In baseball, the starting pitcher is the star. Fans pick the night they buy tickets around who is on the mound, and an ace can make a game must-see and nearly guarantee a win. Teams pay for it. In 2026, a pitcher was the highest-paid player on 12 of 30 MLB teams, and Zack Wheeler leads the way at $42M.
Middle relievers carry the game to the closer, who is brought in for (usually) one inning with a small lead. Edwin Díaz is the richest closer ever, at about $23M a year. The closer matters, but nobody calls him the franchise.
Does this sound like your revenue team? Marketing creates the content and experiences that make a buyer interested. An SDR or SE pulls the prospect in. Sales closes. Starting pitcher, middle relief, closer.
Before you say I’m minimizing sales, look at when buyers show up. Some marketing stats:
- Buyers first talk to a seller 61% of the way through their journey
- 94% rank their shortlist before contacting any vendor
- 95% of winning vendors were on the Day One shortlist
- The number one ranked vendor wins 77% of deals
Buyers now find answers in places you don’t control. 29% start their research in an LLM more than Google. 68% of US Google searches end without a click. A buyer can form a shortlist from an AI answer and never visit your site.
That makes brand more important than it was five years ago. Awareness and consideration decide who gets on the list, and buyers do their own research before anyone from sales gets a call.
Sales still matters. 69% of B2B buyers double-check what AI tells them with a sales rep. The closer protects the win, and the win starts earlier than the closer’s inning.
Now look at the budget. Private B2B SaaS companies spend a median 8% of ARR on marketing and about 15% on selling. Marketing gets about a third of the combined spend while buyers do almost two-thirds of their research before sales arrives. This is the opposite of how baseball prioritizes spend.
If the starter doesn’t do their job, the closer never gets the chance to do their job.
In 2024, MLB starters threw 59% of all innings. Buyers finish about 61% of the process before sales gets the ball. In both scenarios, the starter has already pitched most of it.
Funding this costs something. The money comes from somewhere, and sales leaders will push back. When profits miss target, executives cut marketing over other areas about 45% of the time, which is like pulling your ace in the fourth inning to save innings (as we saw the Red Sox do in the playoffs this year).
So what does your superstar budget look like? And are you funding the ways modern buyers find you, or the ways they used to?
MPB2B
While I didn’t get to attend Marketing Profs B2B Forum last week, I was able to meet up with friends after hours and catch up.
If you’re looking for a recap, I suggest checking out Brian Piper’s list of key takeaways. It sounds like it was an amazing event (as usual).
Design quote of the week
“I don’t need an alarm clock. My ideas wake me.” – Ray Bradbury
My AI disclaimer: I wrote the article (based on a SlideShare I created more than a decade ago). Claude helped me find modern stats and edit it.
ChatGPT created the hero image.
Thanks for reading!
–Jim
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