The Evolution of Pitcher Usage - Mariano Rivera

by Lincoln Mitchell

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NOTE - This article comes from Lincoln Mitchell's Substack page, Kibitzing with Lincoln . Please click HERE to follow Lincoln on Substack.

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Sometime around 2010 I went to a day game at Yankee Stadium. A few rows ahead of me in my upper deck section were a middle-aged couple clad in the gold and green of the A’s, the Yankees opponents that day. It was not a great day to be an A's fan as the Yankees took a one or two run lead into the 9th inning. Then, the strains of “Enter Sandman” wrung out over the public address system and number 42 took the mound for the Yankees. The Yankees fans in the crowd were familiar with the drill-fifteen or so pitches, mostly cutters, and then a quick sprint to the subway as Frank Sinatra singing New York, New York played in the background.

That is more or less what happened. A couple of strikeouts and a ground out later, Mariano Rivera had another save and the Yankees had another victory. The couple in front of me looked disappointed but then the woman said to the man “Well at least we got to see Mariano Rivera get a save.” It was only then that I realized that for many baseball fans seeing Rivera get yet another save and make it look so easy was a special experience. If you attended baseball games in the Bronx between the late 1990s and the early 2010s, you got pretty used to that.

Mariano Rivera is not only the greatest relief pitcher ever, but he also may be the last of the truly great relief pitchers. Rivera, and Trevor Hoffman who is second to Rivera on the all time saves list, were special both because they played at the height of the closer era so were able, year after year, to accrue large numbers of saves, but also because they could pitch for so long. Their consistency year in and year out was what got them into the Hall of Fame. Over the last 30 years there have been many pitchers who had a few great years as closers but very few who could do it every year, and none as well as Rivera.

Rivera saved 30 or more games in 15 seasons. WAR is an imprecise measure for relief pitchers, but it is a useful heuristic. Rivera’s ten seasons with three or more WAR and career 56 WAR as a relief pitcher are far better than any other relief pitcher in the game’s history.

Rivera pitched in the golden era for closers. This was the time of players like Jonathan Papelbon, 368 saves, Joe Nathan, 377 saves, Trevor Hoffman 601 saves, Francisco Rodriguez, 437 saves and many pitchers who had a handful of seasons with 30 or more saves before injuries or inconsistency ended their careers. These pitchers were relied upon to get the final three outs of the game, but rarely pitched before the ninth. Rivera, particularly in the post-season, was asked to get more four or five out saves than the others and was usually able to do that.

Because he spent his entire career with the Yankees, Rivera achieved a level of fame much greater than any other relief pitcher in baseball history. He was the first, and thus far only, player elected to the Hall of Fame unanimously, was a 13 time All-Star and recorded the final out in the World Series four times. Rivera pitched 141.1 innings of post-season baseball-equivalent to about two regular seasons of work. He memorably was unable to get the save in game seven of the 2001 World Series, and gave up a big home run to Sandy Alomar Jr. in the 1997 ALDS, but Rivera’s post-season record is still astounding as we went 8-1 with 42 saves and an 0.70 ERA.

Since Rivera retired following the 2013 season, there have been great closers, but the position is changing. Kenley Jansen leads all active pitchers with 455 saves, but, at 37 years old trails Rivera’s record by 197. No other active pitcher, other than Craig Kimbrel who is only technically still active, has even 350 saves. Fewer pitchers can sustain high level performance in the closer role for more than a few years. Additionally, the closer has become less distinct in today’s 12 or 13 man pitching staffs.

When Rivera was pitching there were well defined bullpen roles-the closer, the setup man, the lefty specialist-and equally importantly the starter was still expected to pitch six or seven innings. That was both the height of the closer era and the last moment when starting pitchers were still the protagonists of most ballgames. Rivera’s career spanned the period when complete games went from rare, 275, or about nine per team in 1995, his first year in the big leagues, to almost extinct, 124, or about four per team in 2013, his last year as an active player.

Two strange but important footnotes to Rivera’s career are first that he was a failed starter in 1995 before becoming reliever. Second, his best season by WAR and most other measures was 1996 when he had an ERA+ of 240 while pitching 107.2 innings, the most of his career. That was the one year he was used as a setup man before assuming the closer role. That speaks to the peculiarity of the closer role. The value is very tough to measure using conventional, or even advanced metrics, but when a team has a rock solid closer for a generation, that is something very valuable.