One debate that often comes up between the traditional fan and those who employ sabermetrics is the role of the closer, and late inning relievers in general. Sabermetricians would argue that runs in the 8th and 9th innings count no more and no less than those in the 1st, suggesting that having a cold-blooded closer is a bit overrated. The traditional fan will counter by claiming that there are certain people who can handle big spots in the late innings, and those who cannot, and teams should take advantage of a player who has proven that he can deal with the pressure.
Yankees fans will recognize this debate from the Joba Chamberlain situation, in which fans constantly battle over where he may be more valuable. An interesting bit of data from the NY Times Freakonomics blog suggests that it may make sense to use your best pitchers in the late innings:
Here’s my favorite new fact about N.C.A.A. basketball: teams that are behind by one point at halftime are actually more likely to win than teams that are one point ahead. This striking finding comes courtesy of a terrific new paper by my Wharton colleagues, Jonah Berger and Devin Pope…..
Berger and Pope are two of the brightest young behavioral economists around, and they posit a behavioral explanation. Losing can lead to winning because of the strong motivating effects of being close to your goal. You can link some of this to Prospect Theory — loss aversion suggests that you may be willing to work harder to avoid a negative outcome (a loss); the leading teams, by contrast, aren’t focused on the losing domain.
As baseball fans, we can extrapolate from this data a simple observation about the 9th inning. A team losing by one run entering the 9th may actually be giving more effort to avoid a loss than the team leading the game, who is thinking less about losing due to their being ahead at the time. This would suggest that a manager may want to head off disaster by pitching his best hurlers in the late innings, as the opposition may actually be trying harder in the 8th than the 1st.
This does not mean that Joba Chamberlain belongs in the 8th inning. A run is much harder to score than 2 points in basketball, such that a team would prefer to be leading heading into the 8th inning, and Joba gives the Yankees a better chance of achieving that end by being a starter. However, it does suggest that there may actually be an art to closing, as players who succeed in that role must contend with the greater effort of the opposition as compared to earlier innings. Just because someone can handle the 7th or 8th, does not mean he can handle the closer role. On that note, let us just marvel at the continued greatness of Mariano Rivera, as he seems to have no trouble shutting down the opposition, no matter how hard they are trying.
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10 Responses to The Art Of Closing
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TIQ IQ
Good Post. My problem with the quoted piece is that they use halftime as their marker. If a team is down by one at halftime the chances are they will take the lead at some point in the second half and the fear of losing would be transferred to the other team. And even if the lead doesn’t change are the players really thinking about being down by one at half or down by one with 60sec. left in the game. I don’t believe the hypothesis holds water.
Not sure I agree with that. There are points in the game where you take stock of what is going on, as anyone who has played will know. Halftime is one of those times, and I think psychologically, even being up one point at halftime may alter your outlook on the game. Regardless, we can all agree that the behavioral point made here would likely hold true in the 9th inning.
Yes, i agree it makes sense for the ninth inning.
I agree with the above post. I think that the rather huge difference in results from season to season among a lot of closers throughout MLB history shows something besides a ‘closers mentality’. Add to that the large percentage of times the really high-stress situations are handled by the set-up guys, and I agree with the folks who say closing is overrated.
I think that you see pretty consistent results year to year from the established guys. It is the guys who may not be able to handle it who have their talent/luck make them sucessful one year and less so the next.
While I’m not saying I disagree with you I’m questioning how plausible your hypothesis is. While you certainly might be right, I don’t think we have enough evidence to say one way or the other. What I mean is that I’m not entirely sure the paper is correct.
Moshe:
To me, this is a highly dubious piece of research. There is a lengthy and very enlightening thread about this at Tom Tango’s website. I suggest all of you who are interested in further reading on this topic check out this thread.
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/being_behind_is_a_good_thing_part_ii/
Skip down to the comments section if you’d like. Opinions are mixed over there, but I side with those who believe this research is nonsense. The conclusion implies that teams act differently with a -1 deficit rather than -2, -3, -4, etc. Intuitively, as both a basketball player and a sabrmetric enthusiast, that doesn’t work for me.
Thanks for the link, I will check it out. However, before I do, I would suggest that even if the research is flawed, the behavioral point about losing teams trying harder is still relevant.
Still relevant in general, yes. Which is why it’s so perplexing that a basketball team down 1 point at halftime would exhibit those behaviors, but not one that’s down 2 points (or 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7). Think about it as freely as possible. The conclusion that these men came up with, credentials and all, is that teams down 1 point and only 1 point at halftime of a basketball game (which is less than 1 basket’s worth of points) shows a different than expected level of effort, while a team down 2 or 3 (or tied) does not. That screams “data noise” to me.
Teams that are losing that show increased levels of effort is something that I think we’d all intuitively expect in any sport and situation. That beef that I have is that here, it’s specifically at the -1 interval.
Definitely a fair gripe. I’m sure the authors of the study will come out with a response to the doubts about their study, and I am curious to hear what they say.