The modern baseball era has brought forth many changes to America’s pastime. These changes include the DH (designated hitter), the wildcard standings, and an abundance of new stats.  While I feel most of the changes have improved the game of baseball, others have hurt the game. One of these detrimental changes has been the recent assignment of Bullpen roles. 

There’s no denying that having a good bullpen is important for a team. It’s always been viewed as an important part of ballclub. However over the last few decades the bullpen has taken on a new significance, as managers have begun shaping their bullpen, in a certain way, assigning particular jobs for each reliever. For instance the closer is automatically supposed to pitch the ninth or in some cases is asked to pitch the eight and stay in until the games over. Before the closer comes in there’s another pre-assigned pitcher, the setup man, who is supposed to act as a bridge for the closer.

So in a perfect world, the setup man is supposed to pitch the eighth inning and the closer goes in the ninth no matter what. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who sees the how flawed this system of bullpen management is. First of all this system seems to ignore the impact of stats on the game of baseball. As it forces a manager to put his closer out in the ninth no matter who’s at the plate. It always seems managers only look at a pitchers success against a batter if it’s earlier then the eight, after that stats no longer matter and setup men and closers automatically take their predetermined slots. This type of thinking can backfire and even cost your team the game.

For example let’s take a look at this past years ALDS where the Yankees took on the Twins. Game one ninth inning leading up three to one, the Twins sent Joe Nathan, their closer to the mound to face Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, and Jorge Posada.  Based solely on stats, the Twins made the wrong move, as Rodriguez and Teixeira are a combined 10 for 19 against Nathan. But according to the new unwritten rules of baseball Nathan was the right choice even if the move predictably backfired and cost the Twins the game, even though Jesse Crain has fared much better against Arod and Teixeira, never mind the fact that Jesse Crain has done better against them and is less home run prone.

Another fault found in the current system, is that the closer the team’s most valuable reliever is restricted to only pitch the ninth. Even though a 2004 study done by David W. Smith in 2004 found that closer or no closer most games are done in the ninth inning, even the team with the worse ninth inning stats won over 80% of their games. Since the closer is restricted to the final innings of games they are sometimes not used in the most crucial spots in the game. For example let’s say your team is playing the Phillies and Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Jayson Werth are due up in the seventh inning, if I were a manager I would want my best reliever out there to face them however that reliever is foolishly kept in the pen for later use.

With so little quality middle relievers it wouldn’t surprise me if some managers did choose to change the status quo eventually, as certain teams only have one or two good relievers. Restricting a closer to just one inning a game probably leads to more losses than saves, as something the game is on the line in the middle innings. If a manager sees a possible turning point in the game, he shouldn’t just stick to some trend that tells him who has to pitch. He should instead look at the situation, look at the numbers and put in whichever pitcher he thinks can get out the situation unscathed.