Of Closers and Set Up Men

One of the view bright spots for the 2010 Pittsburgh Pirates was the performance of the back of the bullpen. Joel Hanrahan and Evan Meek were two of the best relievers in the game and the reason that no one worried when the Pirates traded away 3 of the main aspects (Dotel, Lopez, Carrasco) of their bullpen at the deadline. The other day, Joe Posnanski wrote a great article about set up men, which inspired me to write this post. Joe's stuff is a must-read for baseball enthusiasts, especially those of you who are obsessed with numbers and statistics.

Anyways, the article got me thinking about how the Pirates should utilize Hanrahan and Meek in coming years. These two will surely be the 8th and 9th inning guys for the Pirates for years to come and they should be one of the best 1-2 punches in the league.

The norm is that a big league team will have their best reliever pitch the 9th inning in close game situations. When their team is losing by a couple runs or ahead by more than 3 runs going into the 9th, teams don't always use their closers. As Joe points out in his article, it doesn't really matter what teams do, for the last 50 years teams have won around the same percentage of the games they lead heading into the 9th inning. The closer role has been extremely over inflated and overvalued in the last decade, and there are no doubt better guys pitching in the 9th inning then there were decades ago. The fact that the number of games that teams win when they lead in the 9th hasn't changed throughout all these years of change speaks volumes to say that it doesn't really matter who you have in there, you'll still win at about the same rate.

This led Joe to question a lot of the reasoning of closers. These guys get paid a lot more than other relievers, and they are often held out of games if there is not a save opportunity present. I figured I'd take a look at a couple instances of teams that have a set 8th inning guy and a set 9th inning guy in the last 2 years, and see how the numbers look. Here's what I found:

I figured I'd stay in the NL Central to start with. When I think of set-up man, I think of Arthur Rhodes. Rhodes has been setting for Francisco Cordero the last 2+ seasons. Here are the numbers.

Rhodes:
2010: 55 IP, 33 IP in 8th inning, 2.29 ERA, 8.2 K/9
2009: 52.1 IP, 32.2 IP in 8th inning, 2.53 ERA, 8.1 K/9

Cordero:
2010: 72.2 IP, 64 IP in 9th inning, 3.84 ERA, 7.3 K/9
2009: 66.2 IP, 56.2 IP in 9th inning, 2.16 ERA, 7.8 K/9

The other 2 guys I want to look at play in Chicago, Matt Thornton and Bobby Jenks from the White Sox.

Thornton:
2010: 60.2 IP, 29.2 IP in 8th inning, 2.67 ERA, 12.0 K/9
2009: 72.1 IP, 31 IP in 8th inning, 2.74 ERA, 10.8 K/9

Jenks:
2010: 52.2 IP, 43.2 IP in 9th inning, 4.44 ERA, 10.4 K/9
2009: 53.1 IP, 43.2 IP in 9th inning, 3.71 ERA, 8.3 K/9


First of all, these numbers don't prove anything, they are just 2 examples that I am picking to help make a point.

In these two cases, we can see 2 things: the set-up man puts up much better numbers than the closer, and yet pitches less innings. What's this mean? It means that these two teams are using their better pitcher less just because of the 'closer' tag on the other guy. Now the main reason for this is because of the track records of Cordero and Jenks. They have both been closers for many years and have been successful in their time. However, over the last few years they have slowed down, and yet they are still being used more often than better pitchers in the same bullpen. It's understandable because of seniority and respect, however not the best thing for the baseball team as a whole.

Now you aren't going to see this too often in the major leagues, most teams give their best pitcher more innings than the rest of the guys in the bullpen, however there may still be something wrong with how they are using them.

As Posnanski wrote in his article, teams that lead going into the 8th inning have won around 91% of the time every year for decades. Teams that lead going into the 9th is around 95%. So regardless of who is pitching, those are the numbers.

That said, wouldn't it make more sense for teams to ditch the "closer" tag and just pitch their best pitcher when they need outs the most? What's the point of saving your best arm for the 9th inning in a close game when you never know if you're even going to get to that point? If you're up a run or two in the 7th inning and your pitcher lets a couple guys on, I say bring in your best pitcher there, get out of the inning with the lead, and take your 91% chance of winning to the bank. Even more so with the 8th inning, if you're in a tough situation and need outs badly, why leave your best chance of getting those outs out of the game? Bring in the guy with the best chance of getting the outs, get out of the inning with the lead, and then be happy with your 95% chance of winning the ball game.

One thing we saw a lot of this year in the major leagues was closers pitching more than one inning. Guys like Brian Wilson from the Giants and John Axford from the Brewers did it a lot, and were very successful when they did so. Now not all closers are suited for that, but my guess is most of them can handle it. It seems to me to be common sense that you want your best pitchers pitching more innings. If you need 5 outs to win a game and it's close with some runners on, bring your best pitcher in and let him get you the outs. It gives you the best chance to win, and I don't understand why teams don't do it more often.

Now all of that was pretty much just re-iterating what Joe said in his article. Now, let's take this into some Pirates talk.

Hanrahan and Meek will be "competing for the closer job" in spring training this year. Most people see Meek being better than Hanrahan in 2011, although it's close, as you can see by last year's numbers.

Meek:
2010: 80 IP, 3.45 ERA, 8.0 K/9

Hanrahan:
2010: 69.2 IP, 3.62 ERA, 12.9 K/9

Hanrahan missed some time last year, so that explains the innings difference, but when he was in there he was neck and neck with Meek. Hanrahan's strikeout rate was much better than Meek's, in fact it was better than all but 2 relievers in the major leagues, although Meek's ERA was a little lower. They will probably put up very similar ERA numbers in 2011, and the strikeout rates should get a little bit closer. Meek is the younger pitcher with more room to improve, and that will probably earn him the closer job next year. However, if it were up to me, I might not even declare a closer. I'd just take it on a case-by-case basis based on rest and matchups. Whoever has the best chance of getting a batter out in critical situations would be in the game. If that means Hanrahan pitches the final 2 innings, fine. If that means Meek pitches in the 7th inning, so be it. The numbers are there for us, let's start using them intelligently.