"The point of pitching management is to make the opponent's best hitters look their worst when it matters most. Everyone knows this. I was not yet in Kindergarten when this came out. But I do have some small disagreements with that Baseball Prospectus Basics piece. As it states, before the invention of the closer, managers used 'firemen' to try to get out of jams their other pitchers got into."
"The problem only arises when you give a reasonable concept like this to Tony La Russa, one of the most rigid and feeble minds the sport has ever seen. He somehow missed the merits of being early and merely liked the closer because it allowed him to think less. He was the man that decided a closer was just for the final three outs. Technically, this was visionary. Give a guy less work and make him go all out, and he will be more effective."
Mariners manager Dan Wilson declined to admit regret after not bringing in Andrés Muñoz in the seventh inning of Game 7 of the ALCS. Pitching management aims to make opponent's best hitters look their worst in crucial moments. The traditional 'firemen' approach used top relievers during jams, while modern closers are often reserved for the final outs. Saving the best reliever for an obvious mess is passive; inserting a top reliever earlier is an aggressive, predictive strategy that anticipates high-leverage moments. Rigid ninth-inning-only closer usage can reduce flexibility and miss opportunities to neutralize threats before they escalate.
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