GDT 4/29/17: Phillies (Eflin) @ Dodgers (McCarthy)

[LoneStarPhan]

One out single knocks Neris out of the game. Faced 5, 4 hits, 3 home runs, blown save. On the hook loss if they lose it here.

Not his night.

Second night in LA that Phillies lose a lead. All those runners left on base looming large now.

[BostonRoss]

There may be something to the idea that a closer needs to have a certain mentality. There have been some good relievers who did not make good closers when given the chance.

[HopeSpringsEternal]

Joely comes in to face 3 lefties - Toles flies out, Barnes singles, and A-Gone grounds to Franco who boots it. Game over.

[LoneStarPhan]

Winning run scores from second on ball not out of the infield.

Clearly, this team has some work to do. A crushing defeat tonight.

Evidently they gave AGon a hit on the bobbled infield grounder that gets the run in to win. Bush league home town scoring.

[zambonir]

Well, the managing of the offensive line-up worked.

That's unfortunate but lots to like anyway (the hits, the starting pitcher). Competitive fantasies aside, if you believe in the closer, the Phillies don't need one right now; they need to develop one. If there really is something to the role/mentality, Neris is going to learn that, just like Giles and Madson before him. Or he won't. I'm happy with the flexible/committee model myself, but if he's your closer, you send him back out, like so many before him. Gomez was different because he obviously didn't have the stuff even when he was getting better results.

[BostonRoss]

I was kind of a believer in the committee model, but I've evolved into a skeptic. In part this is because it seems to fail much more often than it works. I recognize that in most cases, teams chose to go with a committee at least partly because they didn't really have a lights out closer, or at least they didn't think/know they did. Maybe the committees failed because their members weren't that good. But it's been tried enough times that one would think the might be a success story somewhere,

Another reason I'm a skeptic is that if you have a committee, you need to have more than one reliable reliever. Even if yo use your best guy in a high leverage situation earlier in the game (like the Indians do), they still have a reliable closer. If the Phillies used Andrew Miller to get out of tough situations early in the game, they still could have problems if Gomez was the guy in the 9th.

It also seems to me that while the best closers aren't always on good teams, the winning teams usually (but not always) have that lights out closer.

I would like to see managers not manage to the save rule, and also to let good pitchers go more than one inning at least some of the time.

[Austinfan]

I think you need two guys, a closer who can handle the mental part and a rubber arm guy who can pitch in crucial situations from the 6th to 9th inning, even if he lacks the killer instinct at the end of the game. Neris may be better suited to the latter role, Benoit also seems more comfortable when the game isn't on the line.

Fortunately, they have 2-3 years to find that guy.

Eflin is a work in progress, but he's clearly added velocity with healthy knees, now he needs to sharpen his secondary pitches, especially developing a changeup to work off his FBs. But he just turned 23, so there's lots of time. I can see him upticking to 93-96 over the next year or so when he gets an offseason to build up his legs and fill out a bit more. That FB has nasty movement, add a tad more velocity and a change and sharpen that curve and he has #1 potential. I actually see him with more upside than Velasquez, because he generates his velocity with less effort.

[andyb]

We really need 3 or 4 guys for the end of the bullpen. Benoit is decent but limited in the ways we can use him because of his age. Neris is good, but not great and has to see if he can prosper without using his split half the time. Ramos is not ready for late inning work on a regular basis and we really have no decent LHP.

Even with all that though our bullpen is probably a tick better than last year. Maybe Neshek needs more of a late inning role but there are no really easy solutions. I would seriously think about creating a late inning arm out of one of our starters. While I continue to want to start Velasquez ideally since it is really a 3 year project for him to build innings, I might seriously think about keeping Pivetta in a 2-inning late inning role after his spot start. He might be the guy who could throw 96 for 2 innings with swing and miss offspeed stuff. Something to consider anyway.

[zambonir]

It also seems to me that while the best closers aren't always on good teams, the winning teams usually (but not always) have that lights out closer.

The lights-out closer is like the ace, there's probably only ten of them, so yeah, six or eight of the best teams usually have one, and then most of them still see their season end (or lose control of a series) on a blown save or in a tie game.

And there are probably only five who are consistent (let alone healthy) for the better part of five years (our own "Light Outs" Lidge being a great example of one who wasn't) so long-term planning is hard.

Regardless, there's only a few ways to have one - let a guy work his way up from the eighth (or straight from closing in the minors), let a guy take his lumps, or get one from somewhere else. Starter conversion works too but there are usually bumps there as well.

Certainly the 2009 Phillies are a less than ideal model, but Lidge had 11 blown saves out of 42 opportunities that year, while Madson blew another 6 out of 16. Didn't really matter but it certainly made for a soap opera. Today that team might have made a run at Miller or Chapman, but would that have come at the expense of Lee?

[Philsmania]

There may be something to the idea that a closer needs to have a certain mentality. There have been some good relievers who did not make good closers when given the chance.

Until 2011, Madson probably fit that category. He was a great setup man but struggled when he had to fill in for Lidge in 2009 and 2010.

I would say that Neris struggling in the role has been one of this season's disappointing developments. It may pay to stick with him a few more attempts though.

[Philsmania]

It also seems to me that while the best closers aren't always on good teams, the winning teams usually (but not always) have that lights out closer.

The lights-out closer is like the ace, there's probably only ten of them, so yeah, six or eight of the best teams usually have one, and then most of them still see their season end (or lose control of a series) on a blown save or in a tie game.

And, I would also add that a good contending team with at least perceived potential postseason 9th inning issues would be more likely to pay a high price to acquire one of those few elite closers.

[LoneStarPhan]

This is a good season to try to find a closer who can handle the job, hopefully for the next couple seasons. That said, we all know that relievers are notorious for having up and down careers. Only a few have been dominant closers over multiple seasons.

[zambonir]

Until 2011, Madson probably fit that category. He was a great setup man but struggled when he had to fill in for Lidge in 2009 and 2010.

I think that has more to do with our perception of closers - but also the reason why closers may actually be important - than with Madson's actual performance. For instance, he blew two saves in the 2008 World Series, but because they weren't in the 9th inning, nobody cares. If he'd been the closer on that team he'd be Mitch Williams. I doubt overall, that he actually pitched any differently or worse when he filled in as closer in 2009, but it was a smaller sample, under the microscope. I don't think he spent two years learning how to closer, I think if he'd pitched 60 innings as the closer in 2010 he'd have done just as well as he did in 2011.

But because of where the Phillies were at that time, the closer mattered. In 2009, in the end, they still had the best one in the NL playoffs (over Huston Street and Broxton). And then they didn't (even if Lidge's worst WS moment was in a tie game on a freak play).