until he puts it into practice to see what he really plans to do.

Posted by: C Johnson at May 12, 2008 12:20 PM

Since the closer usually makes about as much as the rest of the pen combined then you'd think teams would look at it. With the BrewCrew as soon as someone is the closer they can't get anybody out. But I have no idea why they signed Gagne for more than the minimum. He was washed up last year.

Posted by: Bandit at May 12, 2008 12:23 PM

One note on the 03 Red Sox is that by the end of the year they had abandoned the idea of bullpen by committee. After the Kim trade, they moved him into the closer's role and in the postseason Scott Williamson emerged as the closer. By that Game 7, they had the conventional bullpen setup.

Posted by: Tom at May 12, 2008 12:56 PM

One note on the 03 Red Sox is that by the end of the year they had abandoned the idea of bullpen by committee. After the Kim trade, they moved him into the closer's role and in the postseason Scott Williamson emerged as the closer. By that Game 7, they had the conventional bullpen setup.

Posted by: Tom at May 12, 2008 12:56 PM

At least two successful teams are effectively employing this strategy: the Indians and the Tigers. It's a slight variation on the Bill James formula; both teams have a primary closer, he just happens to NOT be the best pitcher in the bullpen. In the case of the Indians, Borowski might be the worst reliever on the team. (I know he's disabled now, but I bet he's the closer again when he comes back.)

The use of an established vet like Borowski or Jones gives managers the flexibility to deploy their best arms (the likes of Perez, Betancourt, Zumaya, and Rodney) at key moments in the middle innings. Then you can hand the ball over to the closer at the start of the ninth; almost any pitcher can get through one inning with a clean start, and you've got a guy who's familiar with ninth-inning pressure.

And the use of a "proven closer" partially insulates the manager from the kind of criticism the Red Sox received in 2003.

Posted by: johnw at May 12, 2008 03:57 PM

I'm pretty sure there was an article somewhere on the net about how managers are risk averse, and would rather make the wrong decision that people are familiar with than the right decision if the right decision carries risk of failure.

Anyone remember reading about it?

Posted by: Sal Paradise at May 12, 2008 07:42 PM
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