RIP Bruce Sutter: Split-Fingered Pioneer (1953-2022)

Bruce Sutter, the Hall of Fame closer and pioneer of the split-fingered fastball, passed away Thursday night at the age of 69. Sutter was recently diagnosed with cancer and passed away in hospice care in Cartersville, Georgia. Sutter, a six-time All-Star who saved 300 games in his career, pitched for the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, and Atlanta Braves during his 12-year career. He closed out Game 7 of the 1982 World Series with the Cardinals.

When Sutter retired, he was one of just three pitchers to have reached the milestone of 300 career saves. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2006 and was the first pitcher ever to receive the ultimate honor without ever starting a game.

Sutter is the third Hall of Fame member of the Cardinals family that we’ve lost in the last two years. Lou Brock and Bob Gibson passed away within a month of each other in the fall of 2020.

“I feel like a brother passed away. I knew Bruce deeper than just about any other teammate. We spent a lot of time together, and as happens when your careers end, you go your separate ways. But we stayed in touch and considered each other great friends.”

— Hall of Famer Jim Kaat (Sutter’s teammate 1981-83)

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Cooperstown Cred: Bruce Sutter (RP)

• Cubs (1976-80), Cardinals (1981-84), Braves (1985-86, 1988)
• Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006 (with 76.9% of the vote)
• Career: 68-71, 2.83 ERA, 300 Saves
• Career: 46 Saves with at least 7 outs
• 6-time All-Star
• 1979 N.L. Cy Young Award Winner: 37 Saves, 2.22 ERA in 101.1 IP
• 5 times in the top 10 of the MVP voting
• 4 times in the top 5 of the Cy Young voting
• Led the National League in Saves 5 times
• Member of 1982 World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals (2-0, 3 Saves, 3.00 ERA in post-season)

(cover photo: NBC Sports)

This piece was initially published in September 2018. It has been updated with the news of Sutter’s passing.

Howard Bruce Sutter was born on January 8, 1953, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. While he was playing semipro ball in the Lebanon Valley League, a scout from the Chicago Cubs saw him pitch and signed him to a contract on September 9, 1971, 47 years ago today.

Sutter’s professional career was almost over before it got started when he suffered a pinched nerve in his elbow after pitching just two games in the low minors. He paid for his own elbow surgery, afraid he would be released if he told the Cubs.

When he got to spring training in 1973, he realized that he had lost his fastball. Looking for any answer that would save his career, he turned to minor league pitching instructor Fred Martin, who taught him the split-fingered fastball. It took several years for Sutter to master the pitch, but by the age of 23, he was ready for the big leagues, making his debut with the Cubs in 1976.

Chicago Cubs (1976-1980)

The ’76 Cubs weren’t a very good team (finishing at 75-87). Still, although he was mostly used in mop-up roles, Bruce Sutter got off to a terrific start, posting a 1.13 ERA in his first 18 games. In July, he took over primary closing duties (when they existed) from veteran Darold Knowles.

In 1977, the Cubs were a contending team for most of the season, leading the N.L. East from May 28th to August 3 before fading. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Cubs went 9-14 in August while Sutter was on the D.L. with a shoulder strain.

Sutter’s ’77 campaign was one of the greatest for a relief pitcher in the history of the game: he threw 107.1 innings with a 1.34 ERA, an extraordinarily impressive number for a pitcher who called Wrigley Field his home ballpark. For his efforts, the first-time All-Star was 7th in the MVP vote and 6th in the Cy Young vote. Baseball historian and sabermetric pioneer Bill James, in his Historical Baseball Abstract (2000), called Sutter’s ’77 campaign the 3rd best relief pitcher season in baseball history.

Sutter made his 2nd straight All-Star squad in 1978, but his season was, in fact, fairly pedestrian. He went 8-10 with a 3.19 ERA, saving 27 games. However, he also had 14 blown saves. 14 blown saves sound really awful by today’s standards, but we have to remember that, in the 1970s, baseball’s top firemen were often brought into the game in the 6th, 7th, or 8th innings, sometimes with runners on base. They were asked to get out of a jam and then pitch one or more additional innings without allowing their team to relinquish the lead.

In 1979, Sutter led the majors with 37 saves while posting a 2.22 ERA in 101.1 innings. Now an established star and without a dominant performance by a starting pitcher in the National League, Sutter was awarded the league’s Cy Young Award. As good as he was, Sutter was on the wrong side of one of the most famous games of the season when the Cubs lost to the Philadelphia Phillies 23-22 when he gave up a 10th-inning home run to Mike Schmidt.

What’s interesting about Sutter’s Cy Young season is that he finished quite poorly. On the morning of September 2nd, Sutter had a 4-3 record with 35 saves (out of 38 chances) and a microscopic 1.33 ERA. However, with the Cubs out of contention, he finished miserably, perhaps worn down by his workload. In his last 11 games, Sutter was 2-3 with 2 saves, a whopping 7 blown saves, and a 6.38 ERA. This was the second year in a row that Sutter broke down in the final month of the season. In September 1978, he was 1-6 with a 6.06 ERA.

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Anyway, perhaps the baseball writers were too busy with the start of the football season to notice; he still won the Cy Young despite the brutal finish.

In 1980, Sutter had a solid campaign, saving 28 games with a 2.64 ERA. Again, however, Sutter finished poorly, posting a 7.56 ERA in his last 6 games.

In the off-season before 1980, Sutter was awarded a $700,000 income in salary arbitration, a record at the time for that process and a higher single-season salary than Goose Gossage’s. What Sutter really wanted, though, was a long-term contract. The Cubs, however, weren’t interested. In December, he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for first baseman Leon Durham, third baseman Ken Reitz, and a player to be named later. The Cardinals promptly signed him to a four-year deal.

St. Louis Cardinals (1981-1984)

In the strike-shortened 1981 season, his first in St. Louis, Bruce Sutter saved 25 games with a 2.62 ERA in 82.1 innings, good enough to finish 5th in the Cy Young Award vote.

During that strike-shortened ’81 campaign, the Cards were one of the victims of the split season format. Despite the best overall record in the N.L. East for the year, they fell just short of the Phillies in the first half and Expos in the second half, missing the 2nd half title by just a half a game.

Despite the mid-season break, Sutter’s September woes continued. In the third to last game of the season, Sutter was the losing pitcher when, entering a tie game in the bottom of the 9th, he yielded the game-winning run against Pittsburgh Pirates. In addition, Sutter blew two saves in the middle of the month that resulted in losses. If the Cardinals had won any of those three games, they would have made the playoffs.

In his last 9 appearances of the season, Sutter was 0-2 with 3 blown saves and a 4.22 ERA. Sutter was brought to St. Louis to save the day, and in the last few weeks of the season, he didn’t get the job done.

The 1982 edition of the Redbirds did make the playoffs, winning the N.L. East by 3 games. Sutter had a solid season, saving an MLB-leading 36 games in 102.1 innings with a 2.90 ERA. It wasn’t one of Sutter’s best, but he had earned the respect of the writers, and for that reason, plus his league-leading save total, he finished 3rd in the Cy Young and 5th in the MVP voting. Finally, Sutter finished strong, authoring 9 straight scoreless outings to close the regular season.

In the playoffs, Sutter earned two wins and three saves in six post-season appearances. In Game 7 of the World Series against the Milwaukee Brewers, Sutter entered the game in the top of the 8th with the Cards clinging to a 4-3 lead. Six batters and six outs later, Sutter and the Redbirds were celebrating a World Series victory, winning 6-3.

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In 1983, Sutter had a terrible year by his standards, blowing 9 out of 30 save chances and losing 10 games out of the pen while posting an ugly 4.23 ERA. Sutter’s late-season swoon this year covered the entire 2nd half. His ERA over the last three months of the season was 5.56.

For the 1984 campaign, the Redbirds hired Sutter’s former pitching coach with the Cubs (Mike Roarke), and the split-fingered specialist rediscovered his old form. Sutter saved an MLB-record 45 games while sporting a 1.54 ERA, the second-best of his career. For the second time in 3 years, Sutter was 3rd in the NL Cy Young vote.

Atlanta Braves (1985, 1986, 1988)

The timing of Bruce Sutter’s renaissance campaign was perfect because this was his free-agent walk year. He signed a six-year, $4.8 million contract with the Atlanta Braves that, because of the way it was structured as an interest-earning annuity, actually paid him an estimated $44 million over 36 years. Braves owner Ted Turner did not get his money’s worth.

In four injury-plagued years (including the 1987 season, which he missed entirely), Sutter managed just 152.1 innings, saving only 40 games (out of 64 chances) while posting an ugly 4.55 ERA. Ultimately, if the $44 million number is taken at face value, he was paid $288,840 per inning over his three years of service, and over one million dollars per save. Ouch.

Ironically, the pitcher who struggled so much in the final months of the regular season (4.03 career ERA in September/October) finished strong in 1988, his final campaign. After a brutal 14-game stretch from June 15 to August 31 (0-3, 3 saves, 6 blown saves, and a 10.80 ERA), Sutter finished with three scoreless outings in September, punctuated by his 300th save on September 9th.

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After the 1988 season, Sutter’s career was over at the age of 35. At the time, Sutter’s 300 saves were the third most in MLB history (behind Rollie Fingers and Goose Gossage).

Sutter got just 24% of the vote on his first year on the Hall of Fame ballot (1994). On his 9th try (2002), he finally cracked 50% and, in 2006, after spending 13 years on the ballot, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame, joining shortstop Ozzie Smith as a Hall of Fame member of the 1982 World Series champion Cardinals (in the years since, manager Whitey Herzog and reliever Jim Kaat have been inducted).

Today, at the end of the 2022 season, 300 saves are merely good for a tie for 30th place on the all-time list.

Of course, 300 saves meant so much more in the ’70s and ’80s than they do today. Rollie Fingers had 135 saves in which he pitched two innings or longer; Sutter had 130, and Gossage 125. Trevor Hoffman, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018, had a grand total of 7 saves of two innings or longer. Seven. In his entire career.

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In case you can’t tell, that’s Ozzie Smith and Johnny Bench with Sutter, poking fun at Sutter’s beard, which would grow even longer over subsequent years.

Bruce Sutter and the Hall of Fame

Bruce Sutter is arguably in the Hall of Fame for three reasons:

• He was a dominant closer in the era when bullpen stoppers were highly valued.
• He reached the benchmark of 300 career saves at a time when that plateau was meaningful.
• He was a pioneer, the first significant pitcher to feature the split-fingered fastball.

I covered the topic of which relief pitchers belong in the Hall of Fame fairly in a piece written in October 2017 (The Cooperstown Closer Debate). I’ll admit that I remain on the fence about whether Sutter should have been elected.

During his peak (from 1977 to 1984), Sutter was the best relief pitcher in the National League and the second-best in baseball (to Gossage). During those eight years, he made 6 All-Star teams, won a Cy Young Award, and finished in the top 6 on four other occasions.

In his 2000 Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked Sutter as the 57th-best pitcher in baseball history (behind Gossage, Dennis Eckersley, and Hoyt Wilhelm among relief pitchers) but ahead of Fingers. James’ book was written when Hoffman and Mariano Rivera were just beginning their respective careers. For me, Fingers is a special case because of his indispensable role in bringing the city of Oakland three World Championships (see Rollie Fingers: World Series Closer Second to Only One).

Anyway, Sutter’s Cooperstown case is, in my opinion, the weakest among all who are inducted. The reason is simply that Sutter’s career was so relatively brief.

When he signed his free agent deal with the Braves at the age of 31, Sutter had 260 saves with a 2.54 ERA in 889.2 career innings. In his final four years (in Atlanta), he had 40 saves with a 4.55 ERA. There’s nothing about his time in Atlanta that burnished his Cooperstown credentials, with the singular exception that he reached the 300-save milestone, which was a bigger deal at the time than it is today.

Bruce Sutter and Dan Quisenberry

Take a look at Sutter in comparison to Dan Quisenberry, the mustachioed side-arming closer for the Kansas City Royals. Statistically, Quiz was the best relief pitcher in the game for an eight-year period (1980-1987). For those eight years, Quisenberry was tops in saves, ERA, and WAR (Wins Above Replacement) and 2nd in WHIP (walks + hits per inning) to Gossage.

Here are the career numbers for Sutter and Quiz, contemporaries who pitched nearly an identical number of innings in their relatively brief careers (12 years each).

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Note: ERA+ normalizes ERA for ballpark and seasonal effects. 100 is average. 

The only major difference between the two is in the raw number of saves compiled and, specifically, that Sutter reached the 300-save milestone while Quisenberry fell short. This is solely due to the fact that Sutter’s managers gave him more opportunities throughout his years on the mound and, specifically, his four different managers in Atlanta kept running him out as their teams’ closer even though his performance had fallen off a cliff, likely because of the millions he was being paid to do that job.

So, look at the last three seasons pitched for Sutter and Quisenberry (who pitched for the Royals, Cardinals, and Giants as a set-up man in his final years):

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It’s apparent that there’s a legitimate case to make that Dan Quisenberry was every bit as good as Bruce Sutter. They both had five seasons in the top 6 of their league’s Cy Young voting, they both had eight-year peaks of dominance, and they both were members of a World Series champion. The only difference is in the total number of saves, which is a reflection of the number of save opportunities.

It was Sutter’s manager in Chicago, Herman Franks, who, in 1977, decided that he was pretty much going to only use him in games in which his team had the lead. And then there were those three unfortunate summers in Atlanta when he was ineffective but saved enough games to hit what was then the magic number of 300.

Final Thoughts About Bruce Sutter

It’s pretty obvious to me that, statistically, Bruce Sutter is a borderline Hall of Famer. That was in evidence while he was on the BBWAA ballot, given that it took him 13 years to reach the 75% threshold required for a Cooperstown plaque. But that’s OK. There are dozens of men honored by the Hall of Fame who have borderline cases.

There are many paths to Cooperstown. The best path, the one that makes a Hall of Famer obvious, is to have a long, dominant career. But there are other paths. One of them is to reach milestone numbers, such as 300 wins or 3,000 hits. Sutter did that, getting 300 saves when that meant something, because he often had to pitch multiple innings to get to 300.

Another path is to have a unique impact on the game. Sutter did that too, pioneering a revolutionary pitch (the split-fingered fastball). Another path is to have a dominant peak. Sutter did that as well; he was the dominant closer in his league for an eight-year period (1977-84).

Today, with the sad news of Sutter’s passing at age 69, we remember an iconic pitcher who was dominant at his craft and a crucial part of a World Series championship team. Although he spent only four years in St. Louis, he was a beloved player to Cardinals fans and a big part of the franchise’s history. In a statement after the news of Sutter’s death, Cardinals owner and CEO Bill DeWitt Jr. said, in a statement, “Bruce was a fan-favorite during his years in St. Louis and in the years to follow, and he will always be remembered for his 1982 World Series-clinching save and signature split-fingered pitch.”

RIP Bruce.

Bruce Sutter Links

Hall of Fame Speech (2006)

Full SABR Bio (Society of American Baseball Research)

Baseball-Reference Statistical Profile

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