A's, Beane recast closer role, to mixed results

OAKLAND - Billy Beane fondly recalls his one season playing with Dennis Eckersley, the one-inning closer Oakland Athletics manager Tony La Russa implemented as part of a bullpen with specialized roles, a then-innovative strategy that helped the club reach three consecutive World Series from 1988-90.

Lacking a Hall of Famer like Eckersley, Beane has tended to look at closers as interchangeable parts in his role as the A's longtime general manager. Now he's challenging the bullpen format that has been ingrained in baseball for more than two decades, not necessarily intent on eradicating it but certainly determined to tinker with it.

The early-season stumbles of former All-Star closer Jim Johnson – acquired in an offseason trade to anchor a loaded bullpen – prompted the A's to change course after eight games.

Johnson's ninth-inning duties have been redistributed, with right-hander Luke Gregerson and lefty Sean Doolittle getting most of the save chances depending on matchups in what's typically referred to as closer by committee.

It's a term Beane dislikes, but not nearly as much as being pigeonholed into saving his best reliever for save opportunities in the ninth – which could be with a three-run lead and the bottom of the opponents' lineup coming up – rather than using him in game-deciding situations, regardless of the inning.

"In a perfect world, you'd have your best relievers pitching in the highest-leveraged situations, and that situation could come at any time,'' said Beane, a reserve outfielder on the 1989 A's. "And ultimately you'd also like to have favorable matchups. … Sometimes the game's on the line in the seventh inning, not the ninth inning.''

The idea of bringing in the team's top reliever in key situations, especially when the matchups are favorable, has long been espoused by members of the sabermetric community, such as Boston Red Sox adviser and legendary statistician Bill James.

Beane, a James admirer, believed the Boston Red Sox were on to something when they tried the concept in 2003, after losing closer Ugueth Urbina to free agency. The experiment failed spectacularly – possibly because it had the wrong participants – and the Red Sox abandoned it after a month.

Ultimately, that Red Sox team fell one win shy of the World Series - when its bullpen couldn't bail out a tiring Pedro Martinez in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series.

"When you go closer by committee, it means you don't have a closer,'' said Texas Rangers pitching coach Mike Maddux, sharing commonly held belief. "Then you're trying to mix and match and try to hedge the bets your way. I'd rather have a closer. Who wouldn't?''

So far the restructuring of Oakland's bullpen has been a mixed bag. The A's have blown an American League-high six save opportunities - some of them before the ninth inning - while converting at a 45% rate despite leading the league with a 2.67 bullpen ERA.

Such fits and starts might be expected when departing from the norm, and Beane acknowledged the current arrangement is "a work in progress.''

Gregerson, one of the National League's top setup men in five seasons with the San Diego Padres before Oakland traded for him in the offseason, has blown half his six save chances. Doolittle has a 6.17 ERA, about twice his career standard.

That's no way to launch a revolution, and Beane doesn't seem ready to set off the bullpen version of Moneyball, at least not yet. He concedes there's some merit to the standard format where setup men know when they're likely to come in and the closer gets a clean ninth inning, if for no other reason than those defined roles provide a sense of comfort.

Plus, sticking with tradition keeps the hounds in the news media from howling when things go wrong. Beane believes that's part of the reason teams are reluctant to go with a matchup approach instead of the traditional designated closer.

"Because you guys ask questions every time somebody tries to do it, and we don't want to have to answer your questions,'' he said, only slightly in jest. "There's a certain amount of comfort in doing things the way they have been done to that point. There's a certain safety in that approach too.''

And though the game's progressive thinkers believe a high-leverage out is the same, regardless of inning, those who have heard the bullpen phone ring disagree.

""A lot of people think the ninth inning is overrated, but I don't think it is, because it's a different kind of inning," says Rangers closer Joakim Soria, who has 166 career saves. "There have been lots of players who have not being able to pitch in the ninth even though they've been great in the bullpen.

"It's the end of the game. The sense of responsibility is bigger. … The mental factor comes into play.''

Adds Maddux: "The ninth inning is not for everybody. When you do a closer by committee you find out who can stomach the ninth.

"There's nobody behind you. You're the last man standing. It's your game.''

So what now of the A's cadre of relievers?

It's quite possible Johnson, the major league saves leader over the last two seasons with 101, could eventually work his way back to the closer role, especially considering he's making $10 million. Or another candidate may seize the job.

"I'm sure down the road it's going to work itself back into a set little routine with the back end of the bullpen where Jim will be back in there in the ninth inning and me and Doolittle will be doing the same thing in the seventh and eighth,'' Gregerson said.

Perhaps, but before that the A's will try to figure out if that's the most effective way to employ what was expected to be one of the club's major strengths, a bullpen that features a variety of ways to neutralize opposing hitters, from the high heat of Doolittle and Ryan Cook to the sinkerballing of Johnson and Dan Otero.

"They have 100 (mph) from the left side. They have 100 from the right side,'' Rangers manager Ron Washington said. "They have breaking balls from the left side. They have breaking balls from the right side.

"You might see Doolittle one night, you see Gregerson, the slider master. You see Cook, who not only throws sliders but who can get a fastball up there on you. They just have a different type of bullpen. I think before it's over with, if it stays that way, (A's manager) Bob (Melvin) will identify somebody.''

The normally genial Melvin already sounds wary of questions about his bullpen, one of the top culprits in the A's dropping five of their last seven games after a 13-5 start. Oakland is 4-5 in one-run games and 1-4 in two-run games.

Melvin said he sees value in the notion of using the top reliever in the toughest situations, but that person is not necessarily the closer. As an example he cited Jose Valverde, who saved 47 games for Melvin's Arizona Diamondbacks in 2007 but had a tendency to put runners on base and would not have been a good option to summon with, say, the bases loaded and one out in the seventh.

And while Beane believes the closer by committee approach gives managers more flexibility, Melvin said it requires more managing of personalities.

"Much more so. And I don't blame them,'' Melvin said. "It is easier knowing when the phone rings who's going to be up. At the beginning of the season, I sat down with the relievers and told them exactly how it's going to play out. And now it's a little bit different. They know that and they're acclimating, but it's a little bit different.''

It's not clear whether the A's current setup can endure for a whole season. Beane, who ideally would prefer a hybrid of the closer and matchup formats, said he wants to keep an open mind.

The relievers are trying to do the same, and it helps that Melvin and pitching coach Curt Young keep them informed about the likelihood of when they might get the call, depending on how the game develops.

But much like the ninth inning is not for everyone – requiring an intestinal fortitude that sometimes separates the closers from the setup men – the closer by committee concept as a season-long plan is far from universally embraced.

"It would take the right guys in the bullpen to be able to handle that from a mental standpoint and not start complaining about their usage, their roles or something like that,'' Doolittle said. "In theory I think it could work.''

In practice, we shall see.