Joe Torre's New Tactic Could Bend Baseball's Flawed Logic

Los Angeles Dodgers’ manager Joe Torre could be on the verge of something so simple, so basic, so right, but I’m not sure whether he knows it or not. He may just be making a move to stabilize the bullpen, but he may be bucking a trend of common, yet flawed, thought throughout baseball that foolishly says your “best” reliever must pitch the ninth inning in a close game.

Your best reliever would be your closer, and your closer would be in the game to get the save, but why? What about those three outs in the eighth inning of a one run game, the outs that allow your club to tack on two more in the bottom of the frame and therefore give your closer a three-run cushion to work with in the ninth? What about that guy? Shouldn’t your best be getting those outs instead? Common sense would say so, and perhaps Torre too.

On Saturday, Torre got closer Jonathan Broxton heating up in the seventh inning instead of his normal routine in the eighth when the Dodgers were hanging onto a 2-0 lead over the Chicago Cubs. Everybody knows Broxton has the ninth and newly acquired George Sherrill has the eighth. Except Saturday. The roles were switched and Sherril was the one shaking hands with catcher Brad Ausmus after the final out was recorded, not Broxton.

Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times wrote a column in Sunday’s paper talking about this “role reversal” in the bullpen and how it could possibly create a rift between Torre and Broxton, the big guy who has been handed the ball to close games the entire year.

Plaschke went on to say that only a manager with Torre’s pedigree could pull something like that off in this day and age and get the players to buy into it. Now, Torre won’t say exactly why he chose to go with Sherrill in the ninth inning instead of Broxton, but it’s obvious. Broxton has struggled mightily lately.

In the last two weeks, he has blown two saves—against the Atlanta Braves and Arizona Diamondbacks—that have gone from easy Dodger wins to haunting Dodger losses. He has just looked beaten.

Broxton didn’t bring the same swagger and sense of dominance to the mound as he had in the first half of the season. Where has that gone? It’s anyone’s guess, really. Broxton suffered a toe injury in early July, a nagging injury that kept him from pitching from the All Star Game, and it’s possible that he hasn’t fully recovered from that. Besides the toe, Broxton admitted to being a bit worn down from his first half workload, something that most of the bullpen can attest to.

But you’re not going to hear excuses from Broxton, and you’re not going to hear Torre admit that he has lost faith in Broxton, even if that seems to be the case.

“We’re not as concerned about who gets the stat as much as the only stat that is important is that ‘W’ on the left-hand side,” Torre said.

Which brings us to the situation we saw Saturday with Sherrill, the former closer in Baltimore, getting the save. Both players, Sherrill and Broxton, said all the right things after the game, speaking of the team and the pennant race and “all that really matters is that the team won,” but we know there are more feelings than that. But Torre said he doesn’t expect there to be any ill feelings, and here is the money quote that leads to the larger point:

“If somebody gets offended by pitching to the 3-4-5 hitters in the eighth inning, they’re not the person I think they are.”

We don’t need to ring Torre’s house phone to ask him if he was talking about Broxton on that one. That was Torre’s unofficial message to Broxton that it’s about the club, not what inning your pitching.

While this may not be true, it is possible that Torre knows exactly what he is doing in this situation, and it’s not all about giving the ninth inning to Sherrill and taking the pressure of Broxton. The fact that Torre alluded to the importance of pitching to the middle of the order in the eighth inning in a two run game says something.

“After the game, Joe came up to me and said it was an eighth inning save, and I believe him,” Broxton said.

For years, the “save” statistic has defied common logic but continues to define the game plan of the manager. Even the casual fan knows that the save isn’t the most veracious statistic to use when evaluating the performance of a closer, but clubs still pour their dollars into the bank accounts of specific relievers because they happen to pitch the ninth inning more often than others.

I don’t think saves are utterly meaningless, and I’m certainly not trying to downplay the importance of a strong closer. Ask the Yankees what Mariano Rivera means to their franchise. But the fact remains that plenty of baseball games are won or lost in the seventh and eighth innings, while the most powerful of arms are spitting seeds from a bullpen lawn chair. Only in the baseball world would that model of efficiency, or lack thereof, make any sense to even a few minds.

I don’t think there will ever be a time when the ninth inning is treated as a revolving door based on circumstances and matchups until the pitchers with the big money contracts—i.e. presumably the “best” relievers available—are used at the most crucial time of the game, regardless of the inning and the “save” stat.

Does this mean we will have to draw up another stat in order to properly value the work of these relievers? Maybe. I would be open to all proposals, but I’m not sure if that’s necessary. I mean, is it really that difficult for us to determine who the best relievers in the game are? If we could have Joe Nathan or Pat Neshek pitch with two on and no out in the eighth inning of a one-run game, do we really need to think twice about what our choice would be (no disrespect to Neshek)?

Regardless of whether Joe Torre knew exactly what he was doing during Saturday’s game, he is right. If Torre was moving Broxton to the eighth because he felt like he wasn’t earning the job or simply because of matchups, he is right.

And if Torre believed Broxton is his best reliever and therefore wanted him to pitch to the most powerful hitters in the Cubs’ order, regardless of the inning, he is right. It’s time baseball’s askew logic is altered.

You can reach Teddy Mitrosilis at [e-mail].