Article: The Right ...Time to Use Your Ace Reliever

[rluzinski]

An excerpt from "The Book":

 

Quote:

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The usage patterns of relief aces, along with the perceived importance of the bullpen, are continually being re-evaluated and challenged. How early to bring them in (seventh, eighth or ninth)? Should the team be leading, tied, or slightly behind? How long should they keep pitching? These are all questions that confront and confound the manager. And, given that it's only been since the 1990's that there have been commonly accepted responses to these questions, there is probably still some doubt as to what the best answers are. For example, managers generally adopt much more aggressive strategies during the playoffs. Of course, with the season on the line, and with relievers having over three months to recover from any overuse, a manager should approach the playoffs in a different manner.

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LINK

[backup catchers]

Couple thoughts. Has the era of specialized bullpens been around long enough to make hard and fast rules based on the past uses of said specialist's role? There are decades of evidence to show loogys role is useful. Taking into account the individual hitter/pitcher matchups of course. I just don't know if there has been enough managers over the last 15 years who have taken a radical approach to the ace reliever's role. Most managers just hand the top reliever the closer role don't they? If they fail they take the next best guy and he becomes the ace of the relievers.

Second I thought it interesting they mentioned how managers are still playing the bullpen roles as much by intuition as they do numbers. It may be they don't trust the data because it isn't steeped in a century of testing. It also may be how all changes in baseball work. Some rebel get's an idea in his head and does it. Even when it goes agianst conventional wisdom. When it's used over a period of time the stats will determine it's worth. In the bullpen, at this point in history innovation, may be as useful or more so than statistical evidence.