Around baseball for the last two decades or so there
is this belief about bullpen management.
Most of baseball says you need an established closer, but there is a
better way. Welcome to the relief
ace. The best pitcher in the bullpen
should be considered the relief ace.
Most managers would say at this point that the relief ace is the
closer. True, but wouldn’t you like your
relief ace or former closer to be used at the highest leverage situation? The highest leverage point could be in the 9th
or it could be in the 6th. It
doesn’t really matter though just the highest point, the climax of the
game.
Why would you want to get rid of the closer? I’m sure that’s what some of you might be
asking. One reason is that all saves are
not created equal. Some saves the
closers have a 3 run lead when they enter for the save, while others might have
a 1 run lead. A 3 run lead or above is
the game that you would rest your relief ace and not use him because most games
like that there is no high leverage situation.
Or vice versa, you’re behind three or more runs, then usually don’t use
your relief ace. The relief ace might be
on for one out or he could be in for 6 outs.
He could get up to 100 innings on this method so you need to make sure
he could handle that workload. Closers
by managers are usually put in almost every save situation just for the purpose
of getting this flawed stat. It should
not be about getting saves, but you should take to a relief ace so it doesn’t just
turn into getting saves.
In the end, I know I did not provide a lot of stats over
this post, but I hope it still applied to you in some way the or the
other. The sentence I want you to take
away from this article are…
The save is a flawed stat, and we do not need a set
closer but instead a relief ace who pitches in the highest leverage situation.
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