R-O-L-A-I-D-S Spells Relief
Make the call to the pen.
I’m sure my readers who aren’t Royals fans get tired of my Royals references, and I promise, I really do try to keep myself in check. But in this case, I think it’s appropriate. I want to talk about HDH. That’s Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland, for you non-Royals fans. And yes, I realize they don’t fit into the era we focus on in PBN, but bear with me a minute. I promise I’ll bring it back around again.
The 2014-15 Royals won back-to-back AL pennants and a World Series, and the analytical projections hated them. They tried to pass them off as a fluke outlier, although I’m not sure how you can be a fluke when you do it two years in a row. Sure, the MLB playoffs can be a crap shoot, and the 2014 Royals were a wild card team who made an unexpected run to the World Series- while sweeping the ALDS and ALCS on the way, I might add. But the 2015 team won 95 games and had the best record in the AL. So go figure.
They definitely didn’t follow the three-true-outcomes approach though. If anything, they were the anti-three-true-outcomes team. They didn’t hit a ton of home runs, they didn’t walk, but they also didn’t strike out. They made a lot of contact, and it’s amazing how racking up a ton of hits will result in a lot of runs. And maybe that isn’t sustainable in modern baseball. I don’t know, but it worked like a charm for two years.
The Royals knew they didn’t have the cash to lure premium starting pitchers to KC, but they figured if they could get six solid innings from their starters and score enough runs to grab a lead, they could turn it over to their dominant bullpen and win a lot of games. Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s how pretty much every major league team operates now. Or at least how they try to operate.
The Royals might have been a fluke to the sabermetricians, but the league definitely took notice of their bullpen usage. The equation has been tweaked in the years since. The 2016 Indians showed with Andrew Miller that you didn’t have to bring your most dominant reliever in for a specific inning. They used him whenever they needed him most, a trend that is actually a throwback to the firemen of the 70’s and 80’s, and which has continued with guys like Josh Hader.
And, if we’re being honest, this approach has probably been overdone to extremes. Starting pitchers regularly don’t go five innings anymore, which I personally don’t believe is good for the game. But that’s where we’re at. Relievers rule in modern baseball. The 2015 Royals weren’t the first team to ride the bullpen to a title, but they might have been the first to do it by design. Other examples I can think of, like the 2011 Cardinals, did it more out of necessity. And the Royals won’t be the last. But if they represent the last step in the evolution of the bullpen, how did we get there?
A brief history of relief pitchers:
In 1904, legendary New York Giants manager, John McGraw, becomes the first person to use a relief pitcher. Up until then, starting pitchers finished games, no matter what.
No one was designated as a relief pitcher in the years that followed, even though teams began to use them more regularly. The bullpen consisted of other starting pitchers who were available on any given day.
Eventually, teams developed “relief aces,” though they weren’t necessarily developed with that in mind. Generally, they were lesser starters who weren’t deemed worthy enough of earning more starts and wound up seeing most of their action in relief. By the 60’s, virtually every team had one of these, along with a short bullpen still made up of other available starters. For the most part, the careers of these “relief aces” were short-lived and lacking in glory.
The save stat was created by journalist Jerome Holtzman in 1959, and formally adopted by MLB in 1969. Click this link if you’re unfamiliar with the particulars of the save rule, because I don’t have the space to explain all of its intricacies here.
By the 70’s and early 80’s, bullpens were growing and led by dominant pitchers often referred to as firemen. They weren’t closers in the modern sense, even though they were tasked with protecting leads and collecting saves. They often pitched three or more innings per outing, and racked up around 130 innings per season. For comparison, Mariano Rivera averaged less than 70 per season throughout his career.
Bruce Sutter was probably the first true closer when the Cubs decided to use him only in save situations in 1979. He still pitched around 100 innings per season, which was far more than his successors at the position. In that respect, Dennis Eckersley became the first modern closer in the late 80’s. Teams zeroed in on the restrictions the A’s put on his usage, setting the table for guys like Lee Smith, Trevor Hoffman, and Rivera.
But for me, the moment that relief pitchers can say they truly arrived was the introduction of the Rolaids Relief Man Award in 1976. The award became an institution by the time I came along, and I remember religiously checking the standings every morning in the newspaper after I worked my way through the previous night’s box scores and other statistical leaders.
Unlike other baseball awards, like the MVP and Cy Young, the Rolaids award was not decided by a vote. There was an actual mathematic formula. Pitchers got 3 points for a save, 2 points for a win, and -2 points for a loss. In later years, they would occasionally tweak this formula. Blown saves cost pitchers another -2 points from 1988 on, and in 2000 they added 1 point for a tough save. A tough save was apparently any save where the pitcher entered the game with the tying run already on base.
The first winners of the award in 1976 were Rawly Eastwick (CIN) in the NL, with an 11-5 record and 26 saves, and Bill Campbell (MIN) in the AL, who posted a 17-5 record with 20 saves. The trophy was a gold-plated firefighter’s helmet, which was a nod to the term fireman, the highest compliment that could be paid to a reliever at the time of the award’s introduction.
With that in mind, I want to focus on two relief pitchers in particular, both of whom won multiple Rolaids Relief Man Awards, in addition to numerous other accolades. One of them embodied the role of fireman, and the other, as previously mentioned, was the model for the modern closer. The closer is Eckersley, of course, but I want to talk about the fireman first.
There is no shortage of candidates to use as an example. Goose Gossage. Rollie Fingers. Even Bruce Sutter, despite the fact that he eventually became the bridge between firemen and closers. But of course, I chose the Royal. I’m sure you’re shocked.
That said, I’m not sure there’s a better example of a fireman than the legendary Dan Quisenberry. And I’m tired of Quiz getting slighted. His numbers are comparable to the three other guys I just mentioned, yet he’s the only one who isn’t in the Hall of Fame.
Quisenberry’s career stats: 54-46, 2.76 ERA, 244 SV, 1,043.1 IP, 379 K, 1.175 WHIP, 24.6 WAR
Okay, his strikeout total is well below the other guys’ numbers, but Quiz was a pitcher with a phenomenal defense behind him, and he knew how to pitch to it. Unlike today’s game, everything wasn’t about punchouts back then. And it’s true, his mustache wasn’t nearly as fancy as Fingers’ or even Gossage. But trust me, on the mound, he could hold his own.
Quisenberry won five Rolaids awards (1980, 1982-85), the most by anyone ever, and a number only matched by Mariano Rivera. Sure, he struggled during the 1980 World Series, probably due to over-usage, but he got his chance at redemption in 1985. He earned the win in Game 6, and if manager Dick Howser had actually used him a little more, specifically in Game 2 instead of sticking with Charlie Leibrandt just a bit too long, the Royals might not have had to play from behind that whole series.
In addition to the Rolaids awards, Quiz led the league in saves every year from 1980-85, except for the strike-shortened season of 1981, and he finished either second or third in the AL Cy Young voting every year from 1982-85. He also finished third in the AL MVP vote in 1984. There’s definitely a case to be made that he should be in Cooperstown, though the main argument against him seems to be that his career and prime was too short.
I doubt this bothered Quisenberry too much. He comes off as one of the most well-adjusted, down-to-earth ballplayers you’ll ever hear about. He was a serious poet with a great sense of humor, who leaned into the whole fireman moniker by hosing off fans from the bullpen during hot days at the K. According to teammate Greg Pryor, Quiz was one of the smart guys who played bridge on the team plane, instead of poker like everyone else.
The fact that he even made it to the majors feels almost like dumb luck, and he never took it for granted. In fact, he earned a teaching degree while he was playing minor league ball, just in case. Never a top prospect, he was called up to the Show in July 1979, about a month after I was born, due to a slew of injuries to Royals pitchers.
His first half-season was okay, but the turning point in his career came in that offseason, when new Royals manager Jim Frey encouraged him to work with legendary Pirates reliever, Kent Tekulve (aka the Rubberband Man). Tekulve helped him transition from just another sidearm pitcher to a submariner, and the rest was history. Side note: I broke out my sidearm pitch recently while playing catch with my son. The results were… not pretty. I was too scared to go full submarine— I figured I would either break a window or my arm would fall off. It wasn’t worth the risk.
It worked for Quiz though. He became one of the most dominant pitchers of his era, but he never let it go to his head. He didn’t need any reminders that the world has ways of keeping you humble— that was his baseline. Ronald Reagan called him “Jim” Quisenberry during a congratulatory call after Game 7 of the 1985 World Series. Reagan apologized during their White House visit. Quiz shrugged and told him, “That’s okay, Don.” How can you not like the guy?
Whether it’s a good reason to keep him out of the Hall or not, there is no denying that Quisenberry’s career and life were too short. After a couple of so-so years with the hated Cardinals, he signed with the Giants in 1990 and tore his rotator cuff after a handful of appearances. Rather than work his way back, Quiz chose to call it a career.
I doubt it was hard for such a grounded man to get used to life without baseball, though I’m sure he missed it some. In its place, he had his family, poetry, and charity work. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with brain cancer in 1998 and died that September. The Royals put him in their Hall of Fame that May, so at least he got to experience that. I remember how weird it was to see him with a shaved head. When he died, it hit Kansas City hard. Few players have ever been as beloved by this city.
Luckily, Dennis Eckersley is still around. Who would piss off David Price for us if he wasn’t? Eck had a very different career arc than Quiz, but his place in baseball history is no less consequential.
Eckersley came up with Cleveland in 1975 as a starting pitcher, and he showed a lot of early promise. He won the AL Rookie Pitcher of the Year Award in 1975— not AL Rookie of the Year, that was Fred Lynn— threw a no-hitter in 1977, and was traded to Boston in 1978, where Don Zimmer envisioned him becoming the Red Sox version of Tom Seaver.
Eck was great in his first two seasons in Boston, winning 20 in 1978 and 17 in 1979, with a 2.99 ERA both seasons. He and John Smoltz are the only two pitchers in MLB history to have a 20 win and 20 save season on their resume. But after 1979, his career took an unexpected downturn. Alcoholism played a large role in that.
Boston traded him to the Cubs in 1984 as part of the Bill Buckner trade, and his years in Chicago weren’t particularly memorable. Eck probably remembered them least of all, thanks to the drinking. Only after his family recorded a drunk Eckersley and showed him the tape did he agree to go to rehab and clean up.
That decision, along with a trade to Oakland in 1987, would prove to be a defining moment in what developed into a groundbreaking Hall-of-Fame career. Manager Tony LaRussa’s plan was to use Eck as a long reliever, and he even started two games for the A’s before their best reliever, Jay Howell, got hurt. This provided the opening for Eck to take the job and he never gave it back.
LaRussa, however, credits A’s pitching coach Dave Duncan as the real innovator. He came up with the idea of limiting Eckersley’s usage to the ninth inning alone, as a way to harness the pitcher’s aggressiveness while also limiting the toll it took on his body. Like Tekulve’s guidance to Quisenberry, all it took was one little tweak to set the stage for something historic.
Eckersley saved 45 games for a dominant A’s team in 1988, and saved all four wins against Boston in the ALCS. He was the only pitcher to ever accomplish that feat in a LCS until Greg Holland did it for KC against Baltimore in 2014. Unfortunately, all anybody remembers from that season is him giving up the walk-off home run to Kirk Gibson in Game 1 of the World Series. Eckersley actually coined the term “walk-off” in the aftermath of that play, one of the most iconic in baseball history.
To his credit, he faced the media after the game and took accountability for the pitch. The ending of that game did set the tone for the rest of the series, but Eck probably gets more grief for it than he deserves. It was, after all, only one at-bat in Game 1 of a series. The rest of the A’s had plenty of opportunities to bounce back, but they just never did.
Eck was hardly finished, however. The following year, the A’s did get their championship, and Eckersley scored the win in Game 2 and saved Game 4 in a sweep of the Giants. From 1988-1992, Eckersley dominated the game like no other pitcher before him, and he did it in a completely different manner than the firemen who preceded him.
LaRussa rarely inserted Eckersley into a game before the ninth inning, and he hardly ever pitched more than one inning per game. His season high in innings after 1987 was 80 during his Cy Young/MVP season in 1992. Quiz averaged about 130 during his prime, which could explain why Eck had much more longevity. Here are a few highlights of Eck’s dominance.
In 1990, Eckersley became the first pitcher with more saves than baserunners allowed— 48 saves to 41 hits and 4 walks. He only gave up 5 runs for the entirety of the 1990 season, posting a 0.61 ERA.
Between 1989-90, he had a streak of 41 games without a walk. He gave up 3 walks in 1989, 4 in 1990, and only 9 in 1991. In 1992, he won the Cy Young and the AL MVP, and joined Rollie Fingers (1981) and Willie Hernandez (1984) as the third pitcher to ever record 50 saves in a season. He finished with 51. His career stats look like this:
197-171, 361 GS, 3.50 ERA, 390 SV, 3,285.2 IP, 2,401 K, 1.161 WHIP, 62.1 WAR
After 1992, Eckersley’s numbers declined, although he would remain among the league leaders in saves. His post-1992 high would be 36 saves, a number he reached in both 1993 and 1997, but his other numbers dropped a bit more dramatically. He only posted a sub-4.00 ERA two more times, in 1996 and 1997.
Perhaps the craziest stat of Eckersley’s career is that he only won the Rolaids award twice, in 1988 and 1992. However, he is one of only two players to win it and the Cy Young in the same season— Eric Gagne also did it in 2003. And he and Rollie Fingers (1981) are the only two pitchers to win it and the MVP in the same season. I guess those distinctions, as well as being the groundbreaking prototype for one of the most important positions in modern baseball, will have to satisfy Eck.
The saddest thing to me is that the Rolaids Relief Man Award doesn’t even exist anymore. It was last awarded in 2012. The final winners were Craig Kimbrel (ATL) in the NL with a 3-1 record and 42 saves, and Jim Johnson (BAL) in the AL, who posted a 2-1 record with 51 saves. Comparing the stats of the inaugural winners with the final recipients tells you all you need to know about the evolution of relief pitchers in the thirty-six years in between.
The best reliever in the NL is now awarded the Trevor Hoffman Reliever of the Year Award, and the AL representative gets the Mariano Rivera version. Those guys are certainly deserving of having an award named after them, but it’s just not the same for me. The trophy isn’t even shaped like a firefighter’s helmet. Where’s the fun in that?
But I guess a lot of things have changed. Kids no longer scan the morning papers for box scores and league leaders. Hell, nobody does, regardless of age. And for better or worse, bullpens dominate the game, thanks in large part to the guys I’ve mentioned in this article. Believe me, I wasn’t complaining in 2014-15, even if I’d like to see starters go deeper into games. Funny how that works. And now Rolaids’ only selling point is heartburn relief, which seems short-sighted to me.
You’re never gonna win over ten-year-olds with that pitch.
Thanks for reading Powder Blue Nostalgia. Who was the best relief pitcher you’ve ever seen? Who was your favorite? Let us know in the comments!
Great story Patrick! Love the look back, I was pitching at Emporia State University when Quiz & Eck were just getting started. Sparky Lyle (sp) doesn't look right? From the Evil Yankees, boo. But, hey I loved pitchers...But I think he won the Rolaids Relief award several times.
Great article! I don't understand why the best relief pitchers are not used more in "put out the fire" situations or used for more than one inning.
I do think that "LaRussa rarely inserted Eckersley into a game before the ninth inning, and he hardly ever pitched more than one inning per game" is a bit of a myth, though a common one. So, for example, in 1988, he entered the game before the 9th in 22 out of 60 games. Only 25 out of 45 saves were 9th inning or later.
I think Bobby Thigpen in 1990 was where the major shift point was. He entered the game before the 9th inning in only 13 out of 77 games, and 47 out of 57 saves were 9th inning or later. And then in 1998, Rod Beck had 49 out of 51 saves in the 9th or later, entering before the 9th inning in only 4 games out of 81.