Baseball Philosophy - “Closers”

[South Side Hit Men]

2 hours ago, ptatc said:

But how many days in a row can they do that? How quickly do you want to burn them out? Eventually shouldn't they figure out who else can handle it?

 

1 hour ago, ptatc said:

But in your scenario they each would have been in 5-6 out of the 7 games already.

 

39 minutes ago, ptatc said:

I guess I'm not so absolutely positively sure in my opinion and that I can't possible be wrong so I'm giving him more than a 7 game stretch to see how it goes.

My responses were to your statement that critical posters are calling for Bummer and Hendricks to have pitched five or six games out of seven. Nobody is calling for Bummer and Hendriks to pitch in every close game. Hendriks should have pitched Sunday after having warmed up, rather than scurrying to rush Foster on Sunday, because he was saving Hendriks "for a save". He or Bummer also could have come in today, when the game was still in doubt, and Foster didn't have it.  That equates to three games pitched, not 5-6. Tony had nobody warming up yet again, didn't learn from Sunday, the game he stated "This was one of the most impressive losses I can remember being a part of". 

Tony was specifically brought in here to "manage the bullpen Ricky refused to manage". He enters the season with far superior bullpen pitchers at his disposal (Kopech, Hendriks and Crochet beyond the 6 IPs in 2020). Tony is doing less with more. Ricky blew one game in sixty with the lead after seven, Tony topped that after three games. Based on blowing two of the two games Tony actually had a chance to impact the game as a manager, not being prepared for replay, not being prepared with the bullpen, there is no evidence Tony is any better or even Ricky's equal at this juncture of his life, after being out of the game for a decade.

Edited April 8, 2021 by South Side Hit Men

[Dominikk85]

Sabermetrics do support a more flexible use of your best reliever and some teams are already doing that (like Hader or Andrew miller a couple years ago). 

However pitchers are not machines and some prefer to have a fixed role that they can prepare for. 

Also the media and fans tend to be more over a 9th inning BS than over a 7th inning blow up. That is a stupid argument but many "closer by committee" situations have failed over this. 

Theo Epstein said when he was still in Boston that he thinks a BP ace would be better than a closer but the health aspect and also partly media scrutiny made him stick with the traditional closer. 

[maxjusttyped]

What are the odds that TLR views Hendriks the same way?

[Tony]

1 hour ago, maxjusttyped said:

What are the odds that TLR views Hendriks the same way?

Good thing Rick was able to hire a manager that reflects those same views....oh wait.