#14 Relievers know everyone thinks they're what's wrong with baseball
Plus we need your suggestions
Hey, it’s Zach. We launched The Bandwagon one month ago, as of tomorrow. and have not yet died of dysentery. First, thank you for coming along for the ride. We really could not be doing this without your support. If you haven’t already, consider becoming a paying subscriber or sharing The Bandwagon with a friend. Every new member adds to the experience.
This week, we’re doing something new (and old). In all the versions of this project, we’ve taken time to organize the world into the be-all-end-all of binaries: Fan or Not a Fan. We’re excited to bring that back in the form of a semi-regular live video segment, right here on Substack.
We’re recording the first of these semi-regular check-in videos on Friday. And we want your help.
Give us your prompts: Things that delight, infuriate or puzzle you. Phenomena that inspire, depress or befuddle. Baseball, non-baseball, whatever. Preferably with at least the possibility of differing opinions.
You say a thing, we say Fan or Not a Fan. Example:
Long tracking shots of runners with styles both invigorating and … relatable. FAN.
Everyone doing milder, less noticeable versions of the in-game gender reveal just days after Bryce Harper seemingly came up with it. NOT A FAN.
Dogs with generic human names — Ethan, Kevin, things of that nature. FAN.1
You get the gist.
Send us your Fan/Not A Fan prompts by Friday at noon, and we’ll answer as many (of the good ones) as we can. You can leave them as comments, put them in this chat thread or email us at hellobandwagon@gmail.com.
The ‘Anonymous parade’ of relievers on how it feels to be an anonymous parade
by Hannah Keyser
There was a passage in a recent New York Times story that pushed me to pursue this line of inquiry.
Instead of pitchers whom fans might buy tickets to see, they get a parade of anonymous relievers tasked with briefly throwing as hard as they can.
So wrote Bruce Schoenfeld in a sweeping feature about the need to save the starting pitcher as a central figure in baseball. Mostly what struck me about the piece was that it’s nothing new. My mom has been complaining about how starters don’t go deep into games like they used to for longer than she’s been complaining about the universal DH and possibly for even longer than she’s been complaining about daily interleague play2.
Even that particular dig at the relievers is a well-trod complaint. For as long as I’ve been writing about baseball, there have been people railing against the blasphemy that is a bullpen game. What’s worse, it works.
But for some reason, this time I noticed how baked-in the assumption was. Starters: Good. Relievers: Bad. Discourse about the state of pitching treats those evaluative stances as immutable facts. The commissioner himself has no qualms about diagnosing the problem — “the matchups of great starting pitchers historically have been important in terms of the marketing game. And I do think we need to get back to that.” — quibbling only over how to best address it.
It’s sort of … rude, honestly. The industry broadly classifies a group of guys who have reached the pinnacle of their profession as a scourge. The embodiment of everything that’s wrong with modern baseball.
Or, as Ryne Stanek summarized, “‘Relievers are stupid and who cares about them?’ Yeah, that’s basically what fans think.”
Stanek is in his ninth season with his fifth team. In 30 postseason games across five Octobers he has an ERA under 3.00. At one point, he was The Opener for a Rays club that did not care to hear worries about the starting pitcher’s entertainment value. So far this year, he’s only given up one run in nine appearances for the Mets. But he understands there will be little fanfare for his success.
“If you do your job, you're expected to do your job,” he said. “If you mess up, then you suck and you should go away.”
“I don't even know if we're the field goal kickers, we might just be the guy that holds the ball,” Matt Strahm said of how the public perceives of the guys who stand in the middle of the field and control the action for 40% of the innings league-wide.
The Phillies are Strahm’s fourth team in 10 years. He’s got one All-Star appearance, one perfect scoreless postseason (and two that weren’t), and strikes out roughly one-third of the batters he faces.
“I totally understand it,” he said of the way bullpen arms are cast as the boogeymen of baseball. “We are a small part of the game. It's the part they're trying to get rid of — the strikeouts. They don't like them. That's what we specialize in, right? So I get it. But yeah, it is frustrating to not see guys get their flowers.”
They do get paid, of course. Not like the tragic heroes who proceed them on the mound or the position players. But throwing a baseball isn’t an awful way to make a couple million. Still, when the industry portrays you as disposable, it comes with a price.
“As a reliever, if you give a run, even if it doesn't matter, you get death threats,” Stanek said. “Because you cost somebody money on a bet. And it’s like, Dude, I don't care about your bet.”
The way sports betting turns the players on the field into unreliable slot machines for fans to metaphorically kick and quite literally curse out is a whole other can of worms. And relievers, in particular, are rarely presented as either stars to idolize or three-dimensional people with whom fans can empathize. But the anonymity that has become such a rhetorical hallmark of the role doesn’t have to be the case.
“The bullpen is where I’ve met the most interesting personalities,” Strahm said. “Maybe we need to throw a sideline reporter out there with us to get some stuff in there. But unfortunately, I think about half of it's inappropriate for TV. Might have to air on HBO Plus.”
Of course, the consternation about relievers it’s not just a media creation. See, the earlier comments from Rob Manfred about needing to return to the golden age of aces.
“He doesn't know much about baseball,” Phillies sometimes-closer Orion Kerkering said, dismissing the commissioner’s concerns. “You’re just there for the owners”
Granted, it’s not all bad being anonymous. Play baseball for a living and never get mobbed by fans?
“I couldn't imagine being [Aaron] Judge walking around New York trying to get a cup of coffee,” Stanek said.
Really, though, you wouldn’t want to be literally Aaron Judge??
“I mean, yeah, being on a Hall of Fame track and being that guy? Like, yes, he's a tremendous player and he's earned everything he's got, and I respect him. But I'm good not being in the forefront of everything, because that would be just too much for me to want to deal with.”
Maybe, then, it’s more like: anonymous, and not mad at it.
What we’re chatting about
“Baseball today, by contrast, is Milan at fashion week.” That’s the Wall Street Journal not on the majors, but on Little League. Sliding mitts, colorful gloves and creative cleats have made it to the youth level, and that can only be a good thing. –ZC
AJ Hinch is just Doing Shit with the Tigers lineup. Javy Baez in center field? Sure! Kerry Carpenter leading off? Why not?! Anyone could be anywhere. –ZC
Why would they be called “crustables”?? –HK
Sorry, back to the gender reveals for a second: At FanGraphs, Davy Andrews has a delightfully data-driven look at major leaguers’ patterns of (re)production. –ZC
Nine out of 10 Chicago cardiologists agree that the Cubs need to chill. –ZC
Hannah is not a fan of this.
Yes, even in the year 2025 those are my mother’s three biggest gripes about baseball: marginalization of the starting pitcher, the designated hitter, and literally every single time they have interleague play.
"Dude, I don't care about your bet" sums up neatly how I feel about being bombarded by betting ads in ballparks and broadcasts the past couple of years.
Also, one of my cats is named Jennifer. That was her name when we adopted her in 2021 and we kept it. Call me a fan.
Curious if anyone has tried to gather the thoughts of new fans (let's say, came to the sport within the last 10 years) on whether they think starting pitchers not going deep is problem or that the three true outcomes are boring, etc. It is natural for those of us whose fandom goes back multiple decades (I'm approaching 5) to harken back to the good old days and then criticize aspects of the modern game. But if I only became a fan the past 10 years or so, I must like the modern game, no?