As was shown in my last post, a good bullpen is a key ingredient of any team today that hopes to make the playoffs, do well in the playoffs, and ultimately win the World Series, and obviously a closer is a key ingredient of any good bullpen. As we'll see next, the closer is very clearly an important cog for maximizing your team's success in the playoffs.
BP Study on Playoff Success
As I have written on before, BP did a study on "Why Billy Beane's S**t Doesn't Work in the Playoffs." And while they did not get into it in the book, I felt that one of the reasons why Billy Beane's teams didn't do well in the playoffs was because Beane has generally thought that a closer was an easily replaceable part. Hence why he changed closers regularly during their playoff hey-days in the early 2000's. However, he appears to have learned his lesson by drafting and keeping Huston Street.
In this study, they did regression analysis on what team metrics had a significant correlation with success in the playoffs and found that one of the key factors that had a significant effect on playoff success was how good their closer is, as defined by their closer metric, WXRL. WXRL is the increase in the probability of a pitcher's team going on to win the game given the game situation. That is the closer's win expectancy adjusted for replacement level and the opposing lineup and the higher the better.
Thus, this study says that a team serious about winning the World Series better have a knockout closer at their disposal. And the importance of an above average closer is clear: post season games are usually close contests between evenly matched teams. And that results in many more opportunities for the closer to pitch in high-leverage situations.
I would also add here that in the playoffs, the one game swing from a win to a loss can be pivotal. Instead of being 2-1 and one game from winning the first round, if you lost instead, you would be 1-2 and one game away from elimination, needing to win two straight games. Or in the second round and World Series, instead of being tied 2-2 with a win, if you lost instead, now you are down 3-1 and one game away from elimination, needing to win three straight games. Thus each game has greater importance, hence why the need for dominating starters that was noted previously and particularly hence why a team needs a great closer, because each game's importance is magnified that greatly and if your team is in position to win, having a closer who can close for you reliably is worth his weight in gold.
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