Even in today’s heavily statistical world, where every facet of the game is intimately diagrammed and analyzed, closing out ballgames remains a bit of mystery.
Some observers refuse to believe that an eighth or ninth-inning out is any more valuable then the 21 that come before. On the flip side, you have what has become the “new tradition” and the mindset that closing is unique ability that not all pitchers develop equally, regardless of talent.
Further clouding the issue, there may be an elaborate self-fulfilling prophecy. Many pitchers are indoctrinated with the belief that pitching at the end of games places them on knife’s edge. So they may in fact struggle to handle the pressure of pitching precisely because media, coaches, and fans tell them they will.
At the end of the day, stuff still matters. A plus fastball combined with a nasty secondary pitch is what separates a Joe Nathan from a Kyle Farnsworth.
Still, when analyzing how teams are developing young power arms for prominent bullpen roles –closer or primary setup man – they clearly are hoping to take a very young pitcher with strong stuff and catch lightening in a bottle.
Let’s look at some intriguing young talent and see how their teams have been grooming them to excel.
Joel Zumaya and Jonathan Broxton
An accomplished minor league starter, Zumaya had a tremendous 2005 season. He allowed just 101 hits in 151.1 innings and struck out 199 batters between Double and Triple-A.
Still, the Tigers saw a 100-MPH fastball and nasty curve and thought Eric Gagne, not Bartolo Colon. Earlier this season, Zumaya contributed to the myth that closing is an art form when after a rough outing in the ninth he declared he’s not ready to be a closer.
When’s the last time you heard a young starting pitcher say, “Yeah, pitching in that big series against our archrivals may be above me right now.”
Like Zumaya, Broxton was moving up the ladder very well as a starter, although with slightly less dominating stats. The Dodgers put him on the relief track during the middle of the 2005 season while his was in Double-A.
Even though both Zumaya and Broxton began 2006 as 21-year-olds with little experience facing big league hitters, they obliterated the Major Leagues as rookies. Broxton struck out 97 batters and put up a 1.23 WHIP in 76.1 innings, while Zumaya struck out 97 and put up a 1.18 WHIP in 83.1 innings.
Both the Tigers and the Dodgers made the playoffs, crediting their strong bullpens in the process. Broxton has been outstanding again in 2007. Zumaya was struggling before he ruptured a tendon in his right middle finger while warming up earlier this month.
Was it wrong to move Broxton and Zumaya from roles where they could have provided three times as many innings? Without carefully studying their medical records, it’s tough to say.
The real question is whether the two prospective closers will actually develop into dominating end-of-game relievers – a la Mariano Rivera and Francisco Rodriguez. That question remains unanswered, but what is certain is similar decisions have been made around the league.
Brandon Morrow
One of the most stunning developments this spring was when the Seattle Mariners saw Brandon Morrow’s upper-90’s fastball and nasty split-finger and said, “We want that now.”
And so Morrow, the 5th overall selection of the 2006 draft, took his 16.0 career innings of professional baseball and jumped into the Mariner pen. Like Zumaya and Broxton, Morrow has pitched well enough to assume his team’s primary set-up job as a 22-year-old.
While J.J. Putz continues as a successful closer, Morrow seems a fitting understudy. The 6-foot-3 righthander has yielded just 12 hits in 19.2 innings and dialed up 20 strikeouts. Picked to finish last in the AL West, the Mariners find themselves above .500 and a few games out of both the Wild Card.
Conclusions
The two big issues that inspire so much debate in this topic are injury and a wasteful allocation of resources – i.e the huge gap in innings contributed between a reliever and starter.
The injury question is not one we can yet properly answer, mostly because young starters go down frequently as well – even those with fluid-motions and large-frames like Adam Loewen.
The value question is more accessible, however. The simple answer is that a continued run of positive results will lead to more and more young starters turned reliever.
The value is very obvious and certainly important, as bullpen success so often goes hand-in-hand with major league success. A starter may be more valuable to a team than a reliever, but most starting pitching prospects struggle as they adapt to facing the same hitters over and over throughout the season.
What is sure is that we need to be cognizant of how major league baseball is grooming so many of its best fastball pitchers.
Jim Hoey, a 24-year-old prospect with the Orioles, may be the next valuable weapon to be trained as a reliever. His upper-90’s fastball and developing slider have allowed him to dominate Double-A (17.2 scoreless innings, 25 strikeouts and a WHIP under 1.00).
Where is he on prospect boards? Well, nowhere really. Maybe we need to be scoping him out more thoroughly?
As inexact a science as bullpen success may continue to be, prospect analysts will be forced to examine the potential value of the next Broxton, Zumaya, or Morrow and rank him according to that potential.
Nick Christie can be reached at nickchristie@gmail.com.