Swings & Takes

The Mariners have a closer

Andrés Muñoz could (potentially) be used as a traditional closer in 2025.

In the 8th inning of Sunday's game, with the Mariners up by one and the A's set to send their 9-1-2 batters to the plate, Dan Wilson turned to Trent Thornton, not Muñoz. The decision didn't strike me at the time, as saving Muñoz to face 3-4-5 (eventually 4-5-6) seemed defensible. But Wilson confirmed after the game the decision was intentional to setup Muñoz for the save.

“We talk about high leverage and that was high leverage,” Wilson told The Seattle Times. “You are trying to get it to your closer in the ninth, and he was able to do it and he had to get a couple lefties in the process. He did a really nice job.”

I gave Wilson the benefit of the doubt with this quote, given word choice is difficult with mics and cameras in your face. But Aaron Goldsmith seemed to confirm on Monday's broadcast that Muñoz would indeed be used in a more traditional "closer" role in 2025.

That's concerning, although it depends on what he actually means.

Always saving your best reliever for the ninth is bad strategy. If Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, and Juan Soto are set to hit in the eighth, and Rowdy Tellez, Ryan Bliss, and Donovan Solano are set to hit in the ninth, there's a disadvantage in maintaining a strict "closer" role. The same goes for a situation where the bases are loaded in a tie game with one out in the seventh. A team should do what it can in the moment to preserve a game in jeopardy, rather than waiting for an opportunity that may never present itself. The Mariners will fail to maximize their chances to win a few times this season if "Muñoz only pitches the ninth inning in a save situation" is a hard and fast rule.

That said, a less strict "we prefer Muñoz pitch the ninth but can use him earlier in exceptional circumstances" is probably fine. The ninth inning is generally higher leverage than the eighth, meaning more is at stake. And ultimately there isn't a huge difference, all else equal. In a situation like Sunday's, saving Muñoz is either the correct move or otherwise negligible.

Wilson used Muñoz twice in the eighth inning last September after taking over as manager.

To be clear, Muñoz has been excellent in non-traditional save situations. Every great "closer" gets tagged with the narrative that they struggle outside the confines of a save, but Muñoz has put that to rest somewhat definitively. Here's his 2024 splits by inning:

The FIP is higher in the eighth because his HR/9 was more than triple (three homers in either but far fewer opportunities in the eighth). But his stuff was identical in the eighth, and his non-homer results were even a tick better. There's absolutely no reason to believe Muñoz isn't highly effective whenever his presence is most likely to benefit the Mariners.

One thing Scott Servais did often last year was bring in Muñoz for multiple innings at a time. I even wrote about this last May, pointing out Muñoz had pitched multiple innings seven times in the first six weeks of the season -- it worked every single time. In fact, Muñoz bailing out a shallow bullpen with runners on base in a close game was one of the reasons the Mariners outperformed their peripherals by so much in the early season. I could see an argument where it's less optimal to use your best reliever for multiple innings at a time if it takes them X% longer to recover or otherwise prevents them from getting into more games over the course of a season. And while games or innings for a high leverage reliever isn't the same as availability, Muñoz didn't pitch nearly as often as the other top relievers in MLB (nor as often as Trent Thornton). In other words, I don't have a strong opinion on "multi-inning Muñoz," but I tend to subscribe to the Scott Servais philosophy of "Win the game in front of you now" (or whatever it was he used to say).

I'm a bit skeptical they actually follow through with a strict role. Again, Wilson didn't use Muñoz as a true closer in 2024. Why they would allow Wilson to move away from a good strategy to a bad one doesn't mesh with the typical analytics-focused, flexibility-obsessed decision making of the Mariners front office. I'm willing to chalk this up to "things that get said in March that disappear by May," at least until a pattern emerges.

But if they do follow through, I really can't wrap my head around the why. Maybe it's meant to help Wilson learn how to manage a bullpen over the course of a full season, knowing there's an anchor for the ninth inning. Maybe the org sees some drop in quality from Muñoz in the eighth that I simply can't find, or maybe there's a drop in quality for the other relievers when throwing in the ninth (that I also can't find). Maybe Muñoz said he prefers it, and the margins aren't big enough to fight him on it. Or maybe Wilson said he prefers it, and they don't want to poke their head in the clubhouse.

The situation is bound to come up soon.

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