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In October of 2012, Bill James felt like the landscape had cooled. Ten years on, he was able to comment on the 2003 "Closer By Committee" fiasco in Boston. Here's an Exec Sum for you. As y'know, we live to serve.
- Bill James was hired by the Red Sox about Christmas 2002.
- In 2003, the Red Sox (NOT James) decided to save $$$ in the bullpen and get hitters, as Jerry DiPoto has done.
- In early 2003, the Red Sox bullpen blew SIX saves on their first road trip. 6 of 'em before they ever got to Fenway.
- Those in the press who hated James tried to hang the "failed" Closer By Committee concept on James to run him out of Boston, if not baseball.
- James stood in front of the media bullets silently and with dignity, forming a heat shield for everyone else.
- That kind of thing is one of the big reasons why James is still working for the Red Sox.
- Neither James nor the Red Sox ever advocated a Closer By Committee
- What he HAD said is, if you have one (1) great reliever, use him when the game is tied or you're up one run. Use him for two innings.
- For various reasons, he's now somewhat undecided about all this.
But you, the "profound" SSI reader (thanks SodiumRanch LOL), will immediately spot this James concept as being more important than anything noted above:
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I have pointed this out before, but it is still true: that the use of the bullpen has never in baseball history reached anything resembling a stable consensus. The way that bullpens are constructed and used now is radically different from the way they were constructed and used in 2002--and 2002 is very different from 1992, 1992 is completely different from 1982, 1982 wholly and absolutely different from 1972, etc., etc.
We have never reached a point at which managers were content to rest with the dominant strategies. The fact that this continues to evolve and continues to evolve forcefully and radically certainly suggests that we have not yet arrived at anything like a point of optimal effectiveness--thus, that whatever we are doing now is not "right"; it is merely today's experiment, which will be washed away tomorrow. - Bill James, in the comments thread to the CbyC article
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In other words, we don't know HOW to use relievers. We never did, and we still don't.
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DR's DIAGNOSIS
Since we don't have a verdict from the RYBKA-3200 computer, I'm sticking with the idea that James originally proposed. Use your one great reliever in high-leverage innings. If you just joined us, "tied in the 8th inning" is more high-leverage than "ahead 5-2 in the 9th inning." If you could somehow use Joaquin Benoit 50 times when tied in the 7th and 8th, and use him for 3-6 batters to mow down the middle of the lineup, then your record in those games might go from 25-25 to 33-17, plus 8 games. If you used him to celebrate 5-2 leads in the 9th -- when your chances of winning are 95% whoever pitches -- then he might add 1 win to what somebody else would do.
When you have one great pitcher, one dubious "name" pitcher and five question marks, it's blinkin' awesome to set them up exactly the way the Mariners are doing. If Cishek were putting out fires and Benoit "closing" 95% games, I'd have a sick feeling in my stomach. But as it stands, I feel like Joaquin Benoit gives us a great start on cobbling a competent result out of the pen.
Dr. D has a lot of confidence in this setup.
Let's say you and I are playing Strat-O-Matic. I'm ahead after 5, and I have a little yellow "Get Out of Inning Free" card, plus six average relievers. I'll play that card against Trout and Pujols, and it's up to you to beat my "okay" relievers with your little boys. I already got the lead. Good luck to you.
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Random stat I don't like: last year, Joaquin Benoit pitched exactly 1.0 innings in 64 out of 67 appearances. Here's the game log. I've never seen anything like it. Benoit simply came in, ahead of Craig Kimbrel, to pitch a clean 8th inning every single time the Padres led after 7. Dr. D certainly hopes that Scott Servais does not have this in mind. Between Steve Cishek and Craig Kimbrel there is a long, long ways - and even if we had Craig Kimbrel this probably would not be the way to set it up. The Padres were 74-88 with this mind-blowing bullpen routine going for it.
The 2014 game logs aren't a lot different. Only 4 of 53 games involved more than 1.0 innings. ... well, IF at Benoit's age you have to limit him to a clean 1.0 inning from the full windup, make blinkin' sure it's Trout and Pujols he's getting for you. Whether that be the 7th, 8th, or 9th. We think Scott Servais can grok that.
Whatever happened to FIREMEN? Two on, one out, and your hoss comes in to get you out of danger? Bah humbug.
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Benoit was out for the 2009 season. Before that he was good. He came back in 2010 and was Grrrrr-eat. He has averaged 10.02 strikeouts, 2.59 walks, and 0.95 homers over the entire span of six seasons. This puts his xFIP at #30 over the span of six years, behind a bunch of guys like Mariano Rivera, JJ Putz (who don't pitch any more), Ken Giles (who just got here) and Aroldis Chapman - Craig Kimbrel - Andrew Miller (who don't pitch on 1-year contracts for $8M).
DiPoto is saving money in the bullpen, notably to get Adam Lind onto the team and to quick up his outfield defense. He did, however, spend $8M on a maypole for the late innings.
BABVA,
Dr D
