Closer by committee is best strategy
Pirates don’t have one dominant guy, but several options
Who’s going to be the Pirates closer?
With Keone Kela leaving Pittsburgh via free agency, that question was asked of manager Derek Shelton on multiple occasions this offseason and throughout spring training. Each time, Shelton was consistently noncommittal in his response. There’s a reason for that. Actually, a couple of them. The Pirates have moved away from a traditional structure at the back end of their bullpen for several key reasons — Pittsburgh’s available personnel, as well as how baseball is being played in 2021, with fewer Mariano Rivera-style closers around and an increased importance placed on analytics and individual matchups.
To illustrate his point, Shelton on Thursday referenced a reliever the Twins had while he was bench coach in Minnesota named Taylor Rogers. While piling up 101 wins in 2019, the Twins called on Rogers a lot, and the left-hander saved 30 games.
Most telling, though, was that eight other pitchers also registered saves. As much as anything, that has informed the desire by Shelton and the front office to take the Pirates away from the Mark Melancon or Joel Hanrahan model to more of a bycommittee approach.
“I don’t see teams, unless they have that dominant guy, they’re not using one specific person,” Shelton said.
The Pirates certainly won’t — and let’s be honest, a component of this involves not having a Liam Hendriks, Josh Hader or Aroldis Chapman type. If they did, they’d use him. But there are also different ways to make this work.
Pittsburgh does have a couple of guys with ability and experience. Richard Rodriguez has the lowest ERA in baseball (2.44) since June 1, 2019, among National League relievers with at least 65 appearances. Because of his velocity and three quality offerings, David Bednar also profiles as a back-end candidate.
Chris Stratton, Kyle Crick and Michael Feliz have had leverage roles before, while Luis Oviedo and Duane Underwood Jr. have been two of their better relievers thus far.
“We’re in a unique situation,” bullpen coach Justin Meccage said. “There are different guys that we have available to us from a matchup perspective that we feel really comfortable about in the seventh, eighth or ninth innings.”
In addition to the Twins — who had four guys split 17 saves in 2020 — a terrific template to show what the Pirates are trying to do exists in Tampa.
In fact, the Rays may be the best at accumulating different types of pitchers and leveraging matchups.
Arm slots differ, the same with pitch mixes. It’s also not just eight or nine guys. Tampa has a parade of talented pitchers, which has long been one of the big-picture goals for Pirates general manager Ben Cherington.
“These guys are big-league hitters, and the more they see similar stuff, the easier it is for them to make adjustments,” Meccage said. “If you can show different angles, different pitches, different sequencing, you can mess with their timing a little bit, and that’s what it’s all about.”
If you look at how Tampa divvied up save opportunities in 2020, the Rays had 12 different guys record saves in 2020 — in a 60-game season. Their leader was Nick Anderson, with six. Seven pitchers had one.
The Pirates, based on talent disparity alone, won’t have that wide of spread, but to say there will be a set guy who’s going to pitch the ninth inning is simply not true.
Bednar complements his
terrific fastball with a nasty splitter and slow curve. Sam Howard and Crick lean on their sliders a lot. Chris Stratton’s best secondary pitch is his curveball, which has a high spin rate. Rodriguez commands the top of the strike zone with an excellent four-seamer, a pitch with late life and rise.
“We have a lot of guys who want the ball and want a chance to compete,” Bednar said. “That’s a recipe for success. We have a lot of guys who can bring it.”
The other key factor here is the jump from 60 games to 162,
which could force teams to reevaluate how they divvy up innings. Speaking Wednesday morning, Meccage offered some interesting insight into how the Pirates view that process.
It’s easy to track how often guys pitch in games — like it or hate it, managers typically try to avoid three straight days or extended usage patterns over time such as throwing five times in eight days.
But the increase in technology and tracking literally everything pitchers do on a mound now provides a couple additional channels to monitor. If someone’s
spin rate drops, the Pirates may act. Ditto for his release point.
The goal is to survive and thrive with volume.
“We need to be in-tune with where our guys are on a day-today basis,” Meccage said.“Having them feel comfortable to tell you they need a day because they’re hanging a little bit, and then giving them that day. The luxury of having nine guys in our bullpen is to give guys days when they need days.”