In 1988 for the Oakland Athletics, Tony LaRussa initiated his strategy of using Dennis Eckersley as a 9th inning, only-when-leading relief pitcher – a “closer.” The move helped the A’s and resurrected Eckersley from an over-the-hill starter to Cy Young and MVP winner. The success of the Athletics and Eckersley popularized the practice with it eventually attaining universal adoption across MLB. Specific elements of the Eckersley case made the strategy make sense. He was an aging starter with a lot of inning mileage in his arm. Restricting his innings and making them very predictable so as to ease warming up...