Relief
Mariano Rivera may be the greatest relief pitcher of all time. He is a sure bet (whoops---no betting in baseball) to be elected to the Hall of Fame, probably in his first year of eligibility, but it is fascinating that he has pitched only a total of 650 innings in his 9 year career for an average of 72 innings a season. The reason is the nature of his job. Mariano is a closer. He is a specialist who usually pitches the last inning of a game when the Yankees are ahead by a run or two. Whenever Mariano enters the game, the outcome is in doubt. There is great pressure on him to retire the opposition without relinquishing the lead and one of Mariano Rivera's great attributes is that he never allows the pressure to interfere with his job. He may feel the pressure but he overcomes it. Even when he doesn't succeed, it is not due to pressure.
Closers do not pitch many innings in a season. They average slightly more than one inning per game and appear in fewer than one half of their team's games, yet they are among the most valuable commodities for a winning team. The reason is the modern approach to managing.
Pitching staffs are built with five starters, each of whom usually gets four days of rest between starts and usually pitches six or seven innings. Then there are three or four relief pitchers to bridge the gap from the starter to the closer, and one or two others who might be spot starters or be used when the team is well ahead or far behind. Among the relief pitchers there usually are left handed and right handed specialists who face only one or two batters.
This winter, Dennis Eckersley was elected to the Hall of Fame, joining Hoyt Wilhelm and Roland Fingers as the only relief pitchers in the Hall. Wilhelm pitched in the era before the closer. He started 52 games in his career, made 1018 relief appearances, and averaged over 135 innings a season, while Fingers started 37 games but spent virtually his entire career pitching in relief. Eckersley really had two careers, first as a decent starting pitcher for the Indians, Red Sox, and Cubs, and then as one of the great closers in baseball history for the Oakland A's.
Closers are in the game approximately 1/18 of the time their team plays. A team plays 162 games, the closer appears in about one half of those games, and he pitches one inning. You figure it out. Managers, the fans and the media believe that great effectiveness in limited situations warrants the rewards given to closers and that is fine, but it must be recognized that a new standard is being used to evaluate if a player is a Hall of Famer, and that is excellence under pressure in specific situations.
Latest Articles