Late Blooming Dodgers Closers

Usually I wouldn’t do a Late Bloomers edition about multiple players. So far these have each been focused on just one guy, and generally their stories are pretty interesting (said the guy who picks the subjects). But today I’m changing gears a bit because I found an interesting pattern that fits the general late-blooming theme. And, as the title implies, it involves the Dodgers.

There was no such thing as a “closer” for most of baseball history. There were a few guys who specialized in relief pitching, like Firpo Marberry, Wilcy Moore, Johnny Murphy, Ace Adams, and Joe Page, but most teams didn’t have anyone like that. The Yankees probably used closers more than any other team before the 1950s, but that was largely an extension of having lots of good pitchers but few great ones, and simply finding innings for some of their guys who couldn’t crack the rotation.

But then Walter Alston was hired to manage the Dodgers in 1954, and we started to see them commit to having a preferred guy at the back end of their bullpen. It was Jim Hughes that season, a 31-year old veteran who had barely pitched in the big leagues before that season but suddenly appeared in more games than any other pitcher in the league and racked up 24 saves. That wasn’t an official stat yet, but that was more than any National League pitcher in history to that point.

A year later it was Clem Labine who was tabbed as Brooklyn’s closer of choice. Another guy who was nearing 30 without having had much success in the big leagues, for the next five seasons he was Alston’s go-to closer, leading the league in appearances in 1955, and in saves in both 1956 and 1957. That made him a two-time All-Star, and now Alston was fully committed to the concept of not just having a closer, but having one who had been a nondescript pitcher who had failed as a starter, either in the minors or the big leagues, to that point in his career.

That remained the case for the remainder of Alston’s tenure leading the Dodgers. Starting in 1962, the team had fifteen straight years in which they had a very effective closer who also happened to be somewhat of a late bloomer after a failed attempt to be a starting pitcher.

1962-1967

Ron Perranoski signed with the Cubs in 1958, straight out of Michigan State University, where he’d been a starter who set the school record for strikeouts. He was assigned to Burlington in the Three-I league and started 13 of the 18 games in which he appeared, going 5-9 with an ugly 6.43 ERA. He redeemed himself enough at a stop in Double-A the following season to make the Dodgers acquire him in the deal that sent Don Zimmer to Chicago.