I used to think that too, but the closer by committee that the Red Sox employed was a disaster, yet Smoltz in Atlanta seems to be money in the bank. Maybe it just needs to be reviewed on a case by case basis. Or maybe it's just psychological. I think this guy makes some good points.
Every week, teams in August submit players to the waiver list. Sometimes it's legitimate as those players might need to go through waivers for the following reasons: to send them down to the minors, to release the players, to drop them off the 25- or 40-man rosters. Sometimes, it's to see if they can slip a good player through and make a trade after the July 31st deadline. It happened in 1992 when the Jays got Cone from the Mets. Toronto had listed a bunch of players to go through waivers, including Ryan Thompson and Jeff Kent. The Mets listed a bunch of minor leaguers and sub-par players as well. However, they also listed David Cone in the MIDDLE of the list. None of the Jays' competitors noticed his name there and when he went through, the Jays/Mets trade was finalized. Lots of August deals have been squashed in the past years because of alert GMs (or assistant GMs) spotting an unusual player on the waiver wire and making a claim. Jose Canseco was picked up by the Yankees in August when Tampa Bay tried to put him on the waiver wire to make a trade (with some other team). The usual result is that the original team will then remove the player from waivers and try to make a deal with the team making a claim. However, Tampa wanted to ditch Canseco's contract and decided to let NY have him "for free" (since NY didn't really want him and made the claim to stop him from going to another team). In this instance, the claim backfired on NY and they were forced to take Canseco. Nowadays, it's hard to slip a good player through the waivers in August UNLESS he has an intolerable contract situation. The reason that it's difficult is that there are new GMs that won't let the "good old boys" network get away with it. For an example of this, do a search on Theo Epstein and Kevin Millar: Theo (the Red Sox GM) put a claim on Millar when Florida tried to slip him through waivers to sell him to a Japanese team back in the winter. It was considered "bad form" for Theo to make the claim as it broke the gentleman's agreement among other GMs.
usfbull I didn't mean that the position isn't important - but it is overrated. Paying a guy more than $6 million a year for 65 innings is, frankly, a case of the marketing getting one over on itself. San Fran, The Yanks (for most of the season), the Red Sox, The As (who have had a revolving door on the closer locker), have all done pretty well without a dominant type of guy. People always say how much of a shambles the Boston pen was before they got Kim - yeah, but that was because the pen was a shambles - Kim didn't set them right, Kim plus Williamson, plus a few other guys just made them better - and they were still winning anyway. Look at the best closers out there - outside of Smoltz, almost none of them will be in the post season. Gagne is unhittable - but he can't make or break a pennant. Closers don't win games and more often than not - they simply end games already won. Starting pitching, defence and line-up are all more important in my book.
For an example of this, do a search on Theo Epstein and Kevin Millar: Theo (the Red Sox GM) put a claim on Millar when Florida tried to slip him through waivers to sell him to a Japanese team back in the winter. It was considered "bad form" for Theo to make the claim as it broke the gentleman's agreement among other GMs. http://www.bostondirtdogs.com/
2003/kevin_millar_weei.htm http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/
2003/0203/1503537.html http://
www.redsoxconnection.com/
offseason3.html
Gagne is unhittable - but he can't make or break a pennant. He can't make it, but if he blows 8 saves instead of 2 and the Dodgers end up 3 games out, you could make a case that he broke it by not finishing games they should have won. Also, A-Rod can't make a pennant either. No one player ever will. Closers don't win games and more often than not - they simply end games already won. Sit through a Blue Jays game or two and realize that these "already won" games are not won without a good closer. Toss John Smoltz in there, they are probably fighting for the wild card race. That's what a closer can do. He finishes wins, not letting them lead for 8 innings and lose. It's not only detrimental in the standings, but also to morale. If you don't believe me, let's see the last 10 World Series Champions: 2002 - Anaheim - Troy Percival 2001 - Arizona - Byung Kim 2000-1998 - NYY - Mariano Rivera 1997 - Florida - Robb Nen 1996 - NYY - Mariano Rivera 1995 - Atlanta - Mark Wholers (at his best) 1992, 93 - Toronto - Duane Ward (fantastic closer in his day) Seems like a pretty good pattern to me. All of these teams had exceptional closers. The last team without a good closer that won the pennant was the '88 Dodgers, who had 2 average closers in Jay Powell and Alajendro Pena. The point is that World Series winners have good closers. It doesn't matter whether or not you can make the playoffs without a good closer, it's whether or not you can win the World Series without one, and it hasn't been done in 15 years, so it seems to me they are pretty damn important. Oh, and I like comma splices.
Theoretically Gagne could make or break the pennant. If the Dodgers had the bats the red sox have had in their lineup... whole different story. Run support baby, run support.
2001 - Arizona - Byung Kim If I remember correctly, they won that World Series despite his contributions. Well, in the Series itself that is...;) And he wasn't really in the "closer" role as he only got 19 saves in 78 pitching appearances. It was the one-two punch of Schilling/Johnson that got them to (and won) the World Series. And 2002 wasn't Troy Percival, it was setup man Francisco Rodriguez that won it for them in the playoffs. Double the innings, 0.90 ERA lower and pitching in far more critical situations. Example: Game 2 - FRod throws 3 shutout innings (6,7,8) giving the Angels a chance to come from behind. Percival pitches just the 9th (with a 2 run lead) and gives up a HR to Bonds (remember that one? I think it just came down last week...). And to finish off the nitpicking hat trick, Tom Henke was the closer in 1992 for the Jays, and Ward was the setup man (even though Ward was more valuable than Henke by throwing double the innings and having a sub-2.00 ERA). In conclusion, grum no-likey closer role and paying excess money for it. grum feel that best pitcher in bullpen should be used in close games ANY time, not just the 9th. grum feel that "save" is silly stat as man who pitches two innings in middle of tie game gets less money than man who pitches in 9th with 3 run lead.
mbd1 agree with grum. If these closers are such great assets to their teams, aren't they being underutilized? Or is there such a psychological edge to being the "closer" and only pitching in save situations? And I'm suspicious that it's a which came first, the chicken or the egg situation. Are they used as closers because they are great pitchers, or are they great pitchers because they are used in low risk, high counting stat situations? There's no doubt that they are excellent at what they do - I just think that what they do is overvalued, payroll-wise.
So you guys read Moneyball too?
Yep.
I started reading it Sunday.
You guys are cheating - Rickey Henderson day doesn't start till friday. As it is now technically friday, Dave will dip into Rickey Speak (and hereby makes the rule that all fridays will be Rickey Henderson fridays from now on) appropriately. None of you should have been expected to know the rules of a weekly holiday on one of Dave's other message boards. Anyway, Dave just ordered Moneyball and will receive it within the week, but he has always thought that the closer was overrated. And this comes from a Yankees fan (Dave hates Rivera and thinks he is a waste of money). If Boston ran closer by committee now, with a good staff, they would be just fine, and no better or worse off than having one guy doing the closing. It's really not that hard to throw one scoreless inning if you're a good pitcher. Coming in against a team that is used to seeing someone else is not that hard... and Dave would be willing to bet that none of these uber closers would be all that great if they had to face a lineup more than once in a game... just as any starter now ought to be just fine if they only have to face a few people, all for the first time. Definitely overrated. And in keeping with the theme, Mo was far more valuable as a 2 inning setup man for Wetteland in 96 than he has been as a closer since... though no other Yankee fan in the world would admit that...
therev - Yeah, boy sure are a lot of those great closers out there on World Series winners. Some had long careers some had short ones - are they the best there are? Or just better than the average? So does the closer make the stats, or do the stats make the closer? Roughly how many saves are truly earned? It's not that it's unimportant - it's that it's overrated. And Kim in Arizona is a terrible example - how many saves did he blow in the World Seriies? And the Dbacks still WON. Look at the saves in the AL this year - leading the league is Texas followed by Baltimore. Blown saves? Kansas City. Toronto is among the last in the league in both saves and save opportunities - they can't get there and they can't close - however, they beat Baltimore and Texas in overall record. It's an overrated stat, and an overrated position. Thanks for pointing out my comma splices. Classy.
I wasn't pointing out yours, I was pointing out mine. It's plagued me since junior high and only now have I accepted that it's going to keep happening forever.
Sorry - I'm touchy today.
Here's a point I think everyone is missing - how many times do managers lift pitchers from games simply because the book says to go with your closer, or go to a long reliever? All this bullshit about how pitchers' arms aren't strong enough to go nine innings anymore, or how situational relievers make a team more competitive is, in my eyes, a self-fulfilling prophecy. You have a good starter, you leave him in there until he obviously can't go anymore - not until his lame ass looks in the dugout because some third-of-an-inning lefty can come in and face Bonds. I don't know if there are stats one way or the other for this, but I do know I roll my eyes to the heavens every time a manager trots out to relieve his starter after he gives up a leadoff hit or walk in the seventh or eighth. A lot of times, he's just relieving the guy of the victory. As for the history of closers, I haven't been able to find very much. This guy is pretty much acknowledged as the first real "reliever," but you'll see even his stellar 1950 season, he averaged nearly two innings an outing and sometimes threw four. How that degenerated into pitching one inning every three days is beyond me.
