The Myth of the Important Closer

With the news of Brian Wilson of the San Francisco Giants headed to the DL and likely out for the season I wish to discuss the importance of closers to the game of baseball. Closers are important parts of a team, they usually are the best pitchers in the bullpen, and often are more effective pitchers than the bottom of the rotation starters. But being a closer is the easiest job in baseball to succeed at. Every year a closer, like Wilson, will go down and the team will fret over how to replace him, until their new closer collects 43 saves during the season and posts an ERA in the low twos. It happened last year with Brandon League replacing David Aardsma, and in fact Aardsma was a one year wonder the year before, in to replace J.J. Putz. The cycle never ends and the closer position still remains easy.

Let’s look at the situation in which closers appear in games. 90% of the time their team is winning the game. More than half of those times their team is winning the game by more than one run. 95% of the time they start a new inning fresh, most of these innings coming off of a pitcher who pitches very different than them. Most of the time as well they only need to get three outs to finish the game. When the closer comes into the game, they are expected to win the game, because the odds say that when they come into the game they will win roughly 90% of the games. Based on win probability stats, which one can learn about here, when a closer enters a game with a one run lead, his team will win the game 84% of the time, with a two run lead, 93% of the time and with a three run lead 97% of the time. These are numbers that suggest that whoever is pitching in this situation will without a doubt succeed in the majority of instances. How easy is it to win a game when you have a save opportunity? If you were to throw home run derby pitches to every batter you faced, you would still most likely win the game. (Especially if it’s Brandon Inge hitting)

So then why all of this hype regarding closers? Most people attribute a closer’s greatness to their mental ability to not crack under pressure. Or that Closers are clutch. Or that the later innings are more important. These are all horrible reasons. Every single major league player has an incredible ego, and ability to not crack under pressure. If major leaguers cracked under pressure they would not have made it to the major leagues, or would have been sent down very quickly once they stood in front of 50,000 fans. Clutch is a word to describe certain events that have taken place. David Ortiz’s home runs in the ALCS when the Red Sox broke the curse were clutch, David Ortiz himself was not clutch. No person has ever shown significant statistical proof of being better at something when the game is close or near the end. Finally, it is true that the later innings affect the probability of winning the game to a greater degree, as you will understand from the previous link, but a run in the first inning is still as valuable as a run in the ninth inning. If team A scores four runs in the first four innings, all on solo home runs, and team B scores four runs in the last four innings, all on four home runs, the game is still tied even though the later four runs affected the win probability to a greater degree.

So next time you are about to buy a jersey of your favorite closer, think to yourself: would you rather come into a game with the lead and nobody on in the ninth, or down one run in the sixth with runners on the corners? Then buy the Jersey of that guy you don’t know the name of who comes into the game in that situation, and hope that he somehow beats the odds.

-David Ringold