What happened in Sutter’s first three seasons in the majors changed baseball. At his peak with the Cubs he was the most unhittable pitcher anyone had seen.
Bruce Sutter has died, at 69. Sutter was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006 in good part for his greatness as a relief pitcher for the Cubs (for whom he won the Cy Young Award in 1979) and Cardinals (with whom he won a World Series in 1982 and saved a then-record 45 games in 1984). Sutter’s real claim to immortality is twofold: he was the pitcher most responsible for popularizing the split-finger fastball, and he revolutionized the role of the closer.
His adoption of the pitch was a response to a minor league arm injury that almost caused the Cubs to cut him:
Instead of releasing him, Chicago sent Sutter to the minor leagues to rehabilitate his arm. After posting an ERA of 4.13 with the Quincy Cubs in 1973, Sutter met Fred Martin, a Cubs pitching instructor and the answer to Sutter’s lost fastball. Martin taught Sutter the split-fingered fastball — a variation of the much older forkball — which Sutter picked up quickly. “I’d like to tell you I worked and worked at it but I’d be lying to you because it did come to me right away,” Sutter said. “The first day I threw it I’d get it to break, not every time, but you [could] see the signs of it that it was going to be something special. I never adjusted my grip after the first day.” The results were immediate. In 1975, Sutter helped lead the Double-A Midland Cubs to a Texas League championship, and by 1976, he was playing for the parent club.
Sutter posted ERAs of 1.38 and 2.15 in 1974 and 1975, mostly in AA ball, and started in a similar vein in 1976, leading to his call-up. He was immediately effective as a rookie, posting a 1.13 ERA in his first 18 appearances. What happened over the next three seasons changed baseball. Sutter at his peak with the Cubs was the most unhittable pitcher I have ever seen. He made batters look ridiculous diving for the split-finger pitch, which is commonplace now but was a novelty at the time. But this was the age of the fireman, the ace reliever who was expected to enter the game as early as the seventh inning and pitch as long as needed. Rollie Fingers averaged 70 games and 123 innings a year from 1972 to 1978. John Hiller averaged 52 games and 118 innings from 1973 to 1977. Bill Campbell averaged 64 games and 137 innings from 1974 to 1977. Kent Tekulve averaged 80 games and 119 innings from 1976 to 1979. Sparky Lyle averaged 60 games and 107 innings from 1972 to 1978. Rich Gossage threw 141.2 innings in relief in 1975, 133 in 1977, 134.1 in 1978. And Mike Marshall, the biggest workhorse of them all, threw 208.1 relief innings in 1974 and averaged 67 games and 123 innings from 1971 to 1979.
Unfortunately for the Cubs and Sutter, his surgically repaired elbow didn’t work that way. In 1977, he was having a season for the ages, with a 0.77 ERA and 84 strikeouts, eleven walks, and two home runs allowed (a Fielding Independent Pitching ERA of 1.19) through July 3, but he’d already thrown 70.1 innings by that point in the season, pitching in 39 of the Cubs’ 74 games. The Cubs were 48–26, with a five-and-a-half-game lead in the NL East, and much depended on Sutter. But he got hurt, and could make only eleven appearances over the next 57 games, as the team fell out of contention by the end of August. He still managed a 2.04 ERA in that stretch, rising to a 2.79 ERA in September.
In 1978, the story was similar. The Cubs, 33–22 and in first place again in mid-June, faded to another .500 season. Sutter’s ERA was 1.42 through June 26, 1.68 through August 4, with 78 strikeouts in 69.2 innings. It was 6.83 after August 4, with fewer than a strikeout per inning. So, starting in 1979, Cubs manager Herman Franks began focusing more on using Sutter in save situations, and he saved 37 games, tying what was then the National League record and winning the Cy Young. Managers around the league took notice.
The revolution did not happen overnight. Sutter never did see his workload restricted to modern levels — he averaged 62 games and 100 innings a year from 1979 to 1984 — and it wasn’t until he got to St. Louis that he was effective in September. Whitey Herzog squeezed 122.2 innings out of Sutter in 1984, as he approached free agency, and Sutter’s arm and effectiveness were never the same. Still, the memory of how Franks and Herzog worked out how to get the most out of Sutter’s magic pitch was the beginning of a sea change in how baseball teams use their star relievers.