The idea of giving lucrative long-term contracts to closers already was under siege, and then the first week of this season happened.
The White Sox (from Nate Jones to Matt Lindstrom) and the Brewers (from Jim Henderson to Francisco Rodriguez) thought so little of the job and the men doing it that they made replacements somewhere between last pitch of the spring and first pitch of the season. Is there another position on the field in which a team would do that?
Toronto’s Casey Janssen broke down before the starting gate, and Bobby Parnell did so after one appearance.
The A’s were hailed in the offseason for all but stealing Jim Johnson from the Orioles. Then they went 1-2 rather than 3-0 in their opening series against the Indians because in his first two outings the righty was 0-2 with one blown save and five runs yielded in one inning.
But most damning to the future financial hopes of the closing tribe is Jonathan Papelbon. His four-year, $50 million contract now stands as cautionary tale to all teams about making a significant investment in a pitcher who makes his living one inning at a time and is not named Mariano Rivera.
Already virtually untradeable, Papelbon is veering toward unusable for the Phillies. His fastball, once a 95-mph championship piece for the Red Sox, is now a 91-mph invitation to offensive success. His peripheral numbers for hits, walks and strikeouts per nine innings remained positive last year, but all menace and trustworthiness was eviscerated. That bled seamlessly into his work this season.
And the sport has spoken. The Phillies were willing to eat at least half of the two years at $26 million left on Papelbon’s deal, take little but a token back, and hardly could get a nibble — which also, it must be said, reflects that Papelbon is not viewed well within the game as a clubhouse presence.
Mainly, though, teams do not want to invest significant multi-year dollars in this role. Sure, an overpowering force will come along like Craig Kimbrel, who will be young enough and superb enough to defy the trend. The Braves guaranteed him $42 million over four years (you could imagine, say, the Dodgers doing this with Kenley Jansen or Kansas City with Greg Holland).
But, for the most part, at a time when the prices keep rising for every position on the field, the most narrow specialty roles — DH and closer — have seen a near disappearance of the meaningful three- or four-year deal. For closers, teams have become wise to the volatile/fragile/fungible nature of the job.
There are few Riveras and Kimbrels — brilliant, durable, trustworthy annually. There are a lot of up-and-down yo-yos like John Axford, Chris Perez, etc., who do not engender long-term faith. Parnell is the latest casualty of throwing hard, often, under late-game duress. The life expectancy in the role is just not good. Consider that Papelbon (eight straight years) is the only reliever with even 25 saves in each of the last four seasons.
The faith and trust in the reliability of one guy is all but obsolete. Consider, the Braves (with Kimbrel) are the only team closing with the same guy today as in 2011. Consider, last year’s World Series featured teams in Boston (Koji Uehara) and St. Louis (Trevor Rosenthal) that survived despite going through a series of closers before settling on the best option with their seasons well in progress. There is a sense now that there are more viable candidates to pitch the ninth inning well than to do any other on-field job.
You either have a suitable third baseman if your starter goes down or not. If your closer fails, you might be able to get away with the starter throwing hard at Double-A or the reclamation project you signed to a minor league contract. Rosenthal was a hard-throwing starter, Uehara a journeyman set-up man who with Boston was playing with his third team in three years.
It puts the Yankees in an interesting position with David Robertson. There was no real attempt to be proactive to get him signed long term, since his reps would want him to be paid like a closer (though he is just rising to the job now) and the Yanks would want to treat him like a set-up man. But this is his walk year, so the Yanks have to make a long-term decision on him in the near future.
They have Andrew Bailey signed with an option for 2015. He has closing experience, so if he heals well after shoulder surgery and performs capably late this season, he could be a closing candidate for next year. Someone such as Dellin Betances, Adam Warren or Jose Ramirez could grow into the job. General manager Brian Cashman said “I have no set rules” about whether to give long-term deals to relievers, but he did acknowledge the physical and performance volatility among closers and how that is a major factor in decision-making.
“It doesn’t mean you avoid it altogether,” he said. “But you are very aware of it.”
It means that after having one savant do the job for 17 years, the Yanks suddenly could be like the entire sport when it comes to closing — having found many reasons why not to go long with guys who pitch short.