The Giants shelled out $62 million for Mark Melancon this offseason to solve their problems at closer, but general manager Bobby Evans believes the acquisition will help with much more than that.
Evans joined Bay Area radio host Joe Castellano on his podcast The Sports Virus Thursday and explained that Melancon’s implementation will be beneficial for the bullpen as a whole.
“When the phone rings down in the bullpen they almost know who it’s for (now),” Evans said. “I think that’s part of our success in these three World Series is guys knew when that phone rang, what time of the game it was, what the score was, they knew who was going to be getting up.”
That was not the case last season when closer Santiago Casilla lost his job as the team’s closer after blowing a league leading nine saves. Manager Bruce Bochy tried a number of ninth inning options, even going with a closer-by-committee experiment at one point, with minimal success. The Giants season would end by blowing a ninth inning lead to the Cubs in Game 4 of the NLDS.
“I think that really puts guys minds at ease and they don’t have to give a second thought to the position that they’re being put in,” Evans said of the bullpen this year. “We put ourselves in a tough position last year as we weren’t clear who would pitch the ninth. Now we can allow that to play out for the other guys with a clear ninth guy.”
