Did Jerome Holtzman Create Mariano Rivera?

I agree that he never had the time to actually fail as a starter, but why are you so sure that “with almost any other organization, he would have been given a greater opportunity as a starter, and would have eventually have been successful.”? Isn’t it just as likely or unlikely he would have been made into a reliever in any other organization? Pretty impossible to know.

youre just trying to get attention, or get in on the argument.. blah blah..

Bottom line

Save exists

Closer role exists

there is prestige to it, there is something badass about it, he was on the mound for a lot of conclusions of winning games..

loads of other people have been doing it, and he towers over them all..

contributed to the Yanks’ decision to move him to the ’pen long term.

I come to bury Mo, not to praise him.
 The saves that men collect do live after them;
 The cutter is oft interred with their bones;
 So let it be with Rivera. The noble Poz
 Hath told you Rivera was a failed starter:
 If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
 And grievously hath Rivera answer’d it.
 Here, under leave of Poz and the rest, —
 For Poz is an honorable man;
 So are they all, all honorable men, —
 Come I to speak in Mo’s 600th save.
 He was my closer, faithful and just to me:
 But Poz says he was a failed starter;
 And Poz is an honorable man.

It is unknown what he would have done as a starter, and the relevant sample size is even smaller than the ten games Poz referenced. It’s only six starts. When Rivera was first called up in early ’95 he basically had a fastball, slider and changeup. He did not have his cutter then. The fastball sat around 90.

His first three starts in the majors did not go well and he was shipped back to AAA. It was during the next month while in AAA that the man who we would get to know as Mariano Rivera began to take shape as a pitcher. His fastball increased to 94-95 as a starter. The Yankees recalled him, and on July 4th, George Steinbrenner’s birthday, the new Rivera with the better fastball started against the Chicago White Sox. He pitched eight innings of two hit ball, struck out eleven batters and didn’t allow a run. His game score was 85. I remember watching the game and thinking this is not the same guy who was up the prior month, and the Yankees might actually have something here.

The Yankees gave Rivera two more starts that month, where he pitched twelve innings, giving up four runs. Not as dominant as his first start back, but quite effective. He then didn’t start for another ten days, and his starts became more sporadic as I’m sure what ever veteran he was filling in for finally returned, and eventually by September he was being used out of the pen for mop-up in blow-out games. Yet even to the Yankees it was clear Rivera had reached a new level, but there was debate on if he was a starter or a reliever.

Rivera sealed his own fate during the 1995 ALDS. In three games when all else was failing he was the only option, yet in two of those games Showalter didn’t use him properly. The first was game two that went 15 innings. With a short bullpen, Showalter was forced to go to the rookie Rivera, who came in and pitched 3.1 innings, striking out three, no runs, and got the win .In game three, with Jack McDowell fading, Showalter went to several relievers, all whom failed, eventually turning to Rivera who shut the door. For Showalter and the Yankees, it was too late. The Mariners had taken the lead. And then in the deciding game five, he did turn to Rivera early, but only let him pitch two-thirds of an innings (once again giving up no runs) before strangely turning over the game to Jack McDowell, who eventually lost it.

That is the series and game that supposedly saved baseball in Seattle and helped get the new stadium built. Showalter to this day says he didn’t quite realize what he had sitting out in the bullpen and he would have went to Rivera sooner and longer if he did. And if he did, then the Yankee dynasty that was to begin in 1996 might have started a year earlier and the Joe Torre era never would have started because the Showalter era never would have ended. Baseball in Seattle? That one can’t answer!

Regardless, Rivera’s performace was so dominating that the Yankees had made up their mind. They need a bridge to the ninth inning and Rivera was going to serve that in 1996. He wasn’t a failed started; he was just an amazing reliever. In an alternate history, or another team, Rivera may have been a Cy Young starter, we’ll never know.