Arsonic and Old Lace

The Diamond District ^ | May 14 2002 | Jeff Kallman

[2Trievers]

14.5.02

 
Arsonic and Old Lace

When Satchel Paige finally got his chance to pitch in the majors, he was used for the most part as a very effective (not to mention entertaining) relief pitcher. At the sight of Satch loosening up in the pen for the St. Louis Browns, Casey Stengel liked to exhort his Yankee players, "Get your runs now - Father Time is coming!" As usual, Stengel was sending a subtle message behind his playful tweak: if you have mates on base and they bring him in, what you already got on the board may be all you're going to get, most of the time, at least until you chase him out of the game.

By his own recollection, Clem Labine's relief premiere for the Brooklyn Dodgers was nothing less than incendiary, though he could not cauterise its too-memorable recording by Dick Young of the New York Daily News. Renowned as a man with all the subtlety of an oil well explosion, Young proved well enough prepared for reporting Labine's battered bow. "Oh, yes," wrote Young, "a young fireman from St. Paul came in to relieve against Philadelphia in the eighth inning, and this young fireman's sole equipment to put out a fire seems to be gasoline."

The Kansas City Royals should only be grateful Young is gone long enough to his reward. One look at their fire company's performance with inherited baserunners through 5 May and Young would be calling for arson prosecutions. Stop snickering, Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and Philadelphia Phillies: you lot need a little remedial instruction against playing with matches, too.

The answer is: Because one of the key reasons bullpens exist is to keep the other guys from torching the place when they get to the starting pitcher and/or the early relief needs relief, how the pens do with the baserunners they inherit is another reasonable measurement of whether the team needs fire insurance against its own firemen. (That and, I knew of no other analysis measuring inherited baserunners performance; my curiosity was piqued while having a look at Byung-Hyun Kim a short while back - see my "Next of Kim" - and noticing he was doing very well when he got into games with men on base.) The question, I assume, was some variation on What the hell is this inherited baserunners jazz you're chucking up? Charge me all you like with stat wonkery on behalf of "prostituting" the Old Ball Game, but ask yourself, at least, how far your team is likely to go when their bullpen is giving up more than half the baserunners they inherit.

In 64 innings through 5 May in which they might have inherited baserunners, the Kansas City bullpen inherited 34 runners and stranded only 14. That is 19 baserunners coming home after being passed on to a new pitcher. Now you know why you might have seen the other guys having orgasms when they get men on base and the Royal bullpen is up throwing (presumably, making their fans throw up). Through the same date, the Royals averaged 4.64 inherited baserunners per nine inheritance innings, stranded an average 1.97, and let an average 2.67 score. Only three teams in the majors allowed more inherited runs than the inherited runners they stranded, and of the three the Royals had the fattest deficit by far (+ .70).

The White Sox and the Devil Rays are the other two, but they're not even close to the Royals: the White Sox deficit was + .10 (80 inheritance possible innings pitched, 43 inherited baserunners, 21 stranded, 22 scoring; 4.71 average inherited runners through nine, 2.36 stranded runners average, 2.46 inherited runs average); the Devil Rays, + .13 (69 inheritance possible innings pitched, 43 inherited baserunners, 21 stranded, 22 scoring; 5.69 average inherited runners through nine, 2.74 stranded runners average, 2.87 inherited runs average).

This may be either partial cause or mere manifestation of that season-opening losing streak, but in terms of inherited baserunners the Tiger bullpen was probably the busiest in the majors through 5 May. In 48 inheritance possible innings, the Tiger pen faced 37 inherited runners. They averaged 6.94 inherited runners per nine innings, stranded 3.75, and let an average 3.19 per nine score; only the Phillies had a thinner margin of strands over scores (- .21) than the Tigers (- .56) among the clubs who stranded more than they let home. The Phillies didn't have half the workload of the Tigers through 5 May, but they stranded for a 2.57 average and let an average 2.36 per nine come home.

The answers are: An inheritance possible inning (IPI) is the first inning in which a relief pitcher appears in a game; you can count them simply by counting his appearances, since it is impossible for a pitcher working a second inning or beyond to inherit baserunners from himself. Take the total number of inherited runners and multiply it by nine, then divide that number by the total number of relief appearances, and you get a team's average inherited runners per nine innings (AIR). Do the same with the total of stranded baserunners for the stranded runners average (SRA), and with the total of inherited runs for the inherited runs average (IRA). And, say a humble thank you to Baseball Weekly, which includes stranded runners and inherited runs among the stats for relief pitchers in the back of the book.

You can do the figures for individual pitchers, too, of course. Now, you may have figured that closers as they are used for the most part today are the least likely men to be handling inherited baserunners when they get into the game, and to a point you would be right. Trevor Hoffman hasn't. Armando Benitez hasn't. Mike Williams (the sharp and rising Pittsburgh closer) hasn't. Through 5 May it happens that eight qualified closers have worked ten or more IPI and had five or more inherited runners to work with over those innings. I list them alphabetically below, with the numbers in the following order: IPI, total inherited runners, total stranded, total scoring, AIR, SRA, and IRA. The no-questions-asked leader of the pack just might surprise you:

Juan Acevedo (Detroit): 13, 10, 7, 3, 6.92, 4.85, 2.08

Cory Bailey (K.C.): 11, 10, 3, 7, 8.18, 2.45, 5.81

Mike DeJean (Mil): 13, 5, 3, 2, 3.46, 2.08, 1.38

Danny Graves (Cin): 15, 8, 3, 5, 4.80, 1.80, 3.00

Matt Herges (Mon): 17, 6, 3, 3, 3.18, 2.23, 2.23

Byung-Hyun Kim (Az): 14, 10, 9, 1, 6.42, 5.64, 0.64

Vladimir Nunez (Fla): 15, 5, 3, 2, 3.00, 1.80, 1.20

Mariano Rivera (NYY): 12, 5, 4, 1, 3.75, 3.00, 0.75

That is practically no contest. Given five or more inherited runs to work with over ten or more IPI through 5 May, Byung-Hyun Kim stranded nine out of ten, with Mariano Rivera stranding four out of five in only two innings' difference between his inheritance possibles and Kim's. Both men were well below their team IRA, but the Diamondbacks seem a lot more comfortable bringing Kim in with men on base than even the Yankees seem bringing in Super Mariano: Kim's AIR is 2.76 above his team's average; Rivera, 2.21 below. The Yankee virtuoso has an excellent -2.25 differential between his SRA and his IRA - but Kim's differential is a whopping -5.00.

And this is the kid that just everyone thought was doomed by his fateful visit to Mystique and Aura's boudoir last October.

Going back to the clubs, the American League's designated hitter makes for a shard extra offence (this may actually bring Rivera a little close to Kim's level when making the adjustment - though not necessarily that much closer). The highest team AIR in the National League through 5 May was Montreal's 5.71 (93 IPI, 59 inherited runners), with only two other teams having AIRs over five in the same timeframe - Colorado and San Diego. By contrast, eight American League teams had AIRs over five, with three (Detroit, Texas, and Toronto) going over six and one (the Rangers) damn near to seven (6.82). Following is the way the three National League clubs look, in the order of IPI, inherited runners, strands, scores, AIR, SRA, and IRA:

Colorado: 94, 54, 31, 24, 5.17, 2.97, 2.30

Montreal: 93, 59, 43, 17, 5.71, 4.16, 1.43

San Diego: 61, 34, 24, 10, 5.16, 3.55, 1.48

In workload terms the Padres look terrific and the Expos look slightly more so. A team SRA of 3.55 when you have inherited runners in just over half your IPIs is pretty damn good, even if an average of just under 1.5 comes home per nine innings. Impressive as these two bullpens look, they resemble serial arsonists compared to the New York Mets. So, in fact, do the rest of the majors, almost: the nearest National League comps to the Met bullpen through 5 May are the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers:

Arizona: 86, 35, 26, 9, 3.66, 2.73, 0.91

Los Angeles: 72, 36, 29, 7, 4.50, 2.61, 0.84

NYM: 83, 30, 26, 4, 3.25, 2.81, 0.43

Those figures tell you how effective the three clubs' starting pitching was in the time period under discussion and how deadly their bullpens can be when they do get into the game with men on the bags poised for mischief. Only one American League club is even close to those three: the Baltimore Orioles. With a team IRA of 0.78, they are probably thanking God for that bullpen; in the same time period, the Oriole pen carried an inheritance load comparable to San Diego (69 IPI, 37 inherited runners), but they sent 31 runners to Gilligan's Island while letting only six find the way home.

In the same order of figures (IPI, inherited runners, strands, scores, AIR, SRA, IRA), here are the rest of the leagues, with averages rounded to the nearest tenth:

American League

Anaheim - 76,47,34,13; 5.59, 4.26, 1.54

Boston - 56, 25, 14, 11; 4.19, 2.25, 1.54

Cleveland - 80, 47, 34, 13; 5.29, 3.83, 1.46

Minnesota - 92, 34, 22, 12, 3.33, 2.15, 1.17

NY (Yankees) - 64, 42, 28, 14; 5.96, 3.94, 1.97

Oakland - 84, 50, 29, 21; 5.36, 3.17, 2.25

Seattle - 75, 41, 24, 17; 4.92, 2.89, 2.40

Texas - 74, 50, 31, 19; 6.82, 3.77, 2.32

Toronto - 86, 60, 41, 19; 6.28, 4.30, 1.98

National League

Atlanta - 97, 35, 22, 13; 3.24, 2.04, 1.21

Chi (Cubs) - 68, 37, 27, 10; 4.88, 3.18, 1.32

Cincinnati - 88, 37, 27, 10; 3.78, 2.35, 1.43

Florida - 87, 41, 28, 13; 4.24, 2.90, 2.30

Houston - 77, 33, 19, 14; 3.87, 2.23, 1.64

Milwaukee - 91, 43, 31, 12; 4.25, 3.07, 1.19

Pittsburgh - 86, 39, 23, 16; 4.81, 2.47, 1.67

St. Louis - 96, 41, 25, 16; 3.84, 2.34, 1.50

San Francisco - 63, 32, 20, 12; 4:57, 2.86, 1.71

Speaking of finding the way home, in looking over the relief pitchers working with fair loads of inherited runners, I bumped against one Los Angeles reliever who now makes his living almost entirely based on his inheritances. The skinny: 11 IPI, 13 inherited runners, 11 Gilliganed, two scoring, 9.00 AIR, 7.61 SRA, 1.38 IRA. When the Dodgers come to town, and Jesse Orosco (who threw his first major league pitch during the Carter Administration) heads down to the bullpen, listen carefully. You just might hear the other guys' manager, plagiarising Stengel, hollering to his batsmen, "Get your runs now - Father Time is coming!"



Bits and Pieces

St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Matt Morris didn't need to stick one in anyone's ear Monday night - as he threatened to do when next the Cardinals faced the Chicago Cubs, after accusations that Slammin' Sammy Sosa was getting signs stolen for him by Cub coaches. Monday night, Sammy whacked one single and that was all - Morris tossed a four-hit shutout. Cub pitcher Kerry Wood was not amused. ``I'm getting real tired of hearing ... `Keep your head up, we'll get them tomorrow.' This ain't working,'' he barked, after lasting just six innings.

John Franco was practically in tears when hit with the news that his elbow trouble could mean the end of his distinguished career - and when he related how his ten-year-old son thought it was his fault because he had Daddy playing catch. Now, Franco will undergo Tommy John surgery and give it one more shot. In eighteen seasons as one of baseball's best relief pitchers, Franco is second to Lee Smith on the all-time saves list. He will undergo a tendon reattachment and then the Tommy John ligament replacement; recuperation is usually twelve months. The Mets have used him as an effective setup man until this season. The Mets should consider bringing him back for one more try after his recuperation. This is one of the classiest acts in baseball.

The injuries - mostly involving his back - and perhaps the wild and crazy days finally caught up to Jose Canseco: he announced his retirement Monday, 38 home runs shy of the 500 he had hoped would secure his Hall of Fame chances. (He may well be a borderline Hall of Famer, Baseball-Reference lists him as a 103 on the Hall of Fame monitor, with the average Hall of Famer attaining a 100 rating.) Canseco signed a minor-league deal with the White Sox in a bid to make another comeback after the Montreal Expos released him in spring training. But his agent says he now wants to spend time with his young daughter.

©2002 Jeff Kallman
posted by Jeff Kallman 8:55 AM

[2Trievers]

Other BluesDuke baseball essays ...

Next of Kim

They Said It...Would You?

[2Trievers]

The old boy has penned another masterpiece. &;-)

[BluesDuke]

Ready for immediate use, misuse, and abuse bump!

[BluesDuke]

The old boy...

I resemble that remark! ;)

[ValerieUSA]

Can I have an autographed copy?

[2Trievers]

Carry on Great One! &;-)

[BluesDuke]

If I could figure out a way to sign the blog site, of course! ;)

[Charles Henrickson]

Of course, inherited runners stranded doesn't tell the whole tale of relievers, short or long. Many times nowadays, when starters work so few innings, relievers are coming in a lot of the time with no one on base to strand or score. For example, closers often come in at the start of the ninth with no one on base. That needs to be factored in as well, to give a more complete picture.

So how would you rank relievers, all around, in each league this year so far? I know here in St. Louis Jason Isringhausen has been very impressive. Over the long haul of many years, I would say Troy Percival of Anaheim and Trevor Hoffman of San Diego are the guys in each league who are still at the top of their craft and also have had the most consistent excellent careers.

[BluesDuke]

Of course, inherited runners stranded doesn't tell the whole tale of relievers, short or long.

It doesn't tell the whole tale, but I do believe it tells a significant enough portion of the tale, and often the more important part of the tale. Consider: Which is the most pressure for a relief pitcher: coming in to start an inning, or coming in with trouble on the bases and a mission to keep that trouble from turning into a wildfire? Better yet: Which would you think implies greater pressure: Coming in to start an inning afresh and with only your own ERA to screw up, or coming in with runners on the pads and someone else's ERA to screw up?

Many times nowadays, when starters work so few innings, relievers are coming in a lot of the time with no one on base to strand or score. For example, closers often come in at the start of the ninth with no one on base. That needs to be factored in as well, to give a more complete picture.

I did factor that in, but I also considered that it is not exclusive that relievers other than closers come in with no one on the pads. What I wanted was a look at how the bullpens were doing when they do come into jam situations, including closers, since more closers than people might think do come in at times with men on. I say again: How the bullpen does in the jam is critical to their overall effectiveness and reliability; it's just too much simpler to come in to start an inning than it is when the fit hits the shan, whether relieving a starter who's running out of gas or an early reliever who maybe has no gas to run out of on a given day or night.

Because more closers than people think do get into some games when the fit's hit the shan, I wanted the largest possible view of those closers; hence, my narrowing down that field to those through 5 May who had worked ten or more inheritance-possible innings and had five or more inherited runners to work with. I noticed, in looking at the records, that some of the more recognisable names among closers had worked with less than five or none at all. And I did make a point of noting explicitly that closers today are still, predominantly, of the single inning, start-of-the-inning kind, even if I didn't use those terms precisely. I also considered that an awful lot of clubs tend to go bullpen-by-committee (the Dodger plan, for example, was to do precisely that, until Eric Gagne all but strong-armed them into naming him the official closer after he already nailed six straight saves) with closing until or unless they settle on one guy, and sometimes staying with the committee even while naming one guy the chairman of the board, so to say.

The last three outs may be the toughest to get in baseball, but a guy coming in to start the ninth inning still has the advantage by definition and because the game, most of the time, isn't really that much in doubt. (If you don't think you have the advantage when you walk in to start the ninth, you sure don't belong out there.) And let's say your closer gives up a couple of hits or lets a man or men on base before he gets out number three and the game; call it the Mitch Williams syndrome. (Remember Mitch? They didn't call him the Wild Thing strictly because he was a nutjob before he caught Joe Carter on the wrong night.) Isn't it so that cleaning up your own mess is a little easier than cleaning up the other guy's mess?

Consider, too: You can have a pretty hard-ridden bullpen of late, and it's one hell of a bonus if you have a setup man or closer whom you can bring in earlier than you normally would if the fit hits the shan and you need the outs now, and he can still go another couple of innings even nailing down the game. Or, you brought in a man to get the outs now after you've lost the lead, and he can stay with it until you get back in the game and win it by a run or two, and if his stuff is working and he's got the energy you can let him finish off, and since when don't relievers need a little relief, too?

There are some closers working now who can pitch more, even, than two innings - those who were once thought to be starters and those who formerly worked as middlemen or setup men especially so (Byung-Hyun Kim - who was a starter in his native Korea - Mariano Rivera, Jason Isringhausen, and Eric Gagne are such examples; going back a few years, Dennis Eckersley - regardless of Tony LaRussa's one-inning bang-bang policy with him in the ninth - could very well have gone two or more, especially given his prior long enough life as a starter and a decent one, plus LaRussa, whose brains hadn't yet gone to bed, was smart enough to break him in as a middleman-cum-setup man before turning him loose as the closer.)

And in a sense which I didn't get to discuss, this cuts to the heart of how we should define saves. What seems more like a real save to you: a no-muss, no-fuss full ninth inning final three outs, or coming in when the fit hits the shan and turning off the shan before the fit hits the wall and then getting the rest of the outs with no or minimal damage? I'd almost be tempted to argue that a guy who comes in and turns off the shan before the fit hits the wall and keeps the lead actually does more to save a win than the guy who strolls in fresh as a daisy at the beginning of the ninth inning and has, comparatively, child's play ahead of him even if the big bombers just so happen to be coming up to hit in the ninth. But note that I did say almost...

So how would you rank relievers, all around, in each league this year so far? I know here in St. Louis Jason Isringhausen has been very impressive.

In a certain sense, Izzy is almost Iffy if you consider LaRussa's habit of micromanaging his pitching staff and particularly his bullpen. By the time the season ends and the final tally is in, Isringhausen's stats could actually end up underrating him, assuming LaRussa doesn't finally quit the micromanagement. If you're asking about Izzy when he comes in with men on base, through 5 May he had only three inheritances in fourteen IPI and stranded all three of them. I'd feel comfortable bringing him in in the eighth with men on the pads and pressing hard.

Over the long haul of many years, I would say Troy Percival of Anaheim and Trevor Hoffman of San Diego are the guys in each league who are still at the top of their craft and also have had the most consistent excellent careers.

As two of the top examples of the single-inning, start-of-the-inning closers working today, I would be hard pressed to lowball either man, and that's allowing for Percival's turn on the DL earlier this year. But if you were to ask which of the two I think might do better over the long haul if he were to be brought in with men on base as well as strictly ninth-inning men, I'd have to say Hoffman even though he's been strictly a ninth inning man. You have to look at him, at the way he pitches as it is, and the way he approaches the hitters when he hits the mound, and you'd have to say that given all that there's really no reason why he couldn't put up Byung-Hyun Kim's or Mariano Rivera's kind of inheritance numbers and still pick up his saves. Percival isn't such a hot number when he comes in with men on base; he had four inherited runners to work with through 5 May in seven IPIs and stranded only two of those.

I think sooner or later, come to think of it, the things I was talking about will become critical talking points if and when the Hall of Fame can find a way to make a strongest-possible evaluation of how to rate relief pitchers in light of the frequency of shifts in the relievers' roles and definitions since the days of Elroy Face. (There's an excellent case that Face belongs in the Hall of Fame - he was considered, almost no questions asked, to be the best relief pitcher in the National League for at least half his career, and as often as not the best relief pitcher in the majors in the same periods, and he did it in a time where you were rated by how you smothered the threat and went from there to finish off. In fact, in 1959 he was, arguably, the best pitcher in baseball - he had a better season than the actual Cy Young Award winner, Early Wynn of the pennant-winning White Sox, but in the original Cy Young Award days they tended a) to look at the pennant winners, and b) look at the 20-game winners, for bestowing what was originally an across-the-board award and not one for each league; and, they sure didn't think about relievers when thinking about the best pitchers.) I think when that time comes, they will look at performances with inherited baserunners as a prime consideration in evaluating a relief pitcher. Especially considering that it does, after all, align very nicely to the definition of "relief". You're not just relieving another pitcher, you're trying to relieve your team.

[Charles Henrickson]

Hey, I agree with you that leaving the ducks on the pond with the game on the line is the quintessential defintion of relief. And that's what your top relief man used to do. The starter would go as long as he could (what's a "pitch count"?) until he got in trouble and was in danger of losing the lead or the game. This was in the 7th, 8th, or 9th inning (what's a six-inning "quality start"?). The reliever (I don't think the term "closer" had been invented yet) would come in, put out the fire, and then, hopefully, pitch the rest of the game, whether that meant one, two, or even up to three innings. (BTW, using only one or two pitchers, instead of six or seven, meant fewer pitching changes and thus, shorter games. And nobody had six-or-seven-man bullpens anyway.)

Now, as you say, it's often one of the set-up guys who faces the men-on-base crisis, and then--even if the guy could go longer--they automatically hand the ninth inning over to the shut-down closer. So now closers often don't pitch enough inherited-runners innings to show up on your chart.

[BluesDuke]

Hey, I agree with you that leaving the ducks on the pond with the game on the line is the quintessential defintion of relief. And that's what your top relief man used to do. The starter would go as long as he could (what's a "pitch count"?) until he got in trouble and was in danger of losing the lead or the game. This was in the 7th, 8th, or 9th inning (what's a six-inning "quality start"?). The reliever (I don't think the term "closer" had been invented yet) would come in, put out the fire, and then, hopefully, pitch the rest of the game, whether that meant one, two, or even up to three innings. (BTW, using only one or two pitchers, instead of six or seven, meant fewer pitching changes and thus, shorter games. And nobody had six-or-seven-man bullpens anyway.)

To be honest, I think the pitch count is a little bit overworked and a little more ridiculous; if you look at the prime starting pitchers in the game now, there's really very little reason why the bulk of them couldn't take a game into the eighth inning. And I have noticed a few more complete games coming this season than at a comparable point last season.

You may not know or believe it, but the pitch count concept actually began with Milt Pappas - for years, the one-time "Baby Bird" hotshot absolutely refused to throw more than 80 or 90 pitches in any given game, and he pitched in an era where a quality starting pitcher was pretty much expected to finish what he began unless he got murdered on the mound. Pappas was so insistent on his own personal pitch count that it probably cost him a Hall of Fame career; I find it nonsense that people actually think he's a Hall of Fame qualifier only because his overall won-lost record and earned-run average compares almost exactly to Don Drysdale. (Drysdale is actually a very overrated Hall of Famer - he wasn't as good down the pennant stretch as his reputation, and - as Bill James once isolated devastatingly - he had thirteen chances in his career to beat the one team his team most needed to beat to stay in the race or win the pennant and he never won one of them.)

Consider: Pappas was nearly always purged from a pennant-contending team within a year or two after they became contenders. He was the key man in the Frank Robinson deal for Cincinnati, and the Orioles had become contenders and would win the damn thing in 1966 while the Reds in the mid-1960s continued suffering the same fate as the Reds following their improbably 1961 pennant: inconsistent or continuously injured pitching - they never won a thing with Pappas on staff. He was unloaded post-haste from the Atlanta Braves right after they won the National League West in 1969. He went to the still-contending Chicago Cubs but the Cubs never won a thing with him on the staff, even if Leo Durocher did finally get in his face and tell him it was long past time to knock it off with trying to beg off the mound after his 80 pitches. Pappas also had a reputation as a clubhouse lawyer who too often gave the impression that he was more for himself than for his clubs.

A recent historiographer of the Orioles has suggested, with plenty enough support from Oriole players of the time (telling comment: another "Baby Bird" pitcher, lefty Steve Barber, saying of Pappas, You were a prick when we pitched together and you're still a prick), that Pappas was a goner practically before he got his wings wet because of his first influence on the club: Billy Loes, the legendary Brooklyn Dodger whose stated ambition was to not win 20 games a year. Loes ended up in Baltimore when Pappas came up and that was all she wrote.

Now, as you say, it's often one of the set-up guys who faces the men-on-base crisis, and then--even if the guy could go longer--they automatically hand the ninth inning over to the shut-down closer.

Often - but not exclusively.

So now closers often don't pitch enough inherited-runners innings to show up on your chart.

Still, there were at least eight such closers, and it did prove useful to examine them in that light in order to evaluate them as more than just shut-down closers. Especially considering it's been Mariano Rivera who was considered the best relief pitcher (as opposed to merely a shut-down closer) in baseball over the past five or six years, and he seems to do very well when he is brought in with men on base, as he is. I just don't think being nothing more than a shut-down closer is enough or the most important thing to go by when evaluating a relief pitcher, even if Sports Illustrated is more likely to put the single-inning shut-down closer on the cover because he's the one who usually gets the ink and the image.

I was still surprised that I could and did find eight qualifying closers who pitched ten or more IPIs and worked with five or more inherited baserunners in the period I isolated, in an era in which the image of the closer remains the one-inning shut-down man. (I was surprised, considering the workload of the San Diego bullpen, that Trevor Hoffman didn't have any inherited runners to work with in the time I examined.) I was also surprised to see exactly half of those closers (DeJean, Kim, Nunez, Rivera) had inherited runs averages of 1.50 or less; my best guess going in would have been two at the most. About how many closers I might find matching my criteria I had guessed, before looking, that I'd be lucky to find only four. And I think it may well be possible that perhaps a few more closers could become something more than single-inning shutters.

I think the game lengths have been affected more directly by a) the five-man starting rotation and b) the offence explosion and the strike-zone pinching of the mid-1990s that midwifed it - those are what created the frequency of pitching changes in the first place. Even in the earlier years of using closer-specific relievers (the Bruce Sutter-Kent Tekulve-Goose Gossage-Dan Quisenberry years, though I'm not sure exactly when the term "closer" came into complete usage), when managers were beginning to lean a little more on the finisher, the games weren't quite so bogged down by pitching changes unless, really, you were in the League Championship Series or the World Series. You'd be more likely to see half a dozen pitching changes in an LCS game or a Series game than during the regular season unless the pennant race was tight.

[Charles Henrickson]

OK, here's what's wrong with baseball (well, at least one of the 517 things wrong with baseball, but don't get me started):

Tuesday, three games, two showing what's wrong, one showing what's right . . .

Giants 2, Braves 0

Here's the line on Giants' starter Ryan Jensen:
8 innings, 5 hits, 0 runs, 0 BB, 4 SO, 82 pitches.

"The ninth belongs to Nen," so the (non-)thinking goes, thus shut-down closer Robb "The Starter of a Complete Game" Nen works the ninth. His line:
1 inning, 0 hits, 0 runs, 0 BB, 1 SO, 7 pitches

Now, can someone please explain to me why, on God's green earth, Jensen could not have finished that game? His spot did not come up to bat in the eighth inning; they didn't pinch-hit for him. He had thrown only 82 pitches--82 freakin' pitches! If he pitches into the ninth and gives up a dinger, they're still leading. If that happens, or even if he lets a man on base--fine, bring in Nen, I have no problem with that. But the guy was pitching a great game--five hits, no walks, a minimal number of pitches--Jensen was in line for a shutout, for cryin' out loud! Instead, Nen "works" a quiet ninth for a rather cheap 12th save.

By way of contrast, let's look at . . .

Mets 3, Dodgers 0

Now this is "the way it oughta be"--and used to be! Here's the line on Mets' starter Pedro Astacio:
9 innings, 2 hits, 0 runs, 2 BB, 9 SO, 121 pitches

Notice: No Armando "Hammer" Benitez "working" one inning for a cheap save! Even though Astacio (That Nut!) had thrown an incredibly high (by today's standard's, but not by yesteryear's) 121 pitches. That's 39 pitches more than Jensen!

Finally, back to an example of what's wrong . . .

Indians 6, Orioles 5

Orioles are leading 4-2 after six. Do they have to pinch-hit for starter Erickson in the seventh? No, this is the dumb DH league, remember. Anyways, even if it's the NL, and even if his spot comes up to bat, you wouldn't have to pinch-hit for him if you're leading 4-2. But Erickson has made his "quality start" of six innings and, after all, he's thrown a whopping 96 pitches--poor baby! So Erickson doesn't come to the mound for the seventh; instead we get Bauer, who has a quiet inning. But then Bauer pitched to one batter in the eighth--he must have let the guy on, because he's lifted, and Groom and Roberts pitch the rest of the scoreless eighth. (Note: Two intra-inning pitching changes there; that's what takes so much time. Thank you, Mike "Human-Rain-Delay-as-a-Manager-Too" Hargrove.) The Orioles add a run in the top of the ninth, so now they're up 5-2 going into the bottom of the ninth. Pitching now is the guy I'm guessing is their one-inning shut-down closer, Mr. Julio. Except he can only get two outs. The Indians score four, Matt "There Oughta Be a" Lawton hitting a two-run walk-off dinger to win the game for the Tribe.

Altogether for both teams: nine--count 'em--nine pitchers. (And this, in a league where pitchers don't have to come out for pinch-hitters.) Time of the game: three hours, twenty-two minutes (3:22). Exciting finish for the home fans, I'm sure, but . . . how many of them had fallen asleep before then?

[E Rocc]

Orioles are leading 4-2 after six. Do they have to pinch-hit for starter Erickson in the seventh? No, this is the dumb DH league, remember.

It's the league where we don't cut the pitcher slack and send an atrocious hitter to the plate once every nine at bats. So he's more likely to get pulled out because he's not doing his job.

The DH is a great rule. It makes it tougher on pitchers and makes it a better game for the fans. It allows injured or older players who can still hit to play. For example, I suspect Reds fans would prefer to see Griffey DH for a week or two rather than stay on the DL.

-Eric

[Dales]

Unless there was something else up with the move to leave Jensen in, I would agree with you wholeheartedly that it was a dumb move to take him out. On any given day, there is a chance that someone just won't have it, and taking a guy out who is pitching well to put in someone else just seems to me to be increasing the chance that you will have someone out there who just is having an off day.

That said, Baker's teams tend to outperform their expected record (based on runs scored compared to runs allowed by the baseball equivalent of the pythagorean theorem), and he has been known to let pitchers pile up the innings (Hernandez was 7th in innings pitched last year with Ortiz not too far behind) so I would bet that this was the exception with the Giants and not the norm. Perhaps Jensen said he was tiring, or that he felt a tightness.

But if it was a change just because it was a save situation and those are Nen's, well, that is just silly.

[2Trievers]

BatterTTT Bump! &;-)

[ValerieUSA]

Little Jimmy and his playmate Fidel

[BluesDuke]

The points are taken well enough, of course. But even those don't quite hold the candle to the Padres manager some years back who hooked his starter in the ninth - when the man had a no-hitter going! (If I were an owner, the only reason I'd fire a manager Steinbrenner-style would be if he dared hook a pitcher in the ninth when the man was working a no-hitter.) The relief pitcher blew the no-hitter and the game, as it turned out. I forget who the would-be no-hit pitcher had been, though.

Ideally (this was one of the points I thought I was aiming toward when I wrote on my baseball blog the other day about how the bullpens do with inherited runners) you don't go to the pen unless (until?) the starter gets into nuke-hot water in an inning; or, your starter just runs out of gas (even the most durable starter won't finish every game he starts, even in the old days when your Koufaxes and Gibsons and Marichals were completing at least as many games as they won) and the lead is real tight. (I'd like to see them amend the save rule a little bit - I'm not sure I'd be so quick to award a save for a scoreless ninth with the lead more than two runs, I think it's three runs or less on the lead to qualify for a save.)

Depending on the series you're playing, the time of the pennant race, or the World Series, there will be times when you need a stopper like now, even if it's the third inning. Just ask the Yankees, who were in just that situation in the season-ending game that meant the 1949 pennant - third inning, starter getting bombed, out to the mound goes Casey Stengel and out of the pen comes Joe Page, usually his late-innings man, who pitched the rest of the way and stopped the bleeding enough to give the Yankees a chance to get back in the game.

You don't want to blow out your starting pitching early in the season, even if you have men who can go the distance. But what you want is to know that if you need one in the heat of the pennant race (as in, about a week after the All-Star break), you can bring in a stopper as soon as you need him, rather than a) let your starting pitcher get his brains beaten out when you know you need him fresh and set in his rotation slot, and b) work the kind of plan that says no matter what you're going to the pen in the ninth. And if you can't know who's going to pound the other guys out and send the baserunners to Gilligan's Island and finish your game from that point forward even if it is more than one inning, then you've got a bullpen handicap.

But then, I'm the guy who also says it's about time that some more pitchers were working inside and, if necessary, knocking those plate-smotherers on their asses to even things up a little bit (some idiot actually told me once that Bob Gibson should be stripped of his Hall of Fame credential because he "threw at people," which tells you how much said idiot knows baseball - you'd have to eliminate about 2/3 of the pitchers in the Hall if you disqualified the pitchers who threw inside tight to keep the plate honest). I don't really care how long the games last if I'm seeing good, balanced baseball. I love the long balls as much as the next fan, but I also love to watch good pitching and good defence, and as long as there are still enough judicial tyrants on the umpiring crews, and enough whiners among the batters who go running to Mommy or trying to start a riot because the pitch came inside and tight, you're going to have as many overly long ball games as you get by way of managers who use the pitch count unreasonably and go to the pen regardless of the game situation after that certain pitch count hikes up.

Speaking of no-hitters, did you know Joe Cowley, then with the Chicago White Sox, is the only man in major league history whose last major league win was a no-hitter? He tossed the gem in 1985 and didn't win another big league game after that.

[Charles Henrickson]

I knew the manager was Preston Gomez, but what I had forgotten was . . . he did it twice! And the thing is, he was probably right both times!

July 21, 1970: The Padres' Clay Kirby has a no-hitter going for eight innings against the Mets, but is trailing 1-0. In the bottom of the eighth, Padres' manager Preston Gomez lifts Kirby for a pinch-hitter. Reliever Jack Baldschun gives up three hits and two more runs, and the Padres lose 3-0.

September 4, 1974: The Astros' Don Wilson has a no-hitter going for eight innings against the Reds, but is trailing 2-1. In the bottom of the eighth, Astros' manager Preston Gomez (yes, the same guy!) lifts Wilson for a pinch-hitter. Reliever Mike Cosgrove gives up a hit, but the score doesn't change, and the Astros lose 2-1. (Not only was Gomez the manager again, but Clay Kirby happened to be at that game, too, as a member of the Reds' pitching staff.)

[BluesDuke]

I knew the manager was Preston Gomez, but what I had forgotten was . . . he did it twice! And the thing is, he was probably right both times!

July 21, 1970: The Padres' Clay Kirby has a no-hitter going for eight innings against the Mets, but is trailing 1-0. In the bottom of the eighth, Padres' manager Preston Gomez lifts Kirby for a pinch-hitter. Reliever Jack Baldschun gives up three hits and two more runs, and the Padres lose 3-0.

September 4, 1974: The Astros' Don Wilson has a no-hitter going for eight innings against the Reds, but is trailing 2-1. In the bottom of the eighth, Astros' manager Preston Gomez (yes, the same guy!) lifts Wilson for a pinch-hitter. Reliever Mike Cosgrove gives up a hit, but the score doesn't change, and the Astros lose 2-1. (Not only was Gomez the manager again, but Clay Kirby happened to be at that game, too, as a member of the Reds' pitching staff.)

Like either the 1970 Padres or the 1974 Astros were in anything resembling a pennant race in those seasons? It wasn't their fault that their teammates didn't support them in those games.

Show some commitment to your pitchers' heart, is what I would have told him if he had asked. Never mind the difficulty in throwing a no-hitter (they're not exactly a dime a dozen, and they weren't even in the legendary Year Of The Pitcher), if a man got one as far as the eighth inning, give the man the right to try and nail it. Especially when you're not going to get a pennant that year unless you buy one at the souvenir stands.

For one damned ballgame that has no bearing on a pennant race, a manager can afford to let a pitcher try to pitch that last inning and finish the no-hitter even if it's a game he's going to lose. And if any of his mates demanded to know why and wherefore, all Gomez would have had to do was ask them, And where the hell were you when he needed some runs to work with? You want me to penalise him because you guys couldn't get anyone home with a Rand McNally Atlas today? Instead, he got himself, if I remember correctly, a pretty good roasting in the papers over those moves, and he deserved it.