The save is the only situation in which a manager makes his decisions based on a statistic rather than what makes the most competitive sense for his team. The only comparable is when a manager stays with a struggling starter with a big lead so he can get through the fifth inning and qualify for a win, but this occurs rarely. Managers, however, routinely bring in their closers just because it is a "save situation" rather than a situation in which the opponent is truly threatening. It's ridiculous. Managers feel the need to please their closers -- and their closer's agents -- by getting them cheap saves to pad their stats and their bank accounts.
so, as an addendum to my "how to fix the tigers" plan: after you make the DH a speedy guy hitting sixth, you (as caple points out) bring your best pitcher in not in the 9th, but in the 7th.
who would that be for the tigers? rodney (i hate myself for saying this) performs better in the 7th or 8th innings. he pitched three great innings against the white sox, and might be detroit's best hope for a "long reliever". as in, the guy who can come in when the starter gets shelled. he also seems to improve the longer he's out there.
todd jones might also fare better in a less specialized role. it couldn't hurt his nervousness, sweating, ulcerificness. (yes, i just made up a new word.)
bobby seay is steady. he's built for middle innings. zumaya is best in the 8th, and can then pitch the 9th as well.
while i am guilty of loving the WWF-style theatrics of closers and entrance music, and a dominating 9th inning guy, i want the tigers back in the world series. and i want them to win it. the only way i can see that happening is if they change the rules--stop playing the way everyone else does. shut your opponents down in the 7th.
be the equivalent of boise state football a few years ago, or the red wings when scotty bowman first introduced the left-wing lock. jim leyland is a bit of a baseball historian--he can do this. right?
1 comment:
I always thought that the logic of having a closer is that if you have a great pitcher whom you want to pitch every day (or close to it), it's better that he only pitches one inning rather than two or more. And if he's only going to pitch one inning, the ninth inning is the best one, because even if he blows a save, the game's over, his pitch count stays low, and he can pitch again tomorrow.
If you have more than one really good short-inning pitcher, then it makes sense to alternate them and bring them in in the eighth or even the seventh innings to close out games. I vaguely remember the Reds doing something like that with Randy Myers and Rob Dibble when they won the championship in 1990.
But I wonder whether it makes much sense to argue about exactly which inning is the optimal one to bring in your stopper. Wouldn't a more context-driven approach be best? I mean, if the heart of the lineup is coming up in the eighth inning, you should throw your best reliever at them; if you're facing the bottom of the lineup in the seventh, it doesn't make much sense to bring in your top guy unless the bases start filling up.
There may be practical problems with this -- after all, relieving a pitcher isn't something you can do based on the immediate context, you have to anticipate who you need to warm up and when well before you walk out to the mound.
Ultimately, the law of sports inertia applies. Managers have little incentive to deviate strongly from accepted practice when the benefits (a few more wins) are minimal and indirect and the costs (the manager gets fired) are high and direct. Bunt with two strikes, pinch-hit lefty against lefty, let a starter in some trouble stay on the mound, and when you win it's a fluke but if you lose every idiot on a radio call-in show thinks you've lost your mind, and pretty soon, the owner starts to agree.
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