Constructing Pitching Staff Will Become a Numbers Game

  On 12/18/2018 at 1:18 AM, S. said:

In 2015 Taylor Rogers was a starter. 27 of his 28 Rochester appearances were starts. In your plan, he would absolutely 100% need to be stretched out as a starter. And how many days off is a RP going to require after pitching 3-4 innings? So now in your hypothetical situation, if Rogers is one of your best RPs, he is now only appearing ~2 times a week and you're left with your worse RPs for high leverage late inning situations for the other 3-5 games per week. If he isn't one of your best RPs and you're trotting him out there for 3-4 innings, then he is just a mop up man. 

 

I don't disagree with your general theory that your best pitchers should pitch more innings, but there is a limit to how many innings they can pitch before their results diminish. There is also a big reason a lot of failed starters become relievers: they can throw harder in short appearances, and they don't have to face the lineup more than once. So now you're taking guys who for many of them have not had success starting, but they have had success in the bullpen, and you're switching that up. Now they can't throw full gas because they need to face 2-3x more batters. If they're appearing for 2-3+ innings they're going to be facing the same hitters more than once. They now have all the problems they faced as a starter, but instead of having a fixed routine like a starter, they need to be ready to go at any time. They need to be able to jump in the middle of an inning, with runners on base, but they aren't going to be able to approach it the same way they previously were with their success as an RP because you're expecting them to stay out there 2-4x as long.

 

Could it potentially work? Sure, but you're asking for a lot out of a bullpen built up mostly by guys who weren't good enough at working multiple innings to stick as a starter for the Twins. Which is saying something.

1990's thinking. MLB has starters who are tossing 97 MPH or higher pretty routinely now.

We got Josh Hader throwing multiple innings out of the pen now. Not to mention the Drew Pomeranz, Brad Peacock, Collin McHugh, Kenta Maeda types who move from rotation to bullpen at the drop of a dime. 

Those walls are coming down. Albeit Slowly.  

Was Taylor Rogers a failed starter or did the Twins stubbornly try to force things with Tyler Duffey making 26 starts with a 6.43 ERA in 2016, Kyle Gibson 25 starts with a 5.07, Nolasco 21 starts with a 5.13, Berrios 14 starts with a 8.02 ERA, Tommy Milone, Hector Santiago, Phil Hughes and Pat Dean all with ERA's from 5.58 to 6.28 over 43 starts combined. 

That's 129 out of 162 starts or 720.1 Innings out of 1443 team total innings thrown by 7 starters who produced 469 earned runs totalling a combined ERA of 5.86. 

All of sudden Taylor's 3.98 in Rochester in 2015 doesn't look like a failed starter. He looks more like a guy who was brought up for a bullpen role and no matter how bad the starters crashed and burned... he remained in the bullpen role while the Twins just cycled through 5 starter rotation that has been done for decades. 

Finding 5 capable starters is perhaps the hardest thing a GM has to do and only 4 or 5 teams can honestly say that they found 5 in any given year and there is a big chunk of the remaining 25 teams that are lucky to have 2 of them. And then you factor in the injuries and you start needing 6 7 8 or 9 of them. And the data collected is getting larger every year and producing undeniable evidence that each turn through the order is becoming problematic and the Royals and the Indians were winning baseball games with a bullpen. 

Then the Rays come along last year and blow it all out of the water. 

One size does not fit all... If you say that they are all failed starters. We can never advance. They are labelled and done. I believe that there is middle ground between a starter going 6 and a reliever throwing 1 rinse and repeat. 

  On 12/18/2018 at 1:56 AM, Jim Hahn said:

Actually, this is interesting but it isn't new. It's pretty much what was done with many relief pitchers in the late 50's and 60's. During the 70's the number of appearances went up but the innings per appearance began to trend down. Certain rubber armed relievers thrived, but many were burnt out after a year or two by this kind of use. So gradually the one inning reliever became the norm.

The use you describe is possible, certainly it was done in the 60's. Part of the reason it worked then is because most teams had at least a couple of starters who could be relied on to throw complete games on a regular basis.

The problem today, is that you need relievers pretty much every game. It may indeed be possible to let someone like Rogers pitch 2 to 3 innings per appearance. Then of course he is unavailable for the next 2 games when he maybe needed, and then multi inning appearances may not be needed for another week. So then you use him for an inning or less and then he is not available for a multi inning appearance.

I don't know the total answer to this. There are too many max delivery guys who aren't very well suited to multi inning use. A guy like Rogers may very be more valuable as single inning high leverage guy where he gets a lot more appearances than as a multi inning guy. If you try to move him back and forth between those roles, you will almost certainly overuse him. Which may of happened with Andrew Miller.

Unless baseball expands rosters some of these ideas look better on paper rather than actual practice. With less innings being eaten up by starters, we are having more and more innings being covered by the 8 thru 13th best pitchers on a staff. Often the back end of the staff is being changed off with AAA pitchers, so now we are using our 14th and 15th best pitchers.

I think figuring out how to get more innings out of your best pitchers is a good thing. What I think though is that the best way to do that maybe figuring out how to get starters to maintain their effectiveness the 3rd time through the lineup. Also teaching them to be more efficient with their pitches would get them deeper in the games. Typically your starters are among your best pitchers. Making them more effective would help reduce the innings of your least effective relievers.

Great Post

Bullpen guys are easier to acquire at a lower price. Get bullpen serious and go get some guys. 

If we are overflowing with starters and we are... the extra's can be placed in the pen and be 3 inning guys like Rogers. 

All you got to do is think differently. What's the proper amount of rest for a 3 innings stint and 1 inning stint... If Berrios goes 3 innings... does he have to wait all the way through the rotation like he just threw 8 innings? 

You can see how robotic it has been. And I think this is something that can be done without question. Maybe Rogers is the right guy or the wrong guy but we got stop living and dying with a rotation and start figuring out how to get the ball in the hands of our best pitchers for more innings. 

Our best pitchers should be called "Innings Eaters" not the guy with an ERA in the High 4.00's who throws ground balls. 

  On 12/18/2018 at 3:28 AM, S. said:

Taylor Rogers 2015 numbers in Rochester were in Rochester, not in the majors. 3.98 ERA in AAA. Maybe he would've been a successful starter in the majors, but we don't know that and to this point we have nothing to show us if he can consistently pitch multiple innings at a time in the majors. Looking at his AAA numbers from 4 years ago doesn't mean anything to me now. It is going to be 4 years since he has started. In the last 3 seasons he hasn't broken 70 IP in a year. Why are we just assuming he can ramp that up so much and perform as well as he's been doing in the majors? I also don't buy that the Rays blew anything out of the water. In fact, I doubt having an RP start the game before a starter sticks long term for anything besides September rosters/fringe situations/playoff shenanigans, but that's a whole different discussion

 

I don't dispute that there is some middle ground and good RPs should be able to go multiple innings as needed. However, I absolutely do think taking your best RP and turning him into multi inning guy every outing is a waste. Sometimes you need your best guys out there for 1 out, sometimes you need them to get 6 outs. But if you want them available for as many potential high leverage situations as possible over the course of the season, you try to limit those 6 out appearances to when you really need them so they don't need extended days off and to ensure they're still going strong come August/September/October. I'd love to have a bullpen full of guys who were all as good at getting 1 out as they were at getting 6 and had the ability to go 100+ innings every season, but its an unrealistic ask. I'd love to just have a bullpen full of actually good RPs. That would probably be a good starting point.

 

Jim Hahn, a few posts up, did a great job of detailing a few concerns that I also share about the idea of that role. In general, I think there are plenty of times where you want your best RPs to have the fortitude to stay out there for more than 1 inning when you really need it, but I don't want to take my best guy and turn him into some role player who isn't available 2/3rds of the time because he's constantly coming off of 2 and 3 inning appearances. I feel like the much more sustainable option is to build a bullpen with a variety of good pitchers. If you want one of them to go get 6 outs here and there, then thats no big deal since you're not risking burning out arms with 100 IP by having a few guys make a handful of extended appearances over the course of the season. I also don't think this is an unrealistic ask because we sure as hell have plenty of money we could be spending on good RPs, but it remains to be seen if we will do so.

Please don't make me spend hours researching the many examples of players who produced better numbers in the majors than AAA. 

I will and you'll find the list lengthy but I really don't have the time... but I will. 

Also the Rays wasn't about the opener... It's just the part that everybody is talking about... and if you immediately think Opener when I bring up Rays. I began to realize that I really haven't prepared anyone for what I'm talking about in my posts and might as well be talking about earth revolving around the sun. 

What the Rays did was stay in contention with two starters and just one for a decent stretch... a good one in Blake Snell but he was the only starter they had for awhile. They traded away Archer and Eovaldi and kept ticking... only two pitchers over 100 innings for the entire year of 2018. 

They blew it out of the water. 

It's an unrealistic ask because we haven't asked it before.  

  On 12/18/2018 at 4:40 AM, DocBauer said:

I am NOT picking on Brian, who I agree with about 90% of the time, lol, but it's not about just pitching Rogers 100+ IP because he's quality. (Just an example). It's about the best 12 arms to complete your staff, with SP, short RP, and the guys in between.

 

I think these debates are necessary. 

I'm questioning baseball conventions right now and I'm questioning them hard. When I left the game threads, I ended up with time and energy on my hands. 

I spent that time and energy looking into what happened to my Twins. I traced it all the way back to 2011, I then started looking at the teams that were doing well and I started tracing them back. 

I ran across some examples of things working that were clearly different than what everybody typcially does and I wanted to share those things with my crew on Twinsdaily, I got crickets...  So I continued which led to a smattering of we can't do that... because... (it won't work with the arcane model that has been in place for decades).  

I'm saying the Rays, the Dodgers, The Cubs are doing some things different and there is a reason that Brandon Hyde interviewed for nearly every manager job. There is a reason why the Rays staff was poached. There is a reason why the Dodgers are losing staff to other teams. 

I'm saying baseball is about to change and the things I'm talking about are going to hit you all between the eyes. 

The opener isn't the story of the Rays. The opener is a great idea but it's nothing. You take your guy in the 7th and move him to the 1st whatever.

The living and dying with a starting rotation as we know it was challenged by the Rays (and A's) and the Rays won this round. This doesn't mean you don't acquire starters... The Rays just got Charlie Morton because they are still going to try and acquire starters because there is value in a guy who can go 6 or 7 innings... this is what I'm talking about... having your best pitchers throw the most innings... but if you don't have that guy... TRY SOMETHING ELSE... such as giving ROGERS more innings. 

But, you can't look at what I'm saying objectively unless you are prepared to take things out of their current boxes.