Batter as closer: juxtaposing Mariano Rivera and Barry Bonds, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams.

What if a great hitter were used like a closer? You know, like Mariano Rivera.

Should Mariano Rivera be elected to the Hall of Fame? Tuesday, July 4, 2017

The premise here is that, although Rivera preformed his role very well, his role wasn't nearly as important as it was perceived during his career (1995-2013)...

http://retrosheet.org/Research/SmithD/MythOfTheCloser.pdf

The Myth of the Closer
By David W. Smith
Presented July 29, 2016
SABR46, Miami, Florida
Conclusions

1. The entry of a new pitcher to start the 9th inning has increased dramatically since 1980.

2. The presence of this new pitcher has had almost no effect on a team’s chances to win.

3. Ace closers bring slightly more wins than other 9th inning pitchers (92% vs 88%)

4. Performance of 9th inning pitchers is almost indistinguishable between closers and others.

5. Increased use 9th inning pitchers correlates with overall increase of relief pitchers.

6. Pitchers have had progressively shorter stints for over 100 years.

7. Current pattern of closer usage is not justified by their contributions to team wins.
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Mariano Rivera, the last closer. Thursday, July 13, 2017

What if a batter were a closer?  In the 1960s when Mickey Mantle’s career was winding down and Yankee manager Ralph Houk needed to rest him, Mickey was used to pinch hit, usually in a game changing situation.  I wondered if it might not be more effective to hold Mickey out and wait for that one big moment when he could pinch hit and try to win the game in that one at bat.

But suppose you could find batting specialists, pinch hitters who were otherwise not great players?  Would you consider them for the Hall of Fame?

How about fielding specialists who enter late in games to protect a lead?  Would you consider them for the Hall of Fame?

Probably not.  Then why consider Rivera, no matter how well he performs his role?  That role is very limited and probably ill-defined.

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Jack Curry: you're stupid if you wouldn't vote Mariano Rivera into the Hall of Fame. I guess I'm stupid. Monday, March 12, 2018

Mariano Rivera ... the most overrated "player" in at least half a century...

... Rivera is the all time great for a role that didn't really exist more than 30 years ago. And it's increasingly being diminished by the more avant-garde self appointed smarties...

Rivera pitched only a few more career innings than Babe Ruth: 1,283 to 1,221. Sandy Koufax had a short career but he had 2,324 innings, more than 1,000 more than Rivera. Koufax had seasons with these innings: 355, 323, 311...

... in none of his seasons did Rivera even come close to qualifying for the league lead in Earned Run Average (ERA): 162 innings. Would you vote for a batter who never had the 502 Plate Appearances to qualify for leading in Batting Average in a season? ...

Mariano Rivera pitched in less than five percent of his team's innings. How the heck much could he possibly contribute in so few innings? ...

I've long held that Rivera could have contributed at least as much by pitching the first inning in every other game. That would be 81 appearances and 81 innings. At least then he would be pitching to the top of the order, not a random part of the batting order...

I may expand on this in a future post but consider whether you would prefer for a season:

- Rivera pitching 70 innings in 70 appearances
or
- Barry Bonds pinch hitting in all 162 games; not 2001 when he hit 73 home runs so as not to bias this, maybe 2004 when Bonds had On Base average .609.

If Bonds offends you, substitute Ted Williams 1941, On Base .553.

Rivera or Bonds/Williams? Pick one, Jack Curry. Show us how much of a slam dunk Hall of Famer Rivera is.

Comment:
Joseph Maloney said...

... In the 1960's going into the 9th with a one run lead, a team had a .844 chance of winning that game, a team in the same circumstances in the 2000's has a .848 chance of winning. With a two run lead in the 1960's a .93 chance of winning, in the 2000's a .93, a team in the 60's with a three run lead had a .974 chance of winning, in the 2000's a .976. Before the closer, and even before the old fireman position was in full glory, a team that had a lead in the 9th was an overwhelming favorite to win the game, same as today. The numbers as a whole have barely moved over the years and are very consistent with the 70's, 80's and 90's ...

_________________________________

Rivera succeeded in 89% of his save opportunities.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=riverma01&year=Career&t=p

I	Split	G	PA ▼	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	SB	CS	BB	SO	SO/W	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB	ROE	BAbip	tOPS+
	Bat3-6,non-P	857	2234	2055	228	469	73	6	41	20	7	142	505	3.56	.228	.284	.329	.614	677	44	23	5	9	32	24	.282	121
	Bat7-9,non-P	804	1812	1682	125	334	41	4	22	27	8	93	445	4.78	.199	.246	.267	.512	449	24	15	12	10	7	21	.255	85
	Bat1-2,non-P	614	1057	982	76	195	27	5	8	23	6	51	223	4.37	.199	.243	.261	.503	256	20	8	9	6	2	11	.247	82
	Batting 8th	607	624	588	47	113	12	2	9	10	1	29	152	5.24	.192	.232	.265	.498	156	7	2	4	1	2	11	.243	79
	Batting 7th	596	617	560	42	105	11	0	10	8	3	37	153	4.14	.188	.248	.261	.508	146	7	10	3	7	4	6	.235	84
	Batting 6th	590	612	570	56	108	16	1	7	5	1	32	147	4.59	.189	.240	.258	.498	147	14	6	4	0	9	4	.243	80
	Batting 5th	553	580	539	49	111	21	1	7	2	2	31	146	4.71	.206	.260	.288	.548	155	13	9	0	1	5	9	.269	98
	Batting 9th	556	571	534	36	116	18	2	3	9	4	27	140	5.19	.217	.258	.275	.533	147	10	3	5	2	1	4	.288	92
	Batting 1st	515	540	499	38	91	13	3	4	9	1	27	107	3.96	.182	.232	.244	.477	122	11	6	6	2	1	8	.223	72
	Batting 4th	508	536	487	62	130	20	3	12	5	1	37	109	2.95	.267	.323	.394	.717	192	11	6	0	6	12	4	.317	158
	Batting 2nd	494	517	483	38	104	14	2	4	14	5	24	116	4.83	.215	.253	.277	.531	134	9	2	3	4	1	3	.272	91
	Batting 3rd	478	506	459	61	120	16	1	15	8	3	42	103	2.45	.261	.325	.399	.723	183	6	2	1	2	6	7	.306	160

Rank order of batting order positions to which Rivera pitched most often: 8, 7, 6, 5, 9, 1, 4, 2, 3. Teams tend to place their best hitter in the third or fourth spot in the batting order.

Mickey Mantle or Ted Williams before the designated hitter rule was introduced in the American League in 1973. Or Barry Bonds in the non DH National League. Suppose that you could have one pinch hit in each game by a batter of that caliber. Would you prefer that to Mariano Rivera doing his incomparable one inning wonder act: 70 single innings in 70 games in the 9th inning with a lead? Which would you prefer?

And if Mantle, Williams, Bonds made an entire career of it and never once came close to qualifying for the league lead in averages, would you consider them sure fire, first ballot, unanimous Hall of Fame selections? If they hung on for 20 years, they would have 3,240 plate appearances (PA). Half that if they only fulfilled the minimum requirement of ten seasons of non specific amounts of play: 1,620 PA. Hall of Famers they?