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First Pitch: Closer By Committee Approach Would Work Best For the Pirates in 2017

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After the Mark Melancon trade, I wrote an article about how the Pirates were free to take a new approach with their bullpen now that they were free of their traditional closer. The article is probably most remembered as the article where I said the Pirates might have a better bullpen after the Melancon trade. Actually, “probably” isn’t accurate. I get weekly comments saying that I claimed the bullpen would (not might) be better without Melancon, with no reference to the closer by committee concept.

My mistake here was taking a concept that had little chance of being implemented, and attaching a potential value to that concept. The argument was that, without Melancon as the closer, the Pirates could use their best reliever in key situations, rather than holding him for the ninth inning. They didn’t do that with Tony Watson, although that wasn’t a bad thing, as he continued his struggles, and definitely wasn’t the best reliever in the bullpen this year. They did take this approach with Felipe Rivero and Neftali Feliz, who both split time between the seventh and eighth innings. They took this approach with Juan Nicasio, who entered games as early as the fourth inning, made ten appearances of multiple innings, and mostly pitched between the sixth and eighth innings.

In retrospect, I should have left the “they might be better” part out of that, especially with the title, and should have just focused on the unconventional bullpen role. It’s not that I don’t believe the Pirates could be better off with this approach. I just think the timing of the article allowed that statement to get tied to Melancon’s trade value and evaluating the deal, rather than looking at the possibilities the Pirates had now that they didn’t have a traditional closer. In that scenario, they were free to go an unconventional route, which I believe could lead to some strong results if used correctly.

And ironically enough, the Cleveland Indians just made it to the World Series using a similar approach. They’ve got a strong back of the bullpen, and they haven’t been sticking to traditional roles this fall. Andrew Miller has been going multiple innings consistently. Cody Allen is the closer, but entered a game with no outs and a runner on first in a 4-2 game in the seventh inning. The closer in the seventh inning! And then after recording five outs, he was replaced by Andrew Miller, who recorded the final four outs.

I can’t think of a team I’ve been rooting for harder to win it all than the Cleveland Indians. And here’s why.

I asked Clint Hurdle at the start of the year why they could use an eighth inning guy in the seventh inning, but couldn’t use a closer outside of the ninth inning. His response was pretty honest:

“We’re working within an industry where we’ve created some of our own challenges,” Hurdle said in April. “Guys don’t go get paid for holds. And what’s beautiful about our guys, is once the contract is done, they’re ready to show up and go to work. If we ever got to that point where a crazy situation would arise, Mark would move. I just feel we’re best served in the capacity with him pitching in the ninth inning right now, from a team perspective. Not a Mark perspective. He’s earned that opportunity. He’s just been so effective.”

The other comment he made was more about the team with Melancon as the closer, but also about the mindset of a closer pitching earlier in the game.

“There’s a challenge in our game I would think to get a closer to pitch the sixth inning,” Hurdle said. “It’s not anywhere close to as easy as some people think it is. It’s just not. I don’t have anything that I could quantify it to that people might do in their jobs that could be somewhat rated similarly. The guys we’ve got in front of that, it’s more common fabric. I’m of the opinion that our club is best suited with one closer, one man getting the ball right now, and the other guys being flexible enough to work to get the guy the opportunity.”

I disagree with the concepts here. The progression of most closers is that they start off pitching in the sixth or seventh inning, eventually progress to the eighth inning guy who can also pitch in the seventh, and then they become the closer. At that point, you’re telling me they suddenly don’t remember how to pitch in earlier innings? That there’s some kind of magic about the ninth inning where guys in earlier innings can’t pitch in that frame, but guys who pitch in the ninth can’t pitch any earlier?

To me, it just sounds like a convenient way to make a change to a system that everyone seems comfortable with. Because there’s no doubt in my mind that if a manager went against traditional roles in the bullpen, he would be held under the microscope. Any poor result would be blamed entirely on that. That’s the way it is for any unconventional approach, even if it mostly works. Just look at the reactions to defensive shifts and to the OBP approach this year. They have both been successful by the numbers, but still draw criticism based on anecdotal evidence when a play is missed or the offense slumps for a short period of time.

But when an unconventional approach works on the big stage, like what’s happening with Cleveland right now, that is when change happens. That’s when it no longer becomes a situation where managers are risking their reputation by bucking a long-held trend, but instead are jumping on the bandwagon of the latest trend that will lead to a winner. People would be going insane right now if Cody Allen blew a game before the ninth, or if Andrew Miller blew a game in the ninth after Allen pitched earlier, or if Cleveland lost the series, even if the bullpen approach worked. But they made it to the World Series, and the approach has been very successful. And now we could see teams copying that approach next year.

I really hope the Pirates are one of those teams if that is the case. I wrote the other day that they needed to replace Mark Melancon with a low-cost, high upside reliever. That doesn’t mean they need a new closer. I’m fine letting Tony Watson bounce back. It just means they need another late inning arm to add to the mix of Watson, Felipe Rivero, and Juan Nicasio.

What I’d hope would happen is that they’d add this pitcher, then abandon traditional roles. With two strong lefty relievers (assuming Watson bounces back) and two hard throwing right-handed relievers (assuming the guy they’d add is another hard throwing right-hander…wait, it’s the Pirates, we don’t have to assume the right-hander will throw hard), the Pirates would have a lot of nice combinations for the late innings. They could use their best relievers for multiple innings, and use them whenever. Games would be shut down after the sixth inning, with the capability of picking up struggling starters before the sixth inning is over, and letting the bullpen take it the rest of the way.

I don’t think this approach would be possible with a reliever like Melancon, as the expectation would be for that type of pitcher to close, with no flexibility to use pitchers outside of defined roles. But the Pirates are in a situation right now where they don’t need to have defined roles. They didn’t have them for Rivero or Nicasio, and Watson has said to me that he doesn’t care when he pitches (this was before becoming the closer, but I doubt his position has changed).

The Pirates would be better off with a group of four strong late inning relievers, free to pitch whenever they’re most needed, based on the matchups. And if Cleveland wins it all with a similar approach, I think it’s going to be more likely that teams like the Pirates could try to copy that approach, and apply it to the regular season. So, for the first time in my life, I say: Let’s go Cleveland!

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Tim Williams
Tim Williams
Tim is the owner, producer, editor, and lead writer of PiratesProspects.com. He has been running Pirates Prospects since 2009, becoming the first new media reporter and outlet covering the Pirates at the MLB level in 2011 and 2012. His work can also be found in Baseball America, where he has been a contributor since 2014 and the Pirates' correspondent since 2019.

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