The Save

[TGJforPrez]

I brought this up in the In-Game-Thread, but just wanted to get everyone else s opinion on it. Why is baseball the only sport that a statistic (the save) dictates how you manage the game? I realize all managers do it, but today was the perfect example. Estrada, a starter who has been stretched out, pitches 4 innings of 2 hit ball with only 48 pitches, but yet is pulled for another reliever to finish the game. Why risk the chance of someone not having it when you know the person in the game does have it?

 

I always think this after Coffey or Villanueva pitches a perfect 8th inning on 10 pitches, but yet, they are pulled for someone else. Again, I am not blaming Macha because everybody does it these days. Is the the 9th just that much of a different animal mentally for these guys?

[Hate those Rodents]

Good point.

 

Maybe it's kind of like the "hot hand" in basketball. If Ray Allen made his last four shots and there are ten seconds left in the game, does that mean Allen (sub in Estrada here) should be the one taking the last shot in the basketball game?

[Ennder]

Well if they were going to insist on giving Hoffman more of a shot today was probably as good a day as any to let him pitch since it was a 2 run lead and he is rested.

[TooLiveBrew]

I really believe it's managed that way largely because of the money involved in the save stat. I'm sure to some extent it's the manager believing they have a guy who best embodies The Closer Mentality™, or that the closer is the best reliever on the roster, but saves = $$... and to not use your closer in a save situation is, in theory, costing your closer money.

[TabbertBB]

Because it is stupid and it is "always" the way it has been done. It is something to prove the managers worth.

I have seen this so many times in High school baseball, sure it is high school. The manager trots out there and makes a change to the unknown and the new pitcher can't even hit the catchers mitt. But yet he made a move.

I guess it is what "change" gets you.

[jeffy]

It was not always done this way. The ninth inning "closer" is a fairly recent development in the history of baseball. We can blame LaRussa, a reporter for the Cubs, and some other guy for this foolishness.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCI/is_5_61/ai_84542687/

[rluzinski]

If a manager follows convention, it insulates him from criticism. Until their jobs can't be terminated by populist rage, I don't blame them.

[Flood Pants]

Oakland had this figured out. Rack up a bunch of saves on a pitcher who is otherwise just pretty good, then trade him for inflated value or let them walk for Type-A compensation. Meanwhile, your best relief pitchers come into the game at more critical situations. There are certainly times when the bottom of the ninth is the most critical point of the game, but not always.

[jeffy]

You mean the most critical time in a game is not facing the bottom of the order in the 9th with a 3 run lead?

The save is a joke of a stat, the Brewers should have done what you say Oakland did and traded Hoffman at the deadline last year. You would think they have enough recent history with closers blowing up that they would not have counted on him having another year like 2009. Besides, even if they had traded him, they theoretically could have resigned him for 2010, anyway.

If they had stuck with the original formula, given at the link in my prior post, the save might mean something.

"Initially, to earn a save, the reliever had to come in with the tying or winning run on base or at the plate and finish the game With the lead."

I could see adding the 3 inning save to that, but that should be about it. As difficult as it seems to be for Hoffman to do so, protecting a 2 or 3 run lead for one inning with no one on base is no great feat, as we all know.

[MessiahRp]

The save is a joke of a stat, the Brewers should have done what you say Oakland did and traded Hoffman at the deadline last year. You would think they have enough recent history with closers blowing up that they would not have counted on him having another year like 2009.

Unlike Turnbow or even Gagne by that point Hoffman's been pretty reliable over the course of his career and while most knew his stuff was on the decline, it was probably fair to think he could put forth another solid season. I sort of think the long term reliability of Hoffman and Rivera put them in a totally different class than the ride em and dump em closers that most think about when they read into the references in this thread.

 

Nobody that watched Hoffman last year could have seen him struggling like he is this year. This is a pretty rapid and steep decline.

 

[homer]

Oakland had this figured out. Rack up a bunch of saves on a pitcher who is otherwise just pretty good, then trade him for inflated value or let them walk for Type-A compensation. Meanwhile, your best relief pitchers come into the game at more critical situations. There are certainly times when the bottom of the ninth is the most critical point of the game, but not always.

Funny you mention Oakland......one issue I have with save rules is that a guy can get an out yet still "blow a save". For example Andrew Bailey came in last night in the 8th inning leading by a run. He entered the game with 1 out but runners on the corners. He proceeded to give up a sac fly which tied the game. He K'd the next guy, and retired the side in the 9th without giving up a run. For some odd reason, he's charged with blowing a save because the doofus in front of him couldn't keep guys off base. Throw in the fact that a guy can get a save in a 30 - 3 game just for pitching three innings and it shows there are some serious flaws in the save rule.

 

Sorry to go off tangent....I just think "Saves" are really overrated.

[joepepsi]

If a manager follows convention, it insulates him from criticism.

That's the bottom line. If Hoffman blows the game, Macha can shrug his shoulders in the Post Game and say, "we had our guy in there. HE just didn't get the job done."

[jeffy]

While it is true that it is safer for the manager to fail conventionally by putting the closer in, in Macha's case one can hardly blame him as his bosses have made it quite clear, by signing Hoffman and hyping 600 saves, that they expect Macha to follow this closer convention. Unless he had a lot of input into these decisions, Macha really was given no choice.

If the team had signed a bunch of random relievers and left it to Macha to decide who, if anyone, would be the closer, then the choice to follow convention would be completely Macha's.