You don’t have to be a professional baseball scout to identify a true closer. They are like goalies, you just know when you see them whether they have it or not. With Matt Barnes the stuff has always been there and he certainly showed that he had the makeup and mindset to handle the later innings of big games; see the 2018 postseason. But closer? At the outset I wasn’t so sure. Particularly after what I saw during the forgettable 2020 season. 69 games into this reinvigorating 2021 season however, Barnes has long since gained my trust in the closer role.
In Barnes, I trust. Hard stop.
Late in 2019 when Barnes was first slotted into the ‘closer role’ it felt like a tryout. Frankly, in the spirit of honesty there was so little legitimate competition for the spot that it felt more like a ‘necessary appointment.’ There simply were no viable alternatives.
Now, 2020 in its totality, felt like a bridge to nowhere. An incomplete roster. A scrap heap pitching staff, led by a sleepy bench coach (Ron Roenicke) that like Barnes at the time, was ‘filling a role.’ That of manager to a lackluster ball club. Now however we are over 40 percent into a real season, with a real manager, a real pitching staff and yes, a real closer. Barnes is no longer ‘filling a role’ because nobody else is there or due to a reluctance to invest in the position. He’s earned it and has improved on the job to the point where now, there is little to question about it.
Barnes is the closer.
The biggest improvement is obvious. Control. Barnes has it now. Before this season, Barnes too often battled with untimely walks. When it’s late and close you just can’t allow free passes and though his stuff could look overpowering and sometimes unhittable, the walks were a thing. A bad thing. Prior to this season, dating back to 2019, Barnes allowed walks at a rate hovering at or above 60% of the time. Last year he allowed 14 in just 23 innings. This year? Just seven walks in 29.1 innings. Massive improvement and now that overpowering stuff is looking unhittable most of the time not someof the time.
While his significantly improved control and command of the strike zone are his biggest areas of improvement and the main reason for his dominance to date, something else has caught my attention that is driving my implicit trust in him. That is, perseverance through what is out of his control.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed but Barnes has been getting squeezed a bit more lately. I first noticed it during the Friday night opening game in the Bronx when the Sox swept the Yankees in dominant fashion. That game felt easy for eight innings. In the ninth, the stat line looked perfect for Barnes: One inning pitched, three strikeouts, no walks and the save but the home plate umpire made him work for it. Barnes recorded three strikeouts in that inning but it could have happened on far fewer pitches. Barnes painted the outside corner several times in that ninth inning only to see the home plate umpire turn aside. Barnes persevered. The squeezes led to a few 2-strike fouls on what should have been out-pitches and all the while, his pitch count increased. In 2019 this would have been a death knell. 2020? Forget it. 2021? He got three strikeouts. Eventually.
Therein lay the point. Perseverance. Most closers, even those with the biggest salaries and the highest free agent pedigree tend to fold when they get squeezed too much and when their supposed ‘out-pitches’ turn into multiple foul balls. Usually, as the foul balls pile up the advantage goes to the hitter but Barnes pushed through it and got the final three outs in that game. The squeeze happened again Tuesday night in what may have been the biggest win of the season in Atlanta and again, Barnes persevered. Impressive.
In comparison, think about the last guy, Craig Kimbrel. He had the stuff, the cool ‘pro-wrestler-like’ entrance music, the badass goatee and the crouching tiger-hidden praying mantis pre-pitch set-up. Like Johnny Bravo, he fit the suit but do you think he would have persevered through the umpires’ squeeze and the Yankees hitters relentless fouling off of his best pitches? No way. You saw him fold in Yankee Stadium before. Same for Houston and Los Angeles.
Barnes can take a little heat. Kimbrel could sure as heck deliver it, but when the heat came his way so did the sweat, the walks and the collective heart palpitations.
Barnes is showing that extra something that the best closers have to have - the ability to persevere when the plan goes astray. It’s not always perfect like when he gave up a game-tying bomb to the league’s best hitter, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., but heck who doesn’t give up homeruns to that guy? Barnes bared down again and eventually got the win in that one after the blown save. Again showing perseverance.
I like the trend and trust the Red Sox closer.
