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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.