JOHN SHEA THE EVOLUTION OF THE BULLPEN.
It wasn’t always 100-mph pitches and closers working only the 9th inning
Lee Smith was so thrilled about being converted to relief pitching that he quit baseball.
“They threw my ass in the bullpen, so I went back to playing college basketball, because that’s a slap in the face being a reliever,” Smith recalls.
This was the late ’70s, and Smith was in Double-A with the Cubs. Unhappy with his demotion, Smith went to play hoops at Northwestern State in Louisiana, at least until Cubs legend Billy Williams convinced him to give relieving a try.
Within a few years, Smith was at Dodger Stadium striking out Reggie Smith for his first big-league save. Four hundred and seventy-seven saves later, he retired as the all-time leader and now is a Giants roving pitching instructor.
Long ago, relieving stopped being a slap in the face. It became an integral part of a pitching staff and the game itself, evolving in more ways than any other aspect of the sport.
The new rage? Using a team’s best reliever in highleverage situations no matter the inning, as managers Terry Francona (Indians), Joe Maddon (Cubs) and Dave Roberts (Dodgers) tried in the postseason, sometimes for multiple innings.
Teams are now grappling with how, or if, they’ll follow suit in the regular season when off days are much rarer.
“You’re seeing your better relievers enter in leverage situations and not necessarily waiting to close the games,” said A’s manager Bob Melvin, who has several late-game bullpen options this season.
“The last couple of years, there has been a big transformation as far as that goes. That’s evolving.”
On the other hand, the Giants signed Mark Melancon for $62 million over four years to pretty much pitch the ninth inning and the ninth inning only.
Pitching coach Dave Righetti said the ninth remains the highleverage inning and held out a fist to suggest some pitchers might tighten if given closing duties.
“How do you weigh that?” asked Righetti, who earned 252 saves, mostly as a Yankee, fourth all time among lefties. “Anyone who says it’s less important is full of s—. The last out? C’mon.”
Here’s a decade-by-decade look at how bullpens have evolved.
1960s
This was the last decade in which relief pitchers widely were considered second-class citizens. Only one reliever who pitched most of his career before the ’70s reached the Hall of Fame — Hoyt Wilhelm.
Relief pitching wasn’t always emphasized or was simply left to starters on their off days. Giants great Juan Marichal had 30 complete games in 1968, more than the Giants’ team total the past four seasons combined.
Among the many starters in the ’60s who didn’t usually get (or want) bullpen help were Bob Gibson, Fergie Jenkins, Warren Spahn, Don Drysdale and Whitey Ford.
“They were different men, different mind-sets,” Righetti said. “It was about pride. You didn’t even go to the mound to talk to the pitcher.”
Former A’s manager Tony La Russa, who managed 16 years in St. Louis, recalled a seminar in which he appeared with Gibson and Cardinals starter Chris Carpenter, and someone asked about the difference in the pitchers’ eras.
“Gibson says I wished I pitched now,” La Russa said, “because if I was out of gas, they weren’t going to come and get me.”
The save wasn’t acknowledged by Major League Baseball as an official stat until 1969. It was introduced nine years earlier by sportswriter Jerome Holtzman to better recognize relievers for holding leads and closing games.
It was MLB’s first new stat since the RBI was counted in the 1920s.
1970s
The decade brought us Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage and Bruce Sutter, Hall of Fame relievers known for throwing multiple innings to close games.
Fingers, the key reliever in the A’s run to three straight World Series titles, pitched at least two innings for 40 percent of his 341 career saves. In 11 percent, he worked at least three innings.
Fingers entered in the eighth inning more than he entered in the ninth inning, unheard of for today’s closers.
“Nowadays, they want just the one-inning fireballer throwing 95-plus. That’s just the way it is,” Fingers said. “Back when we were playing, Darold Knowles might have been throwing 88, 89. I was throwing 92, maybe harder than anybody in our ’pen.”
Knowles pitched in all seven games for the A’s in the 1973 World Series. Fingers appeared in 16 of Oakland’s 19 World Series games in the decade, accounting for 331⁄3 innings.
“It was crazy,” Fingers said. “Alvin Dark brought me in in the fifth inning in Game 1 (of the 1974 World Series) at Dodger Stadium — one out and two on — because (Ken) Holtzman got in trouble. I had to look up at the scoreboard to make sure what inning we were in.”
Fingers pitched 41⁄3 innings but didn’t get the save. That went to Catfish Hunter, a Hall of Fame starter who was summoned with two outs in the ninth.
“When you’re in a short series like that, everything’s magnified,” Fingers said. “One win in a World Series is the equivalent of 25 wins during the season. If you got a chance to get a win in a World Series, you pull out all stops.”
1980s
La Russa is credited with transforming closers (or “stoppers,” as they were once known) into one-inning specialists in the late ’80s — see Eckersley, Dennis — but La Russa credits his longtime pitching coach, Dave Duncan.
Dealt from the Cubs to the A’s on the eve of the 1987 season, Eckersley pitched 104 innings in 52 relief outings that year, sharing closing duties with Jay Howell. Everything changed in 1988.
“We had a chance to win four or five games a week, and Dunc said the more times Eck is available, the more times he could pitch,” La Russa said.
Eckersley appeared in more games but fewer innings in 1988 and led the league with 45 saves. The one-inning closer was born.
“There are two qualifications,” La Russa said. “You had to have a really good club, and you had to have guys to get those outs (in the seventh and eighth innings) like Gene Nelson and Rick Honeycutt.”
La Russa’s vision stemmed from his minor-league playing days, when he witnessed opposing manager Vern Rapp bring in lights-out relievers late in games.
La Russa’s first managing gig came with the White Sox, and he trail blazed in mixing and matching with lefties and righties. He recalled a conversation with Sparky Anderson in which he basically was told managers are smarter with good closers.
In 1985, La Russa tried out Bob James, who had a career year with 32 saves; it was La Russa’s only year in Chicago that he had a lights-out closer. He joined the A’s the following summer and changed the way managers used bullpens.
1990s
Feeding off the Eckersley phenomenon, teams heavily relied on relief specialists deep in games. Setup men were the bridges to the ninth inning, and closers began compiling saves in record numbers.
Trevor Hoffman debuted in 1993 and collected 601 saves. Mariano Rivera debuted in 1995 and earned 652. Each did it with virtually one pitch — Rivera relying on a cutter and Hoffman a changeup.
“Hoffman was unbelievable with that pitch,” Lee Smith said. “Mariano’s team (Yankees) would win 100 games, and he’d save 40. Hoffman’s team (Padres) would win 82, and he’d also save 40.”
Smith pitched through the 1997 season, his 478 saves topping the career list. In retirement, he was passed by Hoffman and Rivera.
“I really liked throwing more,” Smith said. “At the end of my career, I’m getting one inning or 12⁄3. I didn’t feel I could throw enough.”
That was the norm, though — except when Rivera extended himself to two-inning stints in the postseason. The object was to give the closer a clean inning in the ninth, which is why Smith said setup men sometimes had tougher roles because they often entered in traffic.
At the same time, Smith recognized the damage a closer’s blown save can inflict on a team’s state of mind and cited last year’s Giants bullpen blowing 32 saves, nine by Santiago Casilla.
“Look what happened to us,” Smith said. “It hurts the team so much more if you lose that game in the ninth inning than if you got your butt kicked in the fourth.”
2000s
Radar readings at ballparks became common as the new century arrived. It also was the height of the steroid era. Pitchers threw high-90s fastballs, then turned to the scoreboard for affirmation.
Suddenly, it was becoming trendy for a bullpen to incorporate high heat.
The Giants saw it firsthand in the 2002 World Series when the Angels’ bullpen featured Troy Percival and Francisco Rodriguez, both of whom lit up radar guns. The Giants had hardthrowing closer Robb Nen, but by then, his velocity was down because of a bum elbow, prompting the Giants to try hiding the fact by turning off their stadium radar reading.
Nobody had a heater in those days like Eric Gagne, the Dodgers’ closer who saved 152 games (while blowing just six) in a three-year window, including 84 in a row.
His duels with Barry Bonds were legendary, especially one ninth-inning showdown in which the Giants’ radar gun showed Gagne topping 100 mph. On Gagne’s final pitch, shown at 102 mph, Bonds homered.
The TV radar gun was several ticks lower, and it was speculated the Giants amped up the stadium gun to get in Gagne’s head.
“I don’t throw that hard,”
Gagne said. “I throw 96, 97, maybe 98 on a good day. But 102? No way. I think they were pumping them up a bit.”
By 2008, PITCHf/x systems were in all ballparks, and one bonus was that they provided more consistent radar readings for fans.
Gagne, who was such a sure thing that “Game Over” flashed on the Dodger Stadium scoreboard when he was summoned, flamed out quickly and appeared in the 2007 Mitchell Report for his use of performance-enhancing drugs.
2010s
Baseball developed a legitimate drug-testing program, but pitchers still amp it up in the high 90s and beyond. Aroldis Chapman has made 100-mph heaters fashionable.
Last year as a Yankee and Cub, Chapman reached 100 on 62 percent of his pitches, with one at 105.1. He’s not alone. Braves rookie Mauricio Cabrera reached 100 on 39 percent of his pitches, and the minor leagues are packed with triple-digit pitching.
It’s not just about heat nowadays. It’s about usage. Last year, starters averaged 5.65 innings, fewest in history. Relievers did more work than ever, and it carried into a wild offseason of bullpen maneuvering.
Chapman, Cleveland’s Andrew Miller and the Dodgers’ Kenley Jansen were used in situations not normally reserved for closers. They were summoned earlier and worked more, based on the game’s urgency.
With two starters hurt, Francona used Miller 10 times as the leverage dictated, three times calling on him in the fifth and twice doing so in the sixth. The lefty pitched at least two innings seven times.
Francona was praised for being innovative, but as Fingers noted, “They went back to the old days a bit.”
Giants manager Bruce Bochy did something similar with Tim Lincecum in 2012, using the former ace six times in highleverage relief situations, covering 172⁄3 innings.
Bochy also used two starters to close out the clinching Game 6 of the 2010 NLCS in Philadelphia, Madison Bumgarner for two innings and Lincecum for one-third of an inning. And, of course, Bumgarner pitched the final five innings of Game 7 of the 2014 World Series.
“We didn’t know he’d go the whole way,” Righetti said. “That wasn’t the idea at all. We were hoping he’d go three. The way he was pitching, it blossomed.”
The future
The A’s are open to late-game creativity, especially with so many relievers with closer’s experience, including Casilla, Ryan Madson, John Axford and Sean Doolittle. The Giants, not so much. “They brought me here to close,” said Melancon, who admittedly works better with a defined role. “When you have predictability and routine, there’s a comfort there.”
With the focus last postseason on the best relievers working in high-leverage innings other than the ninth, delighting sabermetricians everywhere, Melancon was asked if the trend could continue in the regular season.
“No. It’s too long of a season,” Melancon said. “I mean if you want to blow a guy out, it might be a good idea.”
Like Melancon, Chapman prefers pitching exclusively the ninth inning.
“I think the mentality of most closers now is they don’t want to pitch in the seventh or eighth,” Smith said. “You saw what happened in Chicago with Chapman — he left because he thought Maddon was going to pitch (him) in the seventh or eighth. Dude, they waited 108 years (for a title), I think I’d pitch in the seventh. I want to be a part of that.”
La Russa’s take: “The highstress inning is still the ninth inning. You give it up in the seventh, you have time to make up the damage. You give it up in the ninth, you lose.”
To that point, La Russa added, “Hitters will tell you. They’d rather face Madison Bumgarner for the fourth time than some nasty guy out there that they’d see maybe 10 times a year.”
But would that nasty guy be better utilized in the sixth or seventh with two men aboard in a one-run game?
Stay tuned. Bullpens continue to evolve.