Cut Out the Middle Man

By Joe Janish
Posted Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Way back in April, Shari Forst outlined a major issue with MLB today: middle relief.

From the April 14, 2007 article “Middle Relief is a Crock” :

“ … in the last 20 years we now have to endure watching these middle inning specialists. When these 6th & 7th inning guys come into a game 9 times out of 10 you end up watching a completely different ball game.

Two hours invested in watching your team hold a one run lead flushed down the toilet because these guys couldn’t pitch their way out of a paper bag.

Lets face it - what is a middle reliever? A pitcher who is not good enough to start a game or be a closer. What is even more troubling is that the outcome of the game rests on the shoulders of these characters.

If I feel robbed and cheated after being on the edge of my seat watching a pitcher’s duel until the 6th inning only to see it give way to a spring training batting practice session. I can only imagine how the starters in these games feel after coming out - only to end up with a no-decision after pitching 6 or 7 innings of quality baseball.”

Anyone who watched Tom Glavine’s most recent gem “flushed down the toilet” on Tuesday night in Philadelphia can feel the pain expressed above by Shari. The scary thing, however, is that this isn’t a problem specific to the Mets – it’s epidemic throughout MLB. In fact, the Mets’ bullpen is – gasp – one of the more effective gang of arms in the big leagues!

This season, more games are being decided in the middle innings, by the middle relievers, than ever before. And as Shari points out, these are, effectively, the worst pitchers on a team’s staff (not good enough to start nor close). How did MLB evolve into contests decided by the least talented pitchers, and what can be done to rectify the situation?

As with most problems, there’s no easy answer – it’s complicated. But the time has come to look at the issue and see if there's some way the frequency of middle relief can be minimized over the course of a season. Let’s delve into some of the issues that brought us here.

The 100-Pitch Count

This is one of the biggest issues in baseball, and has to be fixed immediately. Somewhere, someone came up with the notion that a pitcher shouldn’t throw more than 100 pitches in a game. Perhaps there are general stats across the board that support this theory – such as ERAs or BAA rising with the pitch count. In addition, there are some quacks who think a pitcher’s injury rate will increase due to throwing more than 100 pitches in a game. As a result, every pitcher from the time he is signed to the time he retires, is conditioned to throw no more than 100 pitches in a given day. So of course once a starter hits that ceiling, his effectiveness is going to dwindle – he’s been conditioned to tire at that point. For most pitchers, that century mark can come as early as the fifth inning, and almost always before the seventh.

The Solution: In truth, pitch counts are good for little leaguers and growing boys – they can damage their growth plates through overuse. But a grown man can throw much more, assuming he using sound mechanics and has been properly trained (that’s a whole ‘nuther can of worms – many pros have bad mechanics). For example, Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan routinely tossed 160-180 pitches a game – and neither had an arm problem through their first 20 years in pro ball. Maybe not everyone can throw that many safely, but some might – and most should be able to handle at least 125-140. But again, it all starts with the conditioning program, which must start the minute a pitcher signs a contract. Enough with the babying of 22-year-olds, only allowing them to go 75-80 pitches the first year – it’s horsehockey! What you’re doing is making them weaker – the opposite of protecting them. Think about it … if you were a sprinter, would you run less, if you wanted to get better? Yes, the comparison is not good, because running and throwing are different biomechanical actions, and an overhand throw is unnatural. But if organizations would go back to teaching sound mechanics --- think back to the Mets of the 1960s and all those young guys driving the ball forward with their legs, getting their knees dirty --- then a pitcher can safely throw into triple-digit counts. Teach pitchers sound mechanics, and stretch them out beyond 100 pitches -- get them up to 125-140. They don't need to throw 140 every time out, but if they're conditioned to go that far, then their effectiveness should remain up to at least 115-120 -- which should get them through the 7th inning.

Sabermetrics

With the advent of sabermetrics, the strikeout has become overvalued. Statheads believe that a pitcher’s effectiveness is intrinsically tied to his ability to make the batters swing and miss. In reality, that’s only part of pitching successfully – but you can’t explain that to an accountant who’s never played a game in his life, and thinks BABIP is the end-all and be-all for every pitcher. Because most pitchers in MLB today are going for the strikeout from pitch one – and every time there’s a strikeout, that’s a minimum of three pitches expended (more likely, five or six).

The Solution: Strikeouts are great, there’s no denying it, and a guy who can strike out batters has a good chance to dominate and win. However, a pitcher doesn’t need to strike out EVERYONE in order to be effective – yet many pitchers, particularly younger ones, use this as their main strategy. If an organization insists on babying the young arms, and sticking to the aforementioned 100-pitch count, then at least teach them how to pitch to contact, and get outs – rather than letting them try to strike everyone out. Good pitchers – Brandon Webb and Johan Santana come immediately to mind – can strike guys out AND get one- or two-pitch outs. Before you say, “those are the two elite pitchers in MLB”, understand that 25 years ago, pitching to contact was not a rare strategy or a crazy idea --- it was the way a pitcher learned how “to pitch”. Efficiency with your pitches, and getting the batter to hit the pitcher’s pitch, was the primary goal, and you’d go for strikeout when you needed it. Today, it’s the opposite approach.

Drafting with the Radar Gun

Since the radar gun became a cheap and feasible instrument of scouting, pitching performance has gone downhill. Scouts no longer evaluate a pitcher based on his ability to locate pitches, get batters out, or keep his composure – everything begins and ends with the pitcher’s top MPH. Oh sure, a scout will take note of the “secondary” aspects of a pitcher’s game, and may even pay attention to a kid’s changeup or curveball. But the bottom line is, if a kid is throwing 94-95 MPH, every other notation in the report is ignored. It’s kind of like a police officer sitting hanging out on the side of the interstate, trapping speeders – it’s a heckuva lot easier to point to the radar gun, and say you’re speeding, then to make and prove a judgment that you’re driving recklessly. Similarly, if a scout signs a kid throwing 95, his ass is covered if it doesn’t work out --- “gee, I have no idea why he didn’t succeed at the pro level … the gun had him at 95!”

Because of this signing strategy, the minor leagues are filled with electric arms who don’t know how to pitch. And worse, they’re limited by the aforementioned 100-pitch count, so they don’t get enough of a chance to learn how to pitch properly. Add in point #2 – over-valuing the strikeout – and it should be no surprise why quality pitchers become more rare every year.

Solution: Follow Billy Beane’s plan of drafting amateurs based on their performance, rather than the ability to throw a ball through a brick wall. Draft pitchers instead of throwers, and we might start to see batting averages and home run totals plummet.

Rushing the Young Studs

This point is directly tied to the first three. A team drafts a fireballing phenom – like a Mike Pelfrey. His main asset is a 97-MPH fastball that he’s used to blow by comparatively weak college hitters. You give him a multimillion-dollar signing bonus, so you want to protect that investment, and you limit his pitch counts the first year or so. In other words, you have bought an arm with potential, but aren’t going to give it the opportunity to develop. Yet, because of the shortage of talent at the big-league level, you force the arm through the ranks and see what he can do in MLB. He may either sink or swim, and if he swims, remember you have that pitch-count thing to worry about – after all, you need to protect the investment. But, because he hasn’t had the opportunity to learn how to pitch – he’s a thrower right now – he hits 100 pitches by the fifth inning, and you’re forced to go to the ‘pen. Sound familiar?

Solution: Keep the young studs on the farm --- such as what the Mets have done with Philip Humber this year. Resist the temptation to rush the tadpole upstream, lest he never become a frog.

The Postseason Strategy

In the 1975 World Series, people in baseball thought Sparky Anderson was out of his mind – he was bringing in one relief pitcher after another from the sixth inning on, in order to preserve a victory. He went completely off the deep end in that legendary Game Six – starter Gary Nolan was replaced by Fred Norman in the third, to be followed by Clay Carroll, Pedro Borbon, Rawly Eastwick, and Will McEnaney, before Pat Darcy finally came on to give up Carlton Fisk’s unforgettable homer off the foul pole. It was a desperate strategy by “Captain Hook”, but his reasoning was simple – it was the World Series, and his pitchers had the entire offseason to rest.

Today, it’s commonplace to see five or six pitchers used in a game – from April through October. Little by little, Sparky’s strategy became a postseason rule, and eventually spilled over into late-season games for teams trying to stay in the pennant race. The “all hands on deck” strategy crept into a manager’s game plan earlier and earlier into the season, until where we are now – where every single game from one through 162 is played like it’s the last game of the World Series. Part of it is the intense media pressure today – where every move a manager makes is magnified on sports talk radio, postgame shows, newspapers, blogs, etc. A manager has to answer the questions for today, and they have to make sense today – the media doesn’t worry about tomorrow. So managers panic in the fifth or sixth inning and lift the starter at the first sign of a threat. They don’t wait for a starter to fail, because they’ll be grilled by the press – or the GM – immediately after the game. Therefore, they use two, three, or four relievers every single game --- beginning in April. By July, the entire bullpen is burned out from overuse … yet the manager can’t figure out why its not performing the way they did earlier in the season.

Solution: When managing games in April, May and June, remember the season doesn't end until October. Push your starters an extra inning, rather than hooking him after 100 pitches.

Performance-enhancing Drugs

Before MLB started testing – and punishing -- for steroids, the use of performance-enhancing drugs was a boon to the relief pitcher. Contrary to popular belief, steroids don’t necessarily help a pitcher light up the radar gun --- the primary purpose for a pitcher is recovery. Using steroids, a reliever could recover quickly after an outing and throw effectively on one day’s or no day’s rest throughout the season. That’s how pitchers were making 70, 75, 80, 85 appearances a year and pitching at a high level of competency. As a result, managers began to believe that one could use a pitcher every other game, and expect near-immaculate proficiency. This ease of frequency ties in with the Postseason Strategy, of course – the steroids were preventing the late-season burnout, so the managers had no need to change their course of action. However, now that MLB is trying to rid the sport of drugs, pitchers can’t recover like supermen anymore --- they’ve been reduced to human beings. And there are very few homo-sapiens who can throw 95 MPH every single day over the course of a six-month season, and not suffer fatigue at some point.

Solution: Managers must understand that the relievers are human again, and can’t throw full-out every day. Reduce appearances from 75-80 down to a more realistic 55-60.

Conclusion

Congratulations for reading this far -- you're a genuine baseball nut. The solutions sound simple, but in reality will be difficult to attain. What should be noted is how each issue is intertwined with the other, and much of it is influenced by the 100-pitch count. If organizations can start conditioning pitchers to go beyond that limit -- but remain in a safe zone according to the individual (rather than blanketing one specific limit for all) -- many of the other issues can be more easily solved. It's high time to start making progress immediately, because things can only get worse.