Hall Of Fame Closer Bruce Sutter Made The Most Of Free-Agent Pact

Hall of Fame closer Bruce Sutter, who retired from baseball 34 years earlier, was still receiving annual paychecks from the Atlanta Braves when he died at age 69 Friday.

Ted Turner, then the mercurial and enigmatic owner of the team, had surprised the baseball world when he signed the star closer to a long-term but deferred contract after the 1984 season but never realized the dividends he expected.

The Braves finished fifth with a 66-96 record, changed managers in mid-season, and got just 23 saves and a 4.48 earned run average out of the suddenly-mortal Sutter.

The closer had been a six-time All-Star, National League Cy Young Award winner, and world champion but was not the same pitcher with the Braves, when both he and his career went south.

He had mastered the split-fingered fastball, throwing the pitch for strikes, and led the National League in saves five times.

When he retired, his 300 saves ranked third on the career list, though it has been surpassed many times since. Sutter also had a career earned run average of 2.83.

Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006, Sutter was the first pitcher to reach Cooperstown without ever starting a game. All of his 661 appearances, starting with the Chicago Cubs in 1976, came in relief.

A heavy-duty reliever who worked at least 60 games in seven different seasons, Sutter also proved capable of working multiple innings per outing.

“He cut the percentages down from me from 27 outs a game to 21,” said Whitey Herzog, the Hall of Fame manager who traded for him. “He had the best makeup of any closer I’ve ever seen.”

Sutter was a minor-leaguer with a dead arm when Fred Martin, then minor-league pitching coordinator for the Chicago Cubs, taught him the rudiments of throwing the splitter. After reaching the majors in 1976, he tied the National League record of 37 saves and later established a new one with a personal-peak 45 for the 1984 Cardinals.

That same season, he also established career bests with 122 2/3 innings and 71 appearances.

That convinced the Braves to sign him to a six-year, $9.1 million deal with much of the money deferred. Although he gave Atlanta just 40 saves over three injury-riddled seasons, Sutter wound up a big winner.

His pact provided $4.8 million in deferred money that would pay 13 per cent interest over a 36-year period. Once it expired in 1990, Sutter started receiving an annual stipend of $1.3 million per year, pushing its total value to almost $50 million, making it one of the biggest in baseball at the time.

Sutter spent five years with the Cubs, four with the Cardinals, and three with the Braves but remained an Atlanta resident after retirement. His son Chad was briefly a minor-league catcher before becoming a baseball coach at Tulane University.