Billy Beane Should Abolish the Closer Strategy

            Not to belittle the significance of Manny-Being-Manny storylines but there’s a development in Oakland that should be catching every baseball fan’s eye as the biggest story in baseball.

            The A’s rookie Brad Ziegler is the best reliever in baseball and yet he isn’t A’s “closer”.  How can this be? Is the Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane crazy enough not to anoint Ziegler as his closer when he’s clearly the best reliever he has in his bullpen?  Well, maybe Beane’s onto something.

Last night, Ziegler notched the first save of his career, pitching two innings of relief to end Oakland’s 10 game skid.  This was his first save opportunity of his career even though he has 37 scoreless innings to his name.

The most interesting part is that A’s closer Huston Street did not come out for the 9^th inning after Ziegler pitched a scoreless 8^th with a two run lead.  Instead, Manager Bob Geren elected to have Ziegler finish out the game.  Rather than using the “closer” in a save situation, Geren went with the “best reliever”. Why is this significant?

Because Billy Beane maintains that closer-by-committee isn’t such a bad idea.

I’ll refer to a quote taken from the excellent article written by ESPN columnist Jim Caple.  If you haven’t read Caple’s piece “The Most Overrated Position in Sports” then I recommend you do so.  For now, listen to Billy Beane’s reasons why closers are still foolishly used only in the ninth inning…

"I'll tell you why, It's the same reason more football coaches don't go for it on fourth-and-1. Because when it doesn't work, 30 of you guys come storming in wondering why the manager didn't go to the closer. It's turned into a situation where a lot of emotion is tied to that decision, just as a lot of emotion is tied to the fourth-down decision. Even if you know the odds, it's more comfortable being wrong when you go to the closer or the punter.

"The position has become very media-driven. It became a national story when Boston announced it would go with a bullpen by committee.

"Whitey Herzog had a lot of success with a closer by committee," Beane says. "Although now that I think back on it, I'm not sure they called it 'closer by committee' back then. I think then it was just called 'using your bullpen wisely.'”

Billy Beane has never shied away from making unpopular, shrewd baseball decisions. Is he on the verge of trying to do what Theo Epstein could not in 2003—going to a ‘Using Your Bullpen Wisely’?

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?