The problem, as I explain sheepishly when friends, colleagues, and podcast listeners come to games, is bandwidth. We hadn’t imagined how time-consuming writing preseries scouting reports would be. We hadn’t anticipated how many hours we would spend with tech support so that our pitch databases would be complete. Mostly, though, we hadn’t expected the entire season to be hijacked by a six-week struggle over the way we use our damned closer. And yet, here I am, in the middle of our forty-third game, furious with our second handpicked manager over the way he is using our damned closer.
It’s the seventh inning, and Paul has been absolutely cruising with an 8-2 lead. He has thrown thirteen balls through six innings and has retired sixteen of the previous eighteen batters. But in the seventh the Pacifics get to him. He walks a pair, then allows a hit, then another. Matt Chavez, the best hitter in the league, owner and occupant of every pitch Paul Hvozdovic can throw, is allowed to face Paul with two men on and one out, the tying run on deck. Paul’s mechanics, after a tutorial with Isaac Wenrich before the game, had been wonderful all night but are completely lost in this inning. Chavez singles, and now with a right-handed-hitting cleanup man representing the tying run, Paul is still out there. Yoshi goes to the mound not to ask but to tell Paul that this is his inning. Paul is shocked. Paul would have pulled himself three batters ago, he later tells me. He glances at the scoreboard, glances at the batter, and thinks, “Shit, this is crazy.”
It is. He gets out of the inning on a base-running blunder by San Rafael, but by this point Yoshi has lost me completely. I’d been his ally, trying to convince Ben that Yoshi was listening to us but that we had to accept that sometimes he would still make decisions we didn’t agree with. After this game—a win—I am furious at myself for believing all that. Ben, Theo, and Tim Livingston fume with me at Yoshi’s inability to bring Sean into that seventh-inning situation, despite a week of us explaining to him that that is exactly when to bring Sean in. After frustrating Ben with my unwillingness to order Yoshi around, I am finally on Ben’s side. Ben has won the argument.
“My instinct,” I tell the brain trust in the half-lit bleachers, “would be to say to Yoshi, ‘You fucked that up. We’re not washing over that. That was very badly managed. If you want to have the power to make decisions you have to make good decisions. You failed, and if you fail like this you’re not going to have the privilege of making decisions.’”
It’s a little embarrassing to read those words. To remember how much I wanted to win. To recall how single-minded we had become, ignoring every other aspect of the team until we could get Sean into the expanded role we envisioned. This monomania is arguably why so little else got done. But it’s also why, in the next two days, we finally got what we wanted.
From: Ben and Sam
To: Yoshi
CC: Theo
Yoshi,
Ben and I have been thinking a lot about the best way to get the most out of our pitchers, and we have written up some recommendations. We would like to talk to you as well.
As you know, Sean has been our most effective pitcher this season, and one of the best pitchers in the Pacific Association. He’s leading the Stompers in strikeout rate (27 percent of all plate appearances) and ground-ball rate (73 percent of balls in play), and he’s tied with Paul in walk rate (3 percent). Our goal is to get the most value we can out of his arm.
Earlier in the season, we recommended using Sean as a starting pitcher, while Feh preferred to use him as a reliever who could pitch one inning at a time in save situations. We believe a compromise between those two positions would most suit our club: using Sean as a “fireman,” a throwback reliever who comes in whenever trouble arises from roughly the sixth inning on, stays in to pitch multiple innings, and often finishes the game. In this role, Sean would truly be “saving” games—not just by the rulebook definition of a “save,” which includes relatively routine one-inning outings with a three-run lead, but by any definition.
Although it can be comforting for teams to know that they can call upon their closer in the ninth, we believe it often backfires when they wait that long, since many potential save situations never materialize because the lead is lost before the ball gets to the bullpen’s best pitcher. In other words, by worrying so much about losing leads in the ninth—which, admittedly, is especially demoralizing—teams lose more leads in the sixth, seventh, and eighth, or ensure that they never gain the lead by falling further behind. We’d like to avoid this problem by being more flexible, summoning Sean whenever we need him to protect leads, preserve ties, and keep deficits small enough that our offense can come back.
We acknowledge that some pitchers prefer (and probably pitch better in) predetermined roles, because they know when they’ll be coming into the game and can prepare accordingly. For example, Angels closer Huston Street recently threatened to retire if he were used before the ninth inning. If Sean felt the same way, we wouldn’t suggest that he be used in a fashion that might make him uncomfortable. However, Sean isn’t the typical closer: He was a starter in college (which for him was only a few months ago), and we’ve seen him succeed as a starter with the Stompers. He doesn’t have the long-term closing experience that conditions a pitcher to prefer a ninth-inning-only role. Based on our conversations with him throughout the season, we believe he prefers to get more work than he could if he came in for only one inning a couple times a week. In fact, at times he’s been frustrated to see leads slip away before he could come in to stop the bleeding. He wants to be the one on the mound when the game is on the line, whether it’s in the ninth inning or not.
There is plenty of precedent for pitchers succeeding in the sort of role we’re describing: In the 1970s and 1980s, it was common for relievers to be used in this way, and many of them—Goose Gossage, Bruce Sutter, Rollie Fingers—made the Hall of Fame as a result of the value that pitching so many innings allowed them to contribute. Here are the top ten seasons ever by relievers, ranked by Wins Above Replacement Player, a statistic that accounts for the number of innings they pitched, and the quality and importance of those innings:
You’ll notice that no relief seasons from the past decade make the list; only one, Eric Gagne’s 2003, came in the past 15 seasons (and Gagne was taking tons of steroids). It’s no accident that Mariano Rivera makes the list for his 1996 season, the year before he became a closer. When Rivera was a setup man, his usage wasn’t governed by the save rule, and his manager, Joe Torre, felt free to use him for multiple innings, allowing him to help the Yankees even more.
No recent seasons appear on the list because major league bullpens have become increasingly specialized, with relievers averaging shorter and shorter outings and therefore having fewer opportunities to add value. In 2014, Royals closer Greg Holland never entered a game earlier than the ninth or pitched more than one inning. Compare that to Gossage’s 1977 season: forty-eight of his seventy-two outings lasted longer than one inning, thirty-seven lasted at least two innings, and thirteen lasted at least three innings, with several relief appearances of four innings or more. Both pitchers finished their seasons with ERAs of about 1.50, but Gossage was worth much more.
Big league teams, with twenty-five-man rosters and seven- or eight-man bullpens, have the luxury of restricting great relievers to an inning at a time. The Royals had a lights-out reliever for every late inning, so they could afford to use Holland to get three outs. With a twenty-two-man roster, though, we think we are beating ourselves if we don’t maximize the weapon we have and use Sean to pitch important innings that would otherwise fall to less reliable pitchers.
We don’t necessarily need pages of numbers to support this plan: It’s pretty intuitive that we would want our best pitcher on the mound more often, particularly with our roster-size restrictions. Consider an example from this season: One of our most painful losses came on June 30 in San Rafael, when we went into the bottom of the eighth with a 4-3 lead and the right-handed heart of the Pacifics’ lineup (Chavez, Jova, and Williams) due
up. Because it wasn’t the ninth inning, we stuck with Jon Rand instead of Sean. Five batters later, the Pacifics had scored the game-winning run, and we still hadn’t used our most effective arm. We can’t say for sure that we would have won if we’d called on Sean, but we can say that we would have forced our opponent to beat our best pitcher.
One common objection to the idea of bringing in one’s best reliever in the sixth or seventh is that there wouldn’t be a trustworthy option available for the ninth. In our case, though, that wouldn’t be a problem. We’ve seen Sean go through opposing lineups two or three times with ease, and we know he has a rubber arm and always wants to throw (to the point that if he doesn’t get into the game, he throws on his own anyway). As a result, we won’t have to worry that if we use Sean in, say, the seventh, we wouldn’t have a good pitcher to finish the game or go in the next day. Sean could come in, pitch a few innings, and still be available for an inning in the following game. Further, with Santos on the roster, we have another pitcher we feel comfortable using in the ninth inning if Sean has been used up by that point and the game remains close. Simply put, Sean is an unusual pitcher who gives us a chance to gain an unusual edge. He has both the mind-set and the skill-set to flourish as a fireman, and the Stompers would benefit from having him on the mound when it matters the most.
* * *
The thing that gets us madder than anything, actually, is that Matt Chavez is still here. The Pacifics’ first baseman, the guy I had struggled to come up with a scouting report against earlier in the year, is homering in almost every game against us. That’s barely an exaggeration; he’s homering once every two games against the league overall and doing more damage against us than against anybody else. At one point, his OPS is four hundred points higher than anybody else’s in the league—equivalent to the gap between Babe Ruth’s career OPS and mediocre Kansas City Royals third baseman Joe Randa’s career OPS. Chavez is an adult playing in a kids’ league, and we’re mystified that no higher power has picked him up.
“He’ll be gone soon,” Isaac tells me. He’s heard that a manager in the American Association had called Yoshi to ask about Chavez. Our hopes are raised; our hopes are dashed when we find out that Yoshi, improbably, gave Matt Chavez a negative review, telling the manager that Chavez is a poor fielder who can’t hit breaking balls and would bat .250 in the Association. We admire his integrity in giving an honest assessment, considering that Chavez is costing us game after game. We admire the integrity, but we’re aghast at it all the same.
I obsess over all of this for the next eighteen hours, driving home and then lying awake and then kicking around my apartment the next morning and, finally, sitting in traffic on my drive back up to Sonoma. Alone in my car, I have conversations in my head with an imaginary Yoshi, who says everything I need him to say to fuel my resolve. By the time I pull into the Arnold Field parking lot, I’ve spent two hours rehearsing a conversation that gets progressively more hostile.
I walk into Yoshi’s office and say I want to talk. Yes, he says, that’s great, because he wants to get my help on some things. I’m stunned. I’m losing my angry face. He pulls out that night’s lineup and asks what I think. I stare at it. Uhhhhhhhh. I say I’d rather see Taylor Eads that night instead of Daniel Baptista, with a lefty on the mound. He agrees, scratches out Baps, and writes in Eads at DH, batting eighth. I say I don’t think Moch should be batting third anymore, especially against lefties. He nods and asks whether I have Moch’s numbers against lefties, and I pull them up on my little laptop. “Good evidences,” he says, and moves Moch down. I recommend dropping Isaac Wenrich down against the lefty; I show him the evidences; done. I want Matt Hibbert back leading off; evidences; done.
Then I tell him I think he has been missing chances to pinch-hit, especially with Isaac and Andrew Parker, who are now in a platoon and yet rarely replace each other when relievers come in. He agrees! I say it seems like it’s hard for him to anticipate those sorts of midgame opportunities when he’s coaching third base, so I suggest that Tommy Lyons, our forward-thinking first-base coach, should be bumped up to bench coach to help Yoshi out. He agrees! I tell him it’s time to get Matt Chavez out of this league, and that Ben and I are going to put together a statistical report that we can send to the inquiring American Association manager. I say it’s going to show how great he’s been against breaking balls, among other things. He says that’s a great idea. He says, and I almost choke on my tongue, that the manager “will appreciate that. He’s the smartest coach I know. He’s like you.”
I’m …
I’m touched. I just spent a day demonizing this wonderful man. I’m a monster.
But the most important thing is not where Isaac Wenrich is batting. I tell Yoshi that in last night’s game, when he didn’t have a reliever ready to replace Paul, when he didn’t go to Sean—that was a mistake. That was a failure. He looks at me like he’s surprised I don’t realize he already knows that. Of course it was. He’s already told Theo that he had fucked up.
So today, I say. Matt Walker is pitching. Walker has been our worst pitcher. I tell Yoshi that when I used to cover the Los Angeles Angels as a reporter, their manager, Mike Scioscia, had a trick for how to handle struggling starting pitchers. He’d tell them ahead of time they were only going to throw five innings. Even if it was a perfect game, they were coming out early. Yoshi nods. It helps them to know they don’t have to pace themselves, I say. And it makes it much easier for us to go out there and pull him after he’s gone through the lineup twice. I say that if Matt Walker faces Matt Chavez three times tonight, I’m going to be extremely unhappy, and Yoshi nods.
Fade into … a ball game that is as picaresque as the rest. From my spot on the dugout rail, bits of conversation reach me out of context, and I try to stitch them back together. Andrew Parker is hungover, having spent the previous evening drinking with the Pacifics’ Maikel Jova, and he fights through the pain by focusing on the even greater pain he hopes Jova is in. “Swing at the middle one!” he yells when Jova bats. Maybe Jova does exactly that; he lines out to third base, takes a step toward first base, and pivots back to his dugout. “Exactly what Jova wanted,” Parker says. “Hard-hit ball, doesn’t have to run.” Santos Saldivar ignores criticism of his smooth arms; “I’m Mexican.” So? Mexicans don’t grow arm hair? “No.” Oh. Taylor Eads bats with runners at the corners and nobody out in the second inning and drives home a run with a weak groundout. “Attaboy, do a job!” his teammates yell, raining high fives and helmet pats upon him, the recurring proof that respect doesn’t come from doubles but from jobs getting done, to which Parker—Eads’s number-one supporter, and a big believer in doubles—can’t help but reply sardonically, “Our DH just did that. A grown man just hit that.” To which Taylor, aware that he’s riding a wave of popularity that comes from a 4-3 dribbler, tells him, “Shut up.” To which Kristian Gayday, joining in, then tells Taylor, “Just gotta take the tampon out next time,” to which I think, Good heavens, the world is so different without the moderating effect of women.
Or maybe boys just talk like this no matter who else is around. The moderating effect of Sean Conroy, after all, has worn off: One veteran walks back to the dugout after a strikeout and says, loud enough for the pitcher to hear, “Better hold on to that last strikeout, because it’s never gonna happen again.” Then, muttering, “Fucking faggot.” Somebody recounts the time a San Quentin prisoner walked over to our chain-link dugout, grabbed on with both hands, and told our guys sternly that we’d better beat San Rafael because “they’re a bunch of homosexuals.” “Nmf,” Isaac says after a pickoff throw, which draws quizzical looks that require Isaac to explain—but Isaac is hesitant. “Nmf,” he says again. “Sean, you know Nmf, right?” Sean nods, but offers Isaac no lifesaver. Isaac: “Like when a guy makes a throw to first, and you yell Nice Move … Friend. Nice Move … uhhh, Fella. Nice Move, word we’re not allowed to say anymore. NMF.”
The opposing pitcher does not have a nice move, friend. Th
is is an opportunity. The Pacifics have their backup catcher playing tonight, and I tip off Yoshi before the bottom of the first that this guy can’t throw. His “pop” times, in our scouting, average roughly 2.3. The math of stealing bases goes like this:
• The pitcher takes a certain amount of time to deliver the ball home. Call that X.
• The catcher then takes a certain amount of time to redirect the ball to the second baseman or shortstop covering. Call that Y.
• The base runner takes a certain amount of time to cover the seventy-nine feet from his lead off first base to the tip of the second-base bag. So long as that time is less than X + Y, he’ll be safe practically every time. Otherwise, he needs the throw to be wild, dropped, etc.
The Only Rule Is It Has to Work Page 26