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TT: Showalter should be leery on how he uses Johnson


Tony-OH

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Hey guys can anyone enlighten me why is it necessary to have just one closer? Would it not be better in general for our team to use "close" by committee and use the "Hot hand" at that time considering innings, frequency etc etc. This concept of just one guy who has to be your "closer" is not smart to me. Teams study and they see the tendencies the more a pitcher is used the more exposed he becomes thus they usually don't make two years back to back all star caliber years as a closer anyway. If the opposing team is not sure who will close out any game wouldn't there also be an element of surprise as well?

It takes a special mental toughness to close games. You have to forget the day before and whip it from your mind, and concentrate on the latest crisis in front of you, not always the easiest thing to do.

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It takes a special mental toughness to close games. You have to forget the day before and whip it from your mind, and concentrate on the latest crisis in front of you, not always the easiest thing to do.

Or, alternatively, group think took over first with LaRussa and then later with the Yanks having success with the single closer system.

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Or, alternatively, group think took over first with LaRussa and then later with the Yanks having success with the single closer system.

Closers actually started getting popular back in the late 60's.

Sorry, I forgot about LaRussa and his A's days. He did have a life prior to the Cardinals. :)

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Closers actually started getting popular back in the late 60's.

Sorry, I forgot about LaRussa and his A's days. He did have a life prior to the Cardinals. :)

And the modern 7th, 8th, closer system stated with LaRussa. Feel free to check how many of Gossage's saves were of the one inning variety.

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No, because you can't quite grasp concepts that should be pretty easy to understand. You use stats like saves, wins, and innings pitched to make points when people are trying to show you they are meaningless to this current argument. No one said Johnson blew last night save because he has pitched 29 innings, we were showing that he becomes less effective on zero rest and even more ineffective when working in three days straight. You turn that around and say we are being anti-Buck or anti-DD, then say you can't understand how some of us would have preferred Hunter instead of Johnson last night because Hunter has worked more innings this season. I really don't know what to tell you if this is the kind of "logic" you use.

My suggestion is serious and I'm not trying to be condescending here, but the Hangout is not always a great place for people who can't grasp these kinds of concepts. If you truly think all you need to look at is his save and win totals and that's good enough reason that JJ should have closed last night after pitching the previous two nights, then I don't think you are going to add much to the board.

You don't need to be a sabermetric wiz to post here, but if you are going to mix it up with the regulars on here, and start calling them out, then you need to bring more to the table than save and win total for your support.

Jim Johnson has 6 losses. Freddy Garcia only had 5. Ergo Freddy Garcia>Jim Johnson. Duh.

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The stats in the OP are misleading for Johnson's 2nd day of back-to-back appearances, and I disagree that he should not be closing one-run leads if he has pitched the day before.

This season Johnson has 10 appearances where it has been the 2nd day of back-to-back appearances (4/11, 4/23, 4/27, 5/8, 5/21, 5/26, 5/30, 6/10, 6/14, 6/25).

His stats in those 10 games: 9.2 IP, 4 ER, 9 H, 3 BB, 8 K, 1 win, 1 loss, 8 saves, 1 blown save, WHIP = 1.30

The one appearance on May 26 at Toronto accounted for 0.2 IP, 4 ER, 4 H, 1 BB, 0 K, 1 loss, 1 blown save

If you remove that one game, the other nine appearances on Johnson's 2nd day of back-to-back appearances: 9 IP, 0 ER, 5 H, 2 BB, 8 K, 1 win, 8 saves, WHIP = 0.78

In addition, four of those saves came when Johnson entered with a one-run lead. The loss in Toronto, Johnson entered with a 3 run lead.

Based on that, Johnson has been effective in back-to-back games. Furthermore, effective when entering with a one run lead. To me, that changes the argument over whether the bullpen needs to be re-structured. It is in the 3rd game where he has been ineffective.

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I'm not anti-Buck, I'm anti-some of his decisions. Putting Strop in high leverage situations is not defensible. Buck, with those decisions alone, cost us 2 games in the span of 9 days. With Jim Johnson, he's already the saves leader and nearly 40 IP. If we're worried about over using a guy, why pitch him 3 days in a row especially if he's ineffective when used as such? Tired arm = balls higher in zone.

So- in the same thought- you are criticizing Buck for over using one guy- but ALSO using a guy (Strop) when he shouldn't? Isn't that having your cake and eating it too? Can't have it both ways. In order to give guys rest, he needs to turn to those other guys, that apparently you say Buck "can't" use in high leverage situations. Just about every game this year has been close for the Orioles- so how is Buck supposed to juggle and "expect" a low pressure situation to present itself as a way to get his unusable crunch time pitchers into a game? Maybe if he was Nostradamus, I'd agree with your argument.

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Why are relief pitchers traditionally inconsistent from one year to the next? You use a relief pitcher by this season's performance, not by the past.

Okay but he's pitched poorly in situations this season where he's had 2-3 days of rest as well. Are you going to say that you can only use him with exactly 1 day rest? At some point the lack of sample size in the split has to trump any value added because the data is more recent.

While I wouldn't use him 3 straight days as a rule of thumb, I don't think there is enough of a sample size here to declare that he must be rested x amount. The only commonality I see between this season and last is that he sucks sometimes, and those times are more frequent than they were last season. He is currently on pace to be used much more frequently than last season, so the other conclusion I might jump to is that he needs more rest overall, not a prescribed amount.

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It seems too me it would be nice to have the luxury of only using JJ two G in a row, but as long as the SP continues to go 6 innings or less we need O'Day and Hunter for earlier innings often, and they can't always be available to close when JJ has pitched two days in a row.

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Okay but he's pitched poorly in situations this season where he's had 2-3 days of rest as well. Are you going to say that you can only use him with exactly 1 day rest? At some point the lack of sample size in the split has to trump any value added because the data is more recent.

While I wouldn't use him 3 straight days as a rule of thumb, I don't think there is enough of a sample size here to declare that he must be rested x amount. The only commonality I see between this season and last is that he sucks sometimes, and those times are more frequent than they were last season. He is currently on pace to be used much more frequently than last season, so the other conclusion I might jump to is that he needs more rest overall, not a prescribed amount.

I'm not going to get into the SSS thing because honestly it doesn't fit this argument. The stats in this case clearly back up what scouts and obviously opposing hitters know. After three days in a row of use, Johnson command and stuff is not what is normally is and he struggles.

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