The "save your closer in extras on the road" rule (Mergers: Baseball Prospectus article; Yost defends himself for not using Cordero)

[Bruce Ciskie]

Um...overworked?

 

Look at the saves leaders in baseball. Look at the innings logged by the nine guys in the top ten who aren't named "Francisco Cordero". You'll find seven of the nine have pitched as many or more innings.

 

Overworked?

[trwi7]

And again I'm still absolutely pissed that our best reliever was left in the bullpen while crap AAAA fodder was thrown out there.

 

And please don't tell me we need to save him for a save situation. You're not going to get to a save situation when you throw your crap relievers out there.

[Bruce Ciskie]

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And please don't tell me we need to save him for a save situation. You're not going to get to a save situation when you throw your crap relievers out there.

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Ned was probably thrown off by the outing Jeff Bennett gave him during that 17-inning game in Anaheim in 2004. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/happy.gif

[RU Rah Rah]

And please don't tell me we need to save him for a save situation. You're not going to get to a save situation when you throw your crap relievers out there.

 

I tend to agree. Although I can appreciate the logic of "saving" Cordero, I think the potential risk (you might wind up not using your best reliever in a close game) outweighs the potential benefit.

 

And wouldn't it be better to use an inferior reliever when you've got a lead? If he makes a mistake in that situation, you still might be able to salvage a tie and push the game further into extra innings. But if he makes a mistake in a tie game, you're done.

 

It seems as though you would want to use your superior reliever (Cordero) when there's less margin for error -- and that's when the game is tied.

[endaround]

Ned screwed himself when he used Shouse for one batter without a double switch.

[Brian the Automator]

[ It seems as though you would want to use your superior reliever (Cordero) when there's less margin for error -- and that's when the game is tied. ]

 

The problem is that your % of taking the lead in the next inning is still less than favorable. If you're presented save opportunities over the next few days (and looking at the matchups, it's favorable that it will occur), you're risking a lot for something that's far from a sure thing.

[billyhallfan]

you know, I'm not saying that Ned didn't screw up, but why is no one blaming Estrada for having a horrible AB, and then walking to first, if I want to criticize anyone, I would say that Ned should have been yelling at Estrada and replaced him with Miller, that was a horrible effort and something that should never happen in the MLB. Say what you want about Balfour or any other pitcher, but when the Reds give you the bases loaded and then you hit one slow and then walk to first, there is something wrong with that, IMO. And remember, there aren't a whole lot of off days coming up...

[Ennder]

You could also blame Graffanino for his horrible 1 pitch popout pinch hit with runners on and 1 out. You can pretty much blame everyone except Capuano, Turnbow, Wise and Braun for last night.

[Brian the Automator]

[ you know, I'm not saying that Ned didn't screw up, but why is no one blaming Estrada for having a horrible AB, and then walking to first ]

 

If you look at the IGT, it's been an Estrada hate-fest.

[naivin]

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Obviuousy when you are in extra inning on the road, the home team basically gets 2 AB's to your 1 (including the bottom of teh 9th), and with the pichers having to hit, you only have so many options. I can appreciate the argument that CoCo should have been brought in last night after Balfour allowed a runner or two, (and that the Balfour experiment should be brought to an immediate end), but overall, or on a philosphical level, I do agree with saving your closer in that situation because the home team always gets another AB. Seems silly to be having this discussion though, since that situation never should have happened - on a general level, this topic probably assumes that you have an offense capable of scrating out 1 run, when you have bases loaded with nobody out, along with multiple other opportunites to score a second run in 12 innings! Ned did what he had to do, the offense didn't.

[Brian the Automator]

[ I can appreciate the argument that CoCo should have been brought in last night after Balfour allowed a runner or two ]

 

To do this, you would have had to have Coco warming up.

[olliegjw]

This arguement is rather silly. The people saying that Yost screwed up by bringing in Balfour instead of Cordero are using a strawman arguement. You're arguing that Cordero should have pitched the 12th because you use your best pitcher to ensure the next inning. If that is the case, then you should be arguing that Cordero should have pitched the 9th, not the 12th. Hindsight is 20-20.

[Thurston Fluff]

On second thought, I'm not sure Ned could be trusted to do that. Maybe it is better that he has an automatic time to use Cordero, which will self-regulate his use.

 

I tend to think this is one reason managers like to have roles for relievers. It keeps them from abusing guys. It has to be very tempting to use your best reliever every time a tough situation come up. Just this once turns into one more time next thing you know your best pitcher is burned out in Spetember. On a good tema that is about the time you need him most.

 

Straw has made some very good points. Injury is not the only thing that happens with overuse. If they wear down they can be less effective. I think this is even more probable with a power pitcher vs one who relies on off speed stuff. It's harder to blow a 90 MPH fatball by a guy than it is a 96 MPH. Since we can't use the best pitchers all the time there will always be a time when an inferior pitcher has to be asked to do their job. Has Coco been over used? No. Primarily because Ned doesn't use him every time the game is close late. This is even more important for a team that would like to have a top flight closer in top form in October.

[RU Rah Rah]

The problem is that your % of taking the lead in the next inning is still less than favorable. If you're presented save opportunities over the next few days (and looking at the matchups, it's favorable that it will occur), you're risking a lot for something that's far from a sure thing.

 

I absolutely see your point, but I don't know that using CoCo for a non-save inning last night would have been "risking a lot," necessarily. He could pitch on consecutive days. And you could make the argument that it's better to use him in an actual close game at hand than to save him for a future close game that might not arrive.

 

But this seems like a classic damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't scenario. I don't necessarily blame Ned (although I have to say that my heart sank when Balfour came into the game).

[clancyphile]

First of all, I think the "save your closer on the road" rule is only common sense. You're most likely only going to get one run, so you need that good pitcher there.

 

That said, the best way to leverage the extra-inning situations is to have a guy or two capable of doing what Chris Barnwell and Johnny Raburn have done in the Brewers farm system: Pitch an inning or two on occassion and provide a somewhat better bat than you would normally get from a pitcher. If I can have a guy who can do that on my bench, it's an extra edge.

 

In essence, one of my bench guys is more like Toolshed Kieschnick.

[zzzmanwitz]

That's fine and all to say that we should use the best pitcher in the most important inning. But if you are saying we should do that, you are saying that each player should be asked to do what is needed to be done to win the game. And if you agree with that, then you would have to agree that Prince Fielder should have bunted when we had runners on first and second with nobody out. If we would have bunted there, we would have had runners on 2nd and 3rd with one out and a very good chance to score, then CoCo could have come in for the save.

[augie46]

What if we had used Coco last night? Let's say that we use Coco in the 12th and the Reds don't score. We would have had the bottom of the order up in the 13th. What if we didn't score there, do we use Coco for another inning? OK, so Balfour pitches the 14th inning, we still lose, and Coco is not available for tonight. We could have lost two games last night instead of just one. Managers don't know the results ahead of time. A good argument may be made for using Parra instead of Balfour in that situation, but not much of an argument can be made for having Coco pitch that inning. If he is to be used in a tie game then he should have pitched the 9th.

[adambr2]

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What if we had used Coco last night? Let's say that we use Coco in the 12th and the Reds don't score. We would have had the bottom of the order up in the 13th. What if we didn't score there, do we use Coco for another inning? OK, so Balfour pitches the 14th inning, we still lose, and Coco is not available for tonight. We could have lost two games last night instead of just one. Managers don't know the results ahead of time. A good argument may be made for using Parra instead of Balfour in that situation, but not much of an argument can be made for having Coco pitch that inning. If he is to be used in a tie game then he should have pitched the 9th.

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No we didn't have the bottom of the order coming up. It was Hardy, Braun, and Prince due up in the 13th. We have to still try to win the game that we're in, and Cordero would have likely given us the chance to give the meat of the order a chance to score against a very questionable pen.

 

Cordero has been a stud for us, but if we're that worried that we're going to lose tommorow's game because Cordero pitches 1-2 innings last night, we have problems. Good teams can still win if their closer happens to be unavailble for one night. That shouldn't be a factor.

[augie46]

If a good team can still win without using its closer for a night, why couldn't it have been last night?

[adambr2]

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If a good team can still win without using its closer for a night, why couldn't it have been last night?

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Because it was a tie game in extra innings, which would be considered a crucial situation, where the use of your best reliever would be practical.

 

A practical win without using your closer might be when you coast to a 5-1 lead. You don't need your closer for these. Sure, it's possible that we might have burned him out last night where he couldn't pitch today, and ended up needing him for a 4-3 late lead, but it's unlikely, and he'd probably still be available, anyway.

 

I agree you need to think about winning tommorow, but you need to worry about winning today first. This is a pennant race that may come down to the wire, and by my count, we haven't been in too many of those in the last 25 years. We need to be concerned with winning each and every close game that we possibly can. If we continue to worry about who may or may not be available tommorow and let it dictate all our moves, we may not have a tommorow to worry about at the end of September.

[bsglorydays]

In extra inning games, you might as well figure that every one of your pitchers is going to have to pitch. Balfour was coming into that game at some point. You can use CoCo to try to get thru the 12th if you want to, but Balfour (or somebody else on a level below Turnbow/Wise/Cordero/etc) is going to pitch at some point (even if CoCo pitches the Brewers thru the 12th and the Brewers score in the top of the 13th, you're either going to have pitch Cordero for a second full inning in the 13th or go with somebody that is not your "best guy").

 

Ironically, if Ned had used Cordero and he lost the game, we would be having the opposite reaction here. People would be saying, "You should never use your closer in a tie game on the road."

 

Its amazing how, according to many, Ned mis-manages the bullpen in nearly every loss. How about some blame gets passed along to the guy who pitches to 4 batters and doesn't record an out?

[adambr2]

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You can use CoCo to try to get thru the 12th if you want to, but Balfour (or somebody else on a level below Turnbow/Wise/Cordero/etc) is going to pitch at some point (even if CoCo pitches the Brewers thru the 12th and the Brewers score in the top of the 13th, you're either going to have pitch Cordero for a second full inning in the 13th or go with somebody that is not your "best guy&quothttp://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif .

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And again, I am going to repeat what has already been mentioned. Would you rather have your WORST reliever pitching in a situation where your margin for error is 0, (give up a run, you lose).

 

OR, would you rather let CoCo handle that situation, and leave your worst relievers for the times that your margin for error is greater than 0, (even a 2-1 lead gives us slight margin for error, in that giving up a run doesn't necessarily lose the game. Or maybe we break out in the 12th and lead 5-1, and it suddenly becomes a garbage time situation anyway). Maybe we don't score at all, and the margin for error is still 0 the next inning, but at least we were able to give our bats a chance for another inning to give us that edge.

 

And no, I would not have even whatsoever held it against Yost for using Cordero anytime after the 8th, despite it being a tie game. I would have applauded him for giving our bats another chance. I couldn't care less what baseball logic says, I think it's foolish, and I gave all my reasons for that in the original post. I was calling for Cordero earlier than the 12th in the IGT.

[rluzinski]

Yost has a formula that gets Cordero a reasonable amount of innings (over which would be overuse). I'm amazed at how many people fail to realize that you can't use the best RP all the time.

 

You don't have to increase his innings at all to get more out of him. Personally, I'd rather use Coco in a game like last night over a game where the Brewers have a 3 run lead going into the 9th. Use him in the toughest situations with the game on the line.

 

Managers manage to not get criticized by the masses.

[adambr2]

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You don't have to increase his innings at all to get more out of him. Personally, I'd rather use Coco in a game like last night over a game where the Brewers have a 3 run lead going into the 9th. Use him in the toughest situations with the game on the line.

 

Managers manage to not get criticized by the masses.

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I agree, and like someone said, that's kind of how the A's run their operation.

 

When Balfour gave up 2 leadoff walks last night, there was one guy on the team, one, that I would have trusted to somehow get us out of it unscathed. Cordero was the guy. Any bullpen scrub (well, except for Balfour, maybe), should be able to come in and protect a 3 run lead for 1 flipping inning. Heck, even a 2 run lead should be able to be protected most of the time for 1 inning by any MLB pitcher.

 

I wish the save stat didn't even exist, it has become way too influential.

 

And I think we need to stop thinking that Cordero is being overused. Look at the average MLB innings for a full-time closer, and you'll see Cordero isn't any higher than the average. We make it sound like we're blowing his arm out. We're not.

 

Yes, I know sometimes he warms up and doesn't come in, but so does every other reliever.

[strawbossisevil]

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And I think we need to stop thinking that Cordero is being overused. Look at the average MLB innings for a full-time closer, and you'll see Cordero isn't any higher than the average. We make it sound like we're blowing his arm out. We're not.

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Thanks for setting us all straight. You are right, right now he is average/slightly above average in innings pitched for full-time closers. Now imagine adding all the innings that people like you want him to pitch, and suddenly that "average/above average" amount of work, becomes abuse. We aren't blowing his arm out, because we are restraining ourselves from using him in every single difficult situation that crops up. We have a formula that limits his innings to a reasonable amount, to add to that formula only risks injury.

 

Anyone who has kept track of Cordero's career knows one thing. The more the guy the pitches, the less effective his pitches become. This happened in Texas at the beginning of last year. It happened right before the All Star Break this year. I'd rather we have the well rested "lights out" Cordero. Then the mediocre pitcher that he becomes when he gets pushed to his limits.