Are We Sure Closers Are Worth This Much?
As it stands right now, Aroldis Chapman and Kenley Jansen are both still available, waiting for the best deal to come their way. On the other side of the table, the Yankees, Dodgers, Marlins, and Nationals have all expressed interest in securing either of the two marquee closers available this winter.
Whatever the two end up receiving, each should be worth more figures higher than the four-year, $62MM deal Mark Melancon got from San Francisco on Monday (as of right now, the biggest deal ever given to a closer). In fact, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale has reported the 105.1mph throwing Chapman has an offer worth $92MM already sitting on his table, presumably from one of the clubs listed.
These are numbers that have never been seen before at the position. Of course, some of that is the result of the market continuing to get bigger and bigger each year. It's no secret TV revenues have been changing the landscape of baseball for decades, and it seems there’s nothing stopping yearly market inflation now. The only thing that’s particularly striking about these deals is the proportion of money that will be heading the direction of relief pitchers.
The role of relief pitchers took a long time to get to where it is today. In the early days of baseball, all the way to the not-quite-so early days of baseball, relievers were used only when a starter couldn’t do the entirety of their job. These relief roles were filled by pitchers were weren’t good enough to be starting on that team, and that was that. Fewer inning role for the smaller impact pitcher.
The second half of the 20th century changed all of that, however. In 1969, the save was recognized as an official statistic. While not a great stat as an indicator of a player’s value, the advent of the save still served to legitimize the role of the bullpen on a major league team, and eventually teams elected to have one of their stronger pitchers serve as a dedicated “fireman,” whose duty is was to stop a rally from getting too big, and manage inherited runners on base. In this sort of role, guys like Bruce Sutter, Rollie Fingers, and Goose Gossage dominated the league, and ended up entering the Hall of Fame.
It wasn’t until 1994 that the Cubs’ Lee Smith, was used like a true modern closer. More than 75% of his appearances that season started in the ninth inning. For the next several years, those sorts of numbers kept popping up. With the emphasis on the “save situation” (generally considered a ninth-inning lead of one to three runs) gaining, careers like Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman were able to take shape, with one easy number to tie their success to: saves.
This change in attitude towards relievers happened to come at the same time when big-ticket free agency was really in bloom, and this century saw some gaudy numbers popping up for guys like Jonathan Papelbon, BJ Ryan, Joe Nathan, and Billy Wagner, all in the $40-50MM range. Adjusting for market inflation, all these come at least $3MM away from matching Melancon’s shiny new deal. If you use a strict $7-8MM per WAR translation that seems to fit signings at other positions relatively well, none of these would be seen to have come to great fruition. But as Fangraphs writer Eno Sarris points out, with relievers, it’s always somewhat of a different ballgame. If the market pays that much for saves, you’re gonna have to spend those sorts of numbers just to talk to anyone, and that’s an unfortunate reality of their value. Ultimately Philadelphia’s Papelbon deal worked out fine enough for them, as did Wagner with the Mets. The other two, though, left their teams beating themselves up over what they’ve done.
So of all relievers to ever come close to the type of valuation we’re seeing this offseason, we’ve got about a 50% success rate. Generally those sort of numbers scare off potential buyers, and that’s exactly what they did. The numbers stagnated. All the GMs seemed to have decided they knew just what exactly the worth of an elite closer was, and it wasn’t going to be surpassed.
In 2014 the Braves locked up Craig Kimbrel for $55MM over five years, and that’s served as the perfect example of what an elite closer should sign for. So why does Melancon warrant similar levels? And more pressingly, How in the world is Chapman gonna be worth nearly twice this number, if rumors hold?
The answer is far more exciting than it seems. It looks like baseball managers, or at least the successful ones, are finally realizing how to use relief pitchers better. In the time that the community has spoken out against saves, it’s taken managers like Terry Francona and Joe Maddon (not coincidentally the two managers in the World Series this past October) to see that the way closers are being used is every bit as arbitrary as the stat based around them.
Really, these guys are in the game to get a few high leverage outs, if the 3, 4, 5 hitters are coming up in the eighth inning of a two run game, odds are those are more important outs than whoever bats in the ninth. The use of Andrew Miller this year was nothing less than extraordinary, and plenty of people have already written about how he practically brute forced Cleveland into that World Series. Miller would come in and dominate, throwing no more than 5 outs a game, striking out everything in his path, and always leaving Cody Allen, a monster in his own right, to clean up whatever scraps were left in the ninth.
Maddon did the same with Chapman. There was seemingly no effort given towards “saving” their best arms for some dream scenario of much importance later, a bad habit that may have costed the Orioles their season as soon as the playoffs started. Baltimore skipper Buck Showalter was absolutely ridiculed for not letting the biggest game of the season be influenced by one of the most dominating pitchers in baseball all year, and with him a trend is starting to finalize. The closer role is thankfully becoming more and more accepted for what it is, a designation that boxes in talent. The best reliever in the game should be able to come in whenever the game is on the line, and that’s that.
While more and more managers start seeing relievers for what they are, the value of these players goes up. If Chapman and Jansen were just going to get their 40-60 ninth innings, and that was all she wrote, there would be no talk of contracts any bigger than Melancon’s. But this October proved that Chapman can be stretched, and Chapman proved that more and more elite relievers should be getting stretched. High impact pitching is the most valuable thing in baseball, and if the world keeps finding out how to use it better, it makes them worth every penny.