Yesterday, I was fawning all over Andrew Friedman for all the moves he didn’t make. So, the baseball gods smote me for my hubris by ensuring that the Rays would continue not making moves now that Brian Fuentes signed with Oakland and Jon Rauch signed with Toronto.
Woops.
(I really left the baseball gods with no choice. I even stupidly wrote a large part of a Rauch post just waiting on official word that he was going to be a Ray. In my defense, it is the middle of the winter and my baseball superstition reflex is recuperating. This would never happen mid-season. Stupid Stupid Stupid.).
Now that Bobby Jenks, Octavio Dotel, Brian Fuentes, Jon Rauch (and even Rafael Soriano) have found homes, there really aren’t any “closer” options on the free agent market. My idea, inspired by Jonah Keri, to move Jeff Niemann to the bullpen is also out now after Matt Garza was traded to Chicago.
So, unless some GM gets hammered and trades us a closer for Kelly Shoppach, the Rays are going to have to do what the Rays do best: innovate.
Jason Collette has a great statistical analysis at Dock of the Rays projecting potential closers based on their past work. His conclusion:
Farnsworth, Peralta, and McGee are the best choices for the closer role until J.P. Howell comes back who has the most proven experience of any of them. Howell has put on 25 pounds of muscle since we last saw him but nobody knows if his stuff will still be the same and it was his movement and deception that made him successful rather than his fringy velocity.
If I were Joe Maddon, and I had to choose between Kyle Farnsworth, Joel Peralta, Jake McGee, and J.P. Howell to close games, I would. Re-reading Collette’s analysis, it is clear that each has some qualities that are likely to make them successful in late, high-leverage situations, but each is flawed. So, I say use them all. Why force one guy into a role they might not be able to handle when you can share the burden and spread the workload?
That is exactly the kind of unconventional solution the skipper loves.
Looks like a closer by committee.
I am ok with that solution. Better than pushing a square peg into a round hole. Well, an oval peg at least.
I don’t like the phrase “closer by committee” because it elevates the closer’s role beyond its actual importance and it has associations with supposed failures.
Rather I prefer to think of it as flexible bullpen usage, in which relievers are used according to the situation and their fitness for it in each individual case, not in pre-determined roles.
If you need your strikeout pitcher to protect a 1 run lead with a man on third and 1 out in the 6th inning, then use him there. What is the point of holding him back to the 9th inning when it may be moot just because he is your closer?
I have always thought the Rays were in the perfect position to break the recent tradition of designating closers even though they seem loath to do it. Not only might it prove a more effective use of relievers, especially with Maddon’s touch, but it would eliminate the need to pay a premium for one reliever just because he has the added panache of having been a closer. That should appeal to the Rays.
In a season when the Rays have not signed a stereotypical closer, rather than pout about it, perhaps we should consider it an opportunity for real innovation.
I definitely agree Bob. The best argument I have heard against flexible bullpen usage (can we start calling the guys in the bullpen “rubbermen” or “Stretch Armstrong” or something? That could be fun) is not that closers are actually important but, rather, that pitchers think closers are important. Basically, the argument is that the bullpen pitchers don’t like knowing that the uncertainty so it messes with their mental preparation.
I think that argument is horse—-. The entire existence of a relief pitcher is built on not knowing when you will pitch so the 9th inning shouldn’t be any different. Ergo, I am with you on this one.
Yes, I know that argument about wanting or needing to know their role. Not being a major league pitcher myself, I will not state with certainty there is no point to that, but I have strong opinions about it based on the history of the game and the whole point of being a reliever. And essentially, my view is exactly yours, that the job of a reliever is to get people out and avoid allowing runs to score, and that job is the same regardless of the inning.
Perhaps there is more to it in terms of preparation or mindset or some other factors we are not considering, but my guess is most of those are self-serving arguments without real foundation in truth.
It is about usage and preparation. The worst thing you can do to a bullpen is have guys throwing hard and regularly not getting them in the game. Once in a while, this is fine. But you can’t get your best guy up at the start of the 6th inning expecting to have a situation with two guys on with two out and needing that big out. That is not real life.
That is a fair point. It is also something Joe Maddon has been criticized for in the past. Tyler Walker refused to re-sign with the Rays (or maybe refused to sign an extension, I can’t remember which) because he thought Joe got him up too often in a game and the added stress from getting loose and cooling down caused his elbow injury.
But, your argument presumes you have a “best guy.” The situation we are looking at has three or four “best guys.” So, you can avoid the added stress by using a “best guy” in the 6th because you still have three other similarly “best guys” for tight spots in the remaining innings.
Curious. How many blown saves for Rays 2008, 2009, 2010? Or maybe even better, record when leading after 7 innings in those years.
Without Benoit and Soriano I think the Rays record would have been much different in 2010.
In 2010 the Rays were 74-3 when leading after 7 and 80-1 when leading after 8.
In 2009 the Rays were 64-7 when leading after 7 and 70-3 when leading after 8.
In 2008 the Rays were 75-5 when leading after 7 and 83-2 when leading after 8.
The team was obviously helped by the firm of Benoit and Soriano but not exponentially. The point is, the club can “replace” that performance without signing a designated “closer.”
I’m completely on the fence on the “closer” role. I don’t like forming an opinion until I feel like something has been proven to me one way or the other.
BUT, I will say this…I love the chess-like drama that is baseball. But I HATED ’09 when we would just wonder who would come in to close, especially since JP was the only reliable “closer”. Last year, every time Soriano came in, I relaxed. And I’m just a fan, I can’t imagine what the emotions in the bullpen are like when they are all wondering if they are going to get their number called to close a tight game.