Opening Up the Closer Role

We won't fixate too much on last night's game because a) everything was fine when we went for our evening slumber and 2) we don't feel like poring through the ninth pitch-by-pitch to figure out what went wrong. Who has the time for that sort of misery?

So rather than discuss the flaws and failings in Coco Cordero, let's push things forward and think about what the Jays do from here to get the last outs of the game.

The temptation after another rotten end to a game is to depose one closer and anoint another. This morning, we woke up to a Twitter feed full a queries and suggestions as to who should be next in line to be marked with the Scarlet C, indicating their closerishness. And it's understandable that people would feel that way, because that conventional wisdom is deeply ingrained in the baseball fan's psyche: You need a "shut-down", "lock-down", "proven" guy taking the ball in the ninth.

But if you look at the options for the Jays over the next few weeks - as we wait for the real lock-down-proven closer to return - we wonder why you would even fill the role. You could place that title on Casey Janssen, or Luis Perez, or Darren Oliver, or call up Las Vegas closer Chad Beck. But does having someone fill that unofficial position really get you any further ahead?

Isn't the purpose of such a move to put the fanbase at ease? And doesn't that sense of confidence get shattered with the next blown save? (And make no mistake, there will be more. It happens. There's another dozen of these games waiting for us over the next five months, so gird your loins and get ready.)

Yes, we understand that John Farrell has stated that he likes for relievers to have a rough sense of when they'll be called upon to enter the game, but is it not possible to look at the lineup that they are facing, look at the past few days' usage, and figure out from day-to-day who is the most appropriate arm to get the next few outs?

"Closer-by-committee" has become a dirty word in baseball. It's a small-minded game sometimes, and many in and around the game - fans, media, punditry, front offices and field staff - are more willing to let one guy fail at his job repeatedly than to allow a different strategy to fail once. Moreover, there's a lot more blame that falls on the shoulders of the manager if a bullpen committee fails, which probably chokes off such an approach before it takes its first breath. If the by-rote following of baseball tradition ends up in a loss, the manager can shrug his shoulders and say: "That's our guy", and we all nod along like a bunch of bobblehead puppies in the back window of a Camaro.

We're not sure what John Farrell has up his sleeve at this point, but we'd appreciate seeing him actively manage the bullpen for a few weeks rather than falling into the trap of finding a "new" closer. That's the easy way out.

30 Jays in 30 Days - Francisco Cordero: I'm with Coco

Who: Francisco Cordero, No. 48. Relief Pitcher. 6’3, 245 LBS.

Tao-Approved Nicknames: Coco! (An old favourite from the Fantasy 411 podcast.)

History: 13 MLB seasons and 753 games with Detroit, Texas, Milwaukee, and Cincinnati. First season in Toronto.

Contract Status: Signed a one-year, $4.5 million deal this offseason.

Career Stats: 3.17 ERA in 785.1 innings pitched. 765 strikeouts, 327 saves. Three-time All-Star.

2011 Stats: 2.45 ERA in 69 innings pitched. 42 strikeouts, 22 walks. 37 saves, six blown saves.

Clumsily Handled Nerd Stats: Coco was a lucky duck last season according to his Expected Fielding Independent Pitching number (xFIP). Cordero’s xFIP was 4.12, more than a run and a half higher than his ERA.

Somewhat Scary Stat: Cordero’s strikeout per nine rate has fallen in each of the past five years. His 5.43 K/9 rate in 2011 was the lowest of his career.

More Frightful Figures: Cordero’s .214 Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP!) was unsustainably below his career rate (.294).

Looking Back: It feels like just yesterday that Coco Cordero got real paid, inking a four-year, $46 million deal with the Cincinnati Reds before the 2008 season. And even if you quibble with the amount of importance that people place on closers, it would be hard to argue that the Reds didn’t get fairly decent value out of that contract. Cordero stayed healthy, racked up saves, and posted a 2.96 ERA while pitching in a homer-friendly park.

And yet, no one came calling when his contract was up after last year.

It could be that the precipitous drop in his strikeout rate had teams concerned that he could no longer miss bats. And while we can’t necessarily prove the following conventional wisdom, we’ll spew it out anyway: When old relief pitchers blow up, they blow up good. (Members of the John Franco Fan Club should send their complaints via postcard to the postal address of their choosing.)

Strangely, we’re all focused on the subtext of some of the bad numbers, while the text that is written by his performance isn’t all that bad at all. In particular, he dropped his walk rate to 2.84, his lowest rate since 2007. Moreover, he put up the highest ground ball rate of his career (50%) and the lowest fly ball rate of his career (33.8%), both of which were significant improvements over his 2010 numbers.

Looking Forward: Has Coco become a crafty veteran? Able to induce key ground balls when he needs them? Does he enjoy pumping his fist and dancing as much after a well-earned double-play ball as he did when he mowed hitters down?

Cordero’s fastball velocity has waned a bit over the past few years, averaging 93.0 MPH (down from 95.0 MPH in 2009.) But he’s adjusted by dialing back drastically on the frequency of its use (from 66.7% in 2010 to 41.2% last year) while increasing his usage of a changeup (from 6.7% to 18.8%) and mixing in a curveball (9.8%) that seemingly had never existed in his repertoire. (There are a few reports under 1.0% of curveballs thrown between 2003 and 2006 which are almost as likely to be labeling errors.)

2012 Expectations: If Cordero can be successful making a late-career adjustment to hitter, he could be a very useful piece at the back end of the Jays bullpen. At best, he could challenge newly acquired Sergio Santos for ninth-inning work. Even if he’s not as successful as that, he could still be an asset if he slid down the bullpen pecking order and provided the Jays with an arm in the sixth and seventh inning.