Joe Posnanski has an interesting article posted at SI.com that at first blush makes you think that shuffling bullpen roles might be worthwhile. His argument is that since teams typically win between 85 to 95% of the games they lead in the ninth inning, that perhaps it makes more sense to have your best relief pitcher come in earlier (say the seventh or eighth inning) where they will have a bigger impact.
What he fails to take into account is the impact that a team’s closer had on the winning percentages he cites. Perhaps a more interesting analysis would be to determine the value of a closer versus the rest of the bullpen in terms of being able to hold a lead in the ninth. If they were relatively equal I could see value in the argument.
Baseball people tend to stick with what they believes will work in game situations over and over again. I doubt anyone will convince a Joe Girardi to bring Mariano Rivera in at the seventh inning of games instead of saving him until the ninth. But it’s an interesting hypothesis that needs more research to determine whether it really makes sense to start bringing your best reliever into games earlier. Perhaps once a few teams try it and prove that it works will everyone else catch on.
Bethany Heck
I’m not sure how swapping around orders would matter unless you bring in your closer in later innings when you lead, and the meat of the other team’s lineup comes to the plate. So, your starting pitcher goes X number of innings, and when the opponents heavy hitter come up (be it the 7th, 8th, or 9th) you bring in your closer for that period. It’s an interesting concept. You could probably talk LaRussa into trying it out.
03-20-11 » 6:29 pm »
Russ
It’s SI, they’re wrong almost all the time.
Here’s a link to some sabremetric work on leverage which goes against the article.
http://www.insidethebook.com/li.shtml
There are probably occasional situations where it makes sense to bring in a “closer” to knockout the meat of the order in the 8th. But that decision should go hand in hand with comparisons on how each relief pitcher on the club does against the meat of the opposing lineup. It may shed some light on closers not always being the best relief pitcher on the staff. And never underestimate the value of psychology.
03-22-11 » 12:45 pm »