No details as to cause.
Like many people, watched a ton of 1980s Braves games when they signed him to a huge contract and was mostly a bust. But, I knew of him through following baseball and he was a stud before the Braves.
RIP
According to this ESPN article, he was recently diagnosed with cancer.
Too young. How sad.
Sutter was the third relief pitcher to win a Cy Young Award, the first two being Mike Marshall and Sparky Lyle, but Sutter was the first reliever to win it who was mostly reserved for use in save situations - more than half (in fact, more than two thirds) of his appearances were to get a save, which in 1979 was still kind of unusual.
Sutter saved exactly 300 games. At the time he got #300 he was only the third pitcher to do that, too (Rollie Fingers and Goose Gossage beat him to it) but of course now there’s like thirty guys who’ve done that, many not remotely as good or as memorable as Bruce Sutter.
He was also the first pitcher elected to the HOF who never started a big-league game. Fingers and Eckersley were both converted starters who became great relievers.
Many years ago, when my husband used to play slow pitch (every day of the week) we used to marvel how much he looked like Bruce Sutter. It’s so sad Mr. Sutter was not that old.