I think it's funny how fantasy owners sometimes feel outraged by real managers doing smart things to win ballgames. The best current example of this is the way Jim Leyland puts Todd Jones in the closer role, when everyone knows Joel Zumaya, and arguably Fernando Rodney, are better pitchers than Jones is. In 2006, many owners drafted Zumaya thinking that they had the smart money on the closer role in Detroit, only to be disappointed by the fact that Jones held onto his job all season. Many owners have once again drafted Zumaya with the closer-in-waiting tag in mind heading into this season.

 

Smart baseball men - and when I say this, I mean really smart guys who know how to win, not Tim McCarver "smart" guys who quote random irrelevant passages and pretend to be witty - know that the closer is often used in less-than-crucial situations. And they understand that the game is often on the line before the ninth inning.

 

Typically most closers come in with no men on base to open the ninth inning. Yeah, it might be a tight ballgame, but asking a major-league pitcher to get three outs with a two-to-three run cushion isn't the same as asking him to come in during the eighth inning with two men on base and the tying run at-bat. The latter situation is much more difficult.

 

Bill James understands this, which is probably why the Red Sox tried to go with a closer-by-committee in the past. If they had only tried a manager-by-committee, it might have worked. Billy Beane understands the relative value of the closer which is why he enjoyed taking decent pitchers, artificially driving up their market value by putting them in the closer role and racking up save numbers, and then trading them away to less sophisticated teams (see Billy Taylor).

 

Jim Leyland may not have read, re-read, highlighted, and underlined Moneyball - And really, who has done that? That's just sad. - but he understands that he wants his best relievers in the game when he needs them the most. Most of the time that's before the ninth inning. Which is why Joel Zumaya is perfectly suited for the role he is in now.

 

People look at Leyland as a chain-smoking throwback to the days of old. And in a way he is. But that doesn't mean he's wrong. Remember the closer role has evolved into something much different since the days of Goose Gossage when multi-inning stints were the norm. It has become a much more specialized one-inning role. And I would argue that there is evidence that fantasy baseball has actually played a role in influencing its increased value. The importance of the save statistic was huge in the early forms of Rotisserie Baseball, largely due to the 4x4 format. This has corresponded with an increased value placed on saves in baseball in general over the past 25 years.

 

But just because Joel Zumaya isn't getting saves doesn't mean Leyland doesn't know what he's doing. On the contrary, it means he probably does. He saves his best pitchers for when the game is truly on the line. Sometimes Todd Jones finds himself in that role, and to be honest, he's not that bad at it. He's not as good as Zumaya. But just because you play in a fantasy league that values Jones over Zumaya due to the save totals (and 99% of the leagues out there do), that's not Leyland's problem. Rather, it's the fact that your league doesn't accurately measure a player's value.