Closer (baseball)
Nine closers have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame: Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage, Trevor Hoffman, Mariano Rivera, Lee Smith, Bruce Sutter, Billy Wagner, and Hoyt Wilhelm.
[7][8] In 1977, Chicago Cubs manager Herman Franks used Bruce Sutter almost exclusively in the eighth or ninth innings in save situations.
[12] Tony La Russa while with the Oakland Athletics is frequently named as the innovator of the position, making Dennis Eckersley the first player to be used almost exclusively in ninth inning situations.
[1][13][14] La Russa explained that "[the Oakland A's would] be ahead a large number of games every week ... That's a lot of work for somebody throwing more than one inning ... Also, there was the added advantage of [Eckersley] not getting overexposed.
[11] As late as 1989, a team's ace reliever was called a fireman,[16] coming to the rescue to "put out the fire", baseball terminology for stopping an offensive rally with runners on base.
[12] Mariano Rivera, considered one of the greatest closers of all time,[22] earned only one save of seven-plus outs in his career, while Gossage logged 53.
"[19] Dave Smith of Retrosheet researched the seasons 1930–2003 and found that the winning percentage for teams who enter the ninth inning with a lead has remained virtually unchanged over the decades.
[19] Baseball Prospectus projects that teams could gain as much as four extra wins a year by focusing on bringing their ace reliever into the game earlier in more critical situations with runners on base instead of holding them out to accumulate easier ninth inning saves.
[26] "Managers feel the need to please their closers—and their closers' agents—by getting them cheap saves to pad their stats and their bank accounts", wrote Caple.
Holtzman disagreed, saying it was baseball managers who were responsible for not bringing in their top reliever when the game was on the line, in the seventh or eighth inning, which had been the practice in the past.
"[2] Oakland general manager Billy Beane said there would be too much media criticism if a pitcher other than the closer lost the game in the ninth.
[33] La Russa noted that losing clubs risk their closer being under-worked, if they stick to the strategy of saving them for ninth inning situations where the team is ahead.
[2] An instance of this was Philadelphia Phillies manager Charlie Manuel, who did not call upon closer Jonathan Papelbon in high leverage situations during the 2012 season, including six games where the score was tied during the late innings, which may have cost the team seven wins by midseason.
Jonah Keri suggested "fear of using pitchers in anything but the most predictable circumstances, or simple inertia, closers get used far more often in easy-to-manage, up-two, bases-empty, ninth-inning situations than they do in tie games with runners on and the game actually on the line" and said of Papelbon "unless the Phillies start using him in situations where he’s actually needed, rather than almost exclusively in spots that nearly any pitcher with a pulse can handle successfully 85–90 percent of the time, Papelbon will remain the $200,000 Aston Martin that never leaves the garage".
During Games 4 and 6 of the 2010 NLCS, each a late-inning situation with the score tied, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel did not call upon closer Brad Lidge and both times the selected relief pitcher surrendered the game-winning run (Lidge came in during the ninth inning of Game 6 where he preserved the 3-2 deficit but the Phillies failed to score in the bottom of the ninth).
Hoyt Wilhelm was the first to be elected in 1985,[38] followed by Rollie Fingers, Dennis Eckersley, Bruce Sutter, Goose Gossage, Trevor Hoffman, Lee Smith, Mariano Rivera, and Billy Wagner.
