Watched much of the lengthy Tampa-Boston game last night. Lots of pitching changes over the innings, naturally.
What are the qualities that make one pitcher a starter, one a middle reliever, another a closer? Who decides, and at what point in your career?
lols you love your baseball today…
Starters will be the pitchers with the most skill and endurance…
Mids are usually pitchers that do not have the skill/endurance combo to crack the starting lineup on the team… either because they are young and inexperienced or aging and losing endurance…
Closers will be the pitchers with a lot of power and control but probably have issues with endurance… although it is not always an endurance issue… some closers just come in and throw heater after heater… even with good endurance you are not going to last too long if you are throwing every ball as hard as you can…
I would imagine that almost every MLB pitcher was a starter until he made it to the majors… then it is up to the manager to decide where a pitcher best fits into his teams pitching staff… There are a lot of pitchers in mid positions that would be starters on other teams…
The theory is that fireballers will hurt their arms as starters If they just throw hard long enough, the arm will get hurt. Joba and Zumaya come to mind. Nolan Ryan was a freak.
A reliever has to have control. They come in when a game is close and free singles (walks) will kill you.
It depends on how you define skill. Somebody who throws several OK-to-really-good pitches has a better chance of being a starter. A reliever doesn’t need as many different pitches and a successful closer can get by with one pitch if that pitch is good enough. Mariano Rivera is the most extreme example, I think.
There are different kinds of middle relievers, though. They might be lefty pitchers who are tough on lefties but who aren’t very good against righties, or vice versa. There are long relievers guys who aren’t really good enough to start except once in a while, so they will come in if you’re getting blown out or maybe in extra innings of a long game. There are setup guys who might be closers in training or ex-closers. I think you’re overlooking the fact that there’s a lot of trial and error in figuring out what role a reliever occupies on a team. Sometimes a guy will fail at a couple of roles and succeed in one (for no particular reason) and that will be the role he stays in as long as it’s working.
Not all closers have a lot of control and some of them don’t throw that hard. There does seem to be a psychological element in being a successful closer but it’s hard to define. And we also haven’t talked about the role of conventional thinking here - managers and GMs tend to copy each other so they don’t wind up looking stupid to outsiders.
No, definitely not. I think most guys are converted into specific roles at lower stages. If possible, you want your relievers to be used to their jobs before they get to the majors.
The conventional thinking of managers and GMs is the psychological element.
Well, you’re going to get a lot of different answers. Some of them are just going to be flat wrong (“relievers have to have control” compared to starters is one), but there are a lot of arguments to be made.
The basic idea is that the best pitchers should be your starters, since over the course of a season a starter is going to get many more innings than any reliever will. So any very good pitcher is going to at least be considered as a starter; if he can keep up the same level of effectiveness or close to it, he’s much more valuable throwing 220 innings than 75.
It doesn’t always work out, though, because not everybody is as effective over the long haul as they can be in short stints. Sometimes that’s because they really only have one or two exceptional pitches. A one or two pitch pitcher, say a guy who can throw a good fastball and a great slider, but whose other pitches are substandard, is much more likely to get whacked around if he pitches six innings than if he pitches only one or two. Batters can adjust, and if you don’t have any way to mix them up and disrupt their timing, you’re either going to throw way too many pitches trying to blow them away, and tire out and walk batters, or you’re going to get hit because you aren’t fooling them.
Bullpen vs. starting rotation a risk-reward thing that plays out pretty frequently with young and very talented pitchers. Neftali Feliz of the Rangers throws 97 MPH, but he basically throws fastballs all the time, and essentially has no third pitch. Good enough to wipe people out for an inning at a time, which makes him a great closer right now. But with a couple years of seasoning, could he be a great starting pitcher who still throws 97 MPH?
The game you watched last night had a similar guy. Daniel Bard pitched the 9th inning for the Red Sox. He’s 26 and has been a great relief pitcher for the last few years. He’s a big dude and throws 97 MPH. But he throws fastballs and sliders 95% of the time, and that means he’s basically a one-inning pitcher, like you saw last night - 27 pitches in one inning is a lot of work, and you can’t do that if you’re expected to throw 8 innings like Beckett, who also can throw that hard. So, leave Bard in the bullpen where he’s been dominant, or see what he can do as a starter and risk him being ineffective? People will argue both ways. Some of the all-time great relief pitchers have been former starters whose skills were better suited to relief, too, so arguably not everybody should be a starter even if they can do it. We don’t know what Mariano Rivera would have been as a starter, which is how he started, but we do know he’s the best closer of all time.
I meant the psychology of the pitcher, since I think that may register as a factor. But I don’t know how much and it’s probably overrated.
I know what you meant, and I’m pretty certain it’s massively overrated. With perhaps a handful of exceptions, the “mentality” of the closer is sown and cultivated by managers and GMs (and other observers) constantly telling the pitchers anointed as “closers” how special they are.
I think most MLB pitchers could do as well, relative to the low standard of “save conversion,” as those who are actually assigned the role.
Ah, I see what you mean. I was thinking of the way some guys seem to lose their confidence and become ineffective - Brad Lidge’s problems from a few years ago come to mind - but that does happen to starters, too.
Whether the closer mentality is inate or cultivated, I think it definitely exists. It’s not uncommon for a closer to have much worse stats in non-save situations than in save situations.
The manager and pitching coach decide who is a starter, reliever and closer, by the way. You typically want your best overall pitchers in the starting rotation. It’s common for a guy with only one good pitch to be a short reliever (8th inning specialist or closer). That one good pitch is usually a 95+ fastball, but guys like Mariano Rivera or Trevor Hoffman have something else, such as the cutter and change-up, respectively.
Not if the GM has paid big money to acquire somebody who’s an “established closer”–i.e., a pitcher who has piled up saves (as would be expected) when given opportunities.
That guy will be the closer unless and until he flames out rather spectacularly.
The same is true for “established starters,” of course, except that becoming an established starter really is much more of a test of a pitcher’s ability.
True. And in some cases even rookies will be used at the GM’s discretion (e.g. The Joba Rules), much to the frustration of the manager and pitching coach.
I agree with everything from your post… I was being being simple to give a quick explanation…
one thing I would like to clarify though is that I misspoke… I said majors… but meant professional… the handful of players that I know that were fortunate and hardworking enough to earn a professional contract were all ace starters right up until they began playing professional… then they got placed into the role that best suited the team that they were playing for… I would imagine that the vast majority of MLB pitching prospects are ace starters…