Maybe You Should Use Your Closer When the Game is on the Line

Rebecca over at The Purist Bleeds Pinstripes wrote a very interesting post about using closers in the biggest spots of the game instead of just the ninth like most if not all teams are accustomed to. After all, the closer is the team's best reliever and therefore should be used in the most critical spots in the game. That spot came up in the seventh inning last night with two on and nobody out. They went to Marte, who did the job, but then Hughes blew it. Mo did eventually pitch but it came in a much less important part of the game and he never had a chance to close things out in the ninth, because that inning never came.

I've heard sabermetricians like Bill James make this point before. Saying the highest leverage situations come in the seventh while a save situation in the ninth is usually a much lower leverage situation. For the most part he's right, games are usually won or lost between the sixth and eighth innings. If you've watched enough baseball you probably knew this already. He concludes that the best relievers aren't being used correctly and should probably see more time in those higher leverage spots.

The more I think about it the more I agree with this theory. Let's just take yesterday as an example. If Mo comes into the game in the 7 and gets out of that jam with the Yankees still leading there's a good shot that he'll also pitch the eighth and hand the lead over to whomever would pitch the ninth. If Joba and Hughes were doing their jobs this wouldn't be an issue, but they're not and it is.

I know some of you are saying "but what happens in the ninth, who pitches? I don't know that answer, but you could always use a few guys and match up batter by batter. But at least the team is in that position to win, a position they were not in thanks to Phil Hughes blowing the game in the highest leverage spot of the night.

So go read Rebecca's post and then come back here and tell me what you think.