Many things have changed over the past several years about the way baseball is run. Sabermetrics has changed the way that general managers have built teams all the way down to the field level where managers have used defensive shifts to exploit the flaws in certain batters. One thing that hasn’t changed much is the rigid use of the bullpen. The need to have a 7th inning guy, 8th inning guy, and name a closer fuels talk among fans every year. The Yankees are in this same boat going in the 2015 season, especially regarding the use of Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller. But, is naming a closer the best scenario? Let’s take a look.
The statistics over the past 100 years in Major League Baseball show that when a team is leading after 8 innings they win 95% of the time. This number hasn’t changed even with the advent of the save statistic in 1960 and with the current trend in bullpen specialization. So why the hard line on saving one guy to only pitch when there is a lead in the 9th inning?
The common thought is that it takes a special mentality or ego to work the pressure packed situations of the ninth inning. Mere mortals would crumble under the pressure involved. Most Yankees fans have been spoiled by the unbelievable late inning success provided by Mariano Rivera from 1996-2013 and for good reason. No one came close to touching him when it came to clutch performances, especially in the postseason. But, the thought that these outs obtained in the ninth inning of a game are the most important and toughest to get isn’t always the case and is flawed logic.
My main issue with all of this is trying to figure out why managers save what is supposedly their best available pitcher for the ninth inning. Why do managers think they have to use their 7th inning guy in the 7th inning just because that’s what they’ve done all year? Why do they think they have to bring in their 8th inning guy when the situation is bases loaded and 1 out in the bottom of the 8th inning? How is that less of a pressure situation than starting with a fresh slate in the bottom of the 9th inning? If the 8th inning guy gives up the tying run or even loses the lead, your closer and presumably best available pitcher sits on the bench in the 9th inning. Using an inferior pitcher in what, at the moment, is the biggest spot in the game just doesn’t make sense.
Next, is the issue of limiting your best available pitcher to just one inning. If whoever is pitching the eighth inning mows down the opposition and only throws 10 pitches, I say let him start the ninth inning. If you aren’t locked into using one person for a certain situation, let the guy that obviously has good stuff that day finish the deal. This could be one way of keeping your bullpen fresh over the course of a long season and make them more effective. Plus, the pressure is off of the manager to keep trotting out the struggling pitcher each and every day because he is the closer.
The save statistic can be a misleading one. Closers enter a game in a variety of situations, but most often enter a game to start the ninth inning. Obviously, it is a very different ballgame when you enter with a 3 run lead vs. runners on base and a 1 run lead. To illustrate this, I will use Rivera’s postseason numbers. His postseason numbers are phenomenal and, in my opinion, he is one of the greatest players of all time. But, of his 42 postseason saves, 33 have been in games that the Yankees won by at least two runs and 15 were games the Yankees won by three or more runs. Again, I use these numbers only to illustrate how misleading the save can look on paper.
Betances and Miller are obviously two of the best relievers in the game today. They will form a solid 1-2 punch at the end of games for the Yankees this season. They both have had similar success against batters from both sides of the plate in the past. In 2014, lefties hit .161 and righties hit .133 against Betances. Lefties slugged at a .200 clip against him and righties at .250. He dominated everyone he faced and did so in 90 innings of work. Why limit him to 60 or so innings as a closer?
Similar story for Miller as well. Lefties hit .161 and righties .140 in 2014. The oppositions slugging percentage numbers were .261 for lefties and .202 for righties. Like Betances, he has no real shortcomings as far as matchups go. Neither is limited in any of these ways. They both can get a team out of a jam in the sixth or seventh inning and pitch through the next inning. And either one can be used to finish off both the eighth and ninth inning of a game. Would you rather have David Carpenter pitching with bases loaded in the sixth or seventh inning or one of the two headed monster of Betances and Miller?
Change in baseball takes time and is usually slow to work its way to all teams. When you have two pitchers of such similar ability as the Yankees will have in 2015, it just seems to make the most sense to try and maximize this ability and get the most out of them and use them at the most vital point in the game. All outs are equal in that it takes 27 of them to win a nine inning game. And the three outs obtained in the ninth inning are meaningless if your third best reliever coughed up the lead in the sixth or seventh inning.
