A few writing instructions implore that the best novels have their endings written first. In that manner, the author knows where he or she is clearly heading.
There is a growing philosophy in baseball that games are decided at the end, so management must concentrate on the bullpen in order to win. The development of a pitching "staff" is still relatively new to baseball. In the early days, each team had three starters and a mop up reliever. That was it. Pitchers were expected to throw 9, 10, 11, 14 innings a game, whatever it took. Yes, considering it was a dead ball era and scoring was light by today's standards, the pitchers were still throwing complete games as common place. There was no concept of a specialist in the pen to bail out a starter.
The modernization of pitching structure began when starting pitchers started to make more money than their position player counterparts. When a team invests so much money on an injury waiting to happen, owners hedge their bets. As a result, teams started to baby their starters. No more expectations for complete games. Since starters were not going to go the distance, teams had to retain more pitchers on the roster to close out games.
Those "closers" were in fact failed starters or end-of-career veterans who were paid little. The advent of a bullpen cut back on more expensive position players. But it also hindered a manager's ability to double switch, pinch hit or add defensive replacements at the end of games.
The modern bullpen came into being when pitchers were no longer expected to throw 7 or 8 innings per start. This led to a standardized routine of having a middle reliever, a set up man, and a 9th inning closer. Since a starting staff has five pitchers, a team would need six relievers in order to cover for them. Today, the norm is actually a 12 man pitching staff, with the added emphasis on pure specialists, like the lefty that can get out left handed hitters.
Dan Duquette, the Orioles GM (and whom the Blue Jays tried to acquire this winter) has built many franchises into contenders. He has adopted the bullpen strength philosophy the past few years in Baltimore. The O's have been quite successful with a strong bullpen. Britton (Closer), O'Day, Hunter, Matusz, and Webb combined for a staff WAR of 6.0. Reports from Baltimore state that the O's pen will be even better this season.
There is some logic in the concept of making a bullpen a priority than the roster development bastard child. But one of the things one must do is fully commit to the quality of the pen and not treat it as an after thought. But many teams would rather focus the resources on front line pitchers (those are the ones fans like to see).
