Closer (baseball)

In baseball, a closing pitcher, more frequently referred to as a closer (abbreviated CL), is a relief pitcher who specializes in getting the final outs in a close game when his team is in the lead. A closer who successfully gets the final outs for their team in the final inning of a game is recorded as a save in baseball statistics. The role is often assigned to a team's best reliever. Before the 1990s, pitchers in similar roles were referred to as a fireman and stopper. Closers typically specialize in a breaking ball of some sort in order to minimize the risk of home runs late in games, and to deceive batters into swinging away from the strike zone.

In Major League Baseball (MLB), some closers have been noted for their use of entrance music when they jog out to the mound to warm up, often to excite the fans and to intimidate the at-bat. For example, the San Diego Padres of the National League (NL) played the song "Hells Bells" by AC/DC for closer Trevor Hoffman, and the New York Yankees of the American League (AL) played "Enter Sandman" by Metallica for closer Mariano Rivera.

A small number of closers have won the Cy Young Award. Nine closers have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame: Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage, Trevor Hoffman, Mariano Rivera, Lee Smith, Bruce Sutter, Billy Wagner, and Hoyt Wilhelm.

A closer is generally a team's best reliever and designated to pitch the last few outs of games when his team is leading by a margin of three runs or fewer. Rarely does a closer enter with his team losing or in a tie game, however in the playoffs they are often brought on if it is a close game. A closer's effectiveness has traditionally been measured by the save, an official Major League Baseball (MLB) statistic since 1969. Over time, closers have become one-inning specialists typically brought in at the beginning of the ninth inning in save situations. The pressure of the last three outs of the game is often cited for the importance attributed to the ninth inning.

Closers are often the highest paid relievers on their teams, making money on par with starting pitchers. In the rare cases where a team does not have one primary pitcher dedicated to this role, mainly due to an injury or poor performance of primary closer candidates, the team is said to have a closer by committee.

New York Giants manager John McGraw in 1905 was one of the first to use a relief pitcher to save games. He pitched Claude Elliott in relief eight times in his ten appearances. Though saves were not an official statistic until 1969, Elliot was retroactively credited with six saves that season, a record at that time. In 1977, Chicago Cubs manager Herman Franks used Bruce Sutter almost exclusively in the eighth or ninth innings in save situations. While relievers such as Rollie Fingers and Goose Gossage were already being used mostly in save situations, Franks's use of Sutter represented an incremental change. Sutter was the first pitcher to start the ninth inning in 20 percent of his career appearances. Clay Carroll in 1972 was the first pitcher to make a third of his season's appearances in the beginning of the ninth inning, which would not be repeated until Fingers in 1982. John Franco in 1987 was the first to be used over 50 percent of the time in the beginning of the ninth in a season; he had a then-record 24 one-inning saves. Lee Smith in 1994 was the first to be used over 75 percent of the time in that situation. Using the save leader from each team in the league, the average closer made his appearances in the beginning of the ninth inning 10 percent of the time in the 1970s to almost 2⁄3 of the time by 2004.

Tony La Russa while with the Oakland Athletics is frequently named as the innovator of the position, making Dennis Eckersley the first player to be used almost exclusively in ninth inning situations. La Russa explained that "[the Oakland A's would] be ahead a large number of games every week ... That's a lot of work for somebody throwing more than one inning ... Also, there was the added advantage of [Eckersley] not getting overexposed. We tried to get [him] to only face three or four batters an outing." Baseball teams often copy one another, following a strategy based on one team's success. In 1990, Bobby Thigpen set a record with 57 saves while breaking Franco's one-inning saves record with 41. Francisco Rodríguez set the current record with 54 one-inning saves in 2008.

As late as 1989, a team's ace reliever was called a fireman, coming to the rescue to "put out the fire", baseball terminology for stopping an offensive rally with runners on base. They were occasionally referred to as stoppers and closers. By the early 1990s, the top late-inning reliever was called a closer. The firemen came in whenever leads were in jeopardy, usually with men on base, and regardless of the inning and often pitching two or three innings while finishing the game. An example of this is that Goose Gossage had 17 games where he recorded at least 10 outs in his first season as a closer, including three games where he went seven innings. He pitched over 130 innings as a reliever in three different seasons. For their careers, Sutter and Gossage had more saves of at least two innings than saves where they pitched one inning or less. Fingers was the only pitcher who pitched at least three innings in more than 10 percent of his saves. The game evolved to where the best reliever was reserved for games where the team had a lead of three runs or less in the ninth inning. Mariano Rivera, considered one of the greatest closers of all time, earned only one save of seven-plus outs in his career, while Gossage logged 53. "Don't tell me [Rivera's] the best relief pitcher of all-time until he can do the same job I did. He may be the best modern closer, but you have to compare apples to apples. Do what we did", said Gossage.