Coffee is for Closers

Simpler times

One of the most insightful tidbits of Michael Lewis' Moneyball, takes up a mere page and a half of the 300 page book.  Just a couple paragraphs in a sea of words stood out to me more so than almost anything else, in particular this passage:


" ... it was more efficient to create a closer than to buy one. Established closers were systematically overpriced, in large part because of the statistic by which closers were judged in the marketplace: "saves." The very word made the guy who achieved them sound vitally important. But the situation typically described by the save - the bases empty in the ninth inning with the team leading - was clearly far less critical than a lot of other situations pitchers faced."



The reason that this has been in my mind lately is because of the rumors circulating that the Cincinnati Reds are currently negotiating an extension for their closer Francisco Cordero. Cordero, currently 12th on the all-time saves list, has had a fine career and made a pretty penny closing out ballgames due in large part to the perceived value of the save statistic.  This season, Cordero wrapped up the fourth and final year of a 46 million dollar deal, and on the surface it looks like an excellent season (37 saves, 2.45 ERA). It seems like an easy decision to try and work out a two year deal at a lower annual salary, retain a great clubhouse leader who is actively involved in the community, and not have to worry abut who will be closing games in 2012 and 2013. But, if you dig a little deeper into the statistics you can see a number of red flags.  First and foremost, Cordero was extremely lucky this season on balls in play, posting an unsustainably low .214 BABIP, 80 points lower than his career average. Also troubling is the fact that his K/9 and fastball velocity have dropped in every year he has been in Cincinnati. His groundball percentage spiked this season to a career high 50%, likely due to a change in approach (throwing less fastballs, more sliders and chageups, and adding a cutter to his repertoire). And while it is really not important to me how a pitcher finds success, is a 37 year old that is on the path from fireballer to junkballer worth the 4-7 million dollars the Reds would likely have to pay Cordero in 2012 and 2013?


The average salary of a closer this season, of those who were past arbitration, was roughly 7 million dollars. That is a good chunk of change for a small market team. What exactly are teams paying for when they dole out around 10% of their payroll for someone to pitch around 70 innings a year?  What are the attributes of a successful closer? The prototypical closer has a plus fastball, doesn't give up a lot of homeruns, and has the ability to miss bats and get strikeouts. I looked at the closers from last season to see if this perception was correct, and for the most part it was. Of the 30 relievers that had a minimum of 15 saves in 2011, these were the numbers:

Avg K/9: 8.85

Avg BB/9: 3.05

Avg HR/9: 0.69

Avg SwStr%: 11.83

Avg FB velo: 93.84

These are indeed good numbers for a reliever to put up over the course of a season, but how hard is it to find a pitcher that can put up something similar to these numbers?  Take a look at the playoffs this year and who is closing out ballgames. Only three of the eight teams feature an established closer, Jose Valverde (DET), J.J. Putz (ARI) and Mariano Rivera (NYY).  The remaining five teams have found a closer in less conventional ways.  In Philadelphia, Ryan Madson started the season as a setup man with some experience closing games in 2009.  The Rays more or less let their entire bullpen walk in free agency after the 2010 season and scrapped together a brand new relief corps with journeyman Kyle Farnsworth taking over the closer role. The Brewers closer John Axeford was an undrafted free agent that bounced around before taking over the closer role from Trevor Hoffman last season, all he did this year was lead the league in saves (46), posting a 1.95 ERA and a 200 ERA+ all while earning the league minimum. The two teams facing off in the World Series are also paying the league minimum for their two unconventional closers, future starter Neftali Feliz and converted catcher Jason Motte.  And it is not just this season that the pennant winners feature unproven closers. From 2000 to 2010, 7 of the 20 league champions featured closers found after Opening Day.


The closer as we now know it is relatively new to baseball, yet it has become as firmly rooted as century old baseball convention.  Since Tony LaRussa (the patron saint of over-managing) made Dennis Eckersley the 9th inning man in Oakland in the late 1980's we have seen the team's best relief pitchers relegated to pitching the 9th inning of a close game with no outs and no men on.  Before then, the team's best bullpen arm was used when the situation warranted the best bullpen arm to come in.  Firemen or stoppers, as they were known, were called in to protect a lead late in the game in a high leverage situation whether it be in the 6th, 7th, 8th or 9th inning. Guys like Rollie Fingers, Bruce Sutter, and Goose Gossage would throw around 100 innings a year, often coming in for multiple innings at a time, and provided great value to their team.  The graph below illustrates the change in bullpen philosophy.  The number of games pitched by relievers remains stable from 1972 to 2004 (with the two low points occurring due to strike shortened seasons), while the percentage of those innings being the 9th inning with none on, no outs shows a drastic rise in the mid '80s.

stats courtesy of Baseball Between the Numbers

So, as we can see, the modern day closer is in full effect, and it appears it is not going away anytime soon. But is this the correct strategy? Dave Smith of RetroSheet.org did a study and found that since 1901 there has been very little change in the odds of winning a ballgame when a team has a lead entering the 9th inning, and the odds were nearly a century ago, and are now, roughly 95%. So, why then do teams insist on using their best relief pitcher in the 9th inning, when there is only a 5% chance of blowing the game? Wouldn't it be more prudent to use your best reliever to shut down a burgeoning rally in the 7th inning rather than save him to protect a 9th inning lead that may not exist? The logical answer is yes, and in the book Baseball Between the Numbers, the authors suggest that a return to pre-LaRussa bullpen management could earn a team between 1.5 and 4.5 extra wins in a given season just by using their best bullpen arm when the situation dictates, and not stubbornly waiting until the 9th inning. But, managers are indeed a stubborn lot, and they are fearful of losing their jobs. It is safer to follow convention rather than to take risks.  If a manager sends in his closer and they blow the game, it is not the manager's fault, he was following procedure, and sometimes saves are blown. But if a manager sends in his closer to stop a rally in the 7th, and the lead is blown in the 9th inning by a lesser reliever, heads will roll. 

I know I'm not breaking any new ground with this post. People have been decrying the paint by numbers approach to bullpen management for a while now, but it remains unchanged. Closers have been turned into mythical figures due to the infatuation of the save statistic, the manufactured drama of the 9th inning and the ubiquitous heavy metal walk-up music. My writing this is not going to stop the Reds from signing Francisco Cordero to a two year extension, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong. Small market teams have few dollars to waste when trying to compete with the big boys, and forking over large sums of money when most any above average major league pitcher can accumulate 30 saves in a given year is a foolish practice.  

Saves are a meaningful statistic, dammit.