Trevor Bauer and the Art of the Possible

Bauer has said, in the past, that he believes he could pitch consistently on three days’ rest. Given that he’s already proved existing experts wrong about some of the fundamentals of modern pitching more than once, maybe that’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. Fifty and 60 years ago, it was relatively commonplace, and as recently as 1985, three different pitchers made at least 23 starts on the fourth day after their previous outing. If it’s true, and if Bauer could be roughly as effective while regularly pitching on that schedule, it would be transformative, even for a team (like the Twins) with solid starting pitching depth in-house.

Famously eager to bet on himself on one-year deals even now that he’s reached free agency, Bauer now faces a market that invites players to make exactly that kind of choice. There are no guarantees about offseasons beyond this one, but the confluence of bad breaks that would have to happen in order for next year’s market not to look more player-friendly than this one is hard to imagine. Thus, the Twins could (in theory) sign Bauer to a one-year deal, making them disinclined to worry about his long-term durability enough to rest him more than necessary. Bauer could, in theory, seize upon an offer that included the opportunity to prove himself the league’s most wear-resistant workhorse, whereupon he’d be better able to cash in come the end of 2021.

It’s worth asking, then: just how big a difference would that kind of usage pattern make, not for Bauer, but for the Twins and the rest of their pitching staff? The effect could be huge, but it requires a reimagination of the starting staff—or, if you prefer, a return to a long-defunct variation on the starting rotation, which is more a hierarchical decision tree than a rotation, at all.

Here’s how it would work:

1. Any time Bauer has had at least three days of rest, he pitches.
   
2. Any time Bauer is unavailable, José Berríos pitches, as long as he’s had at least four days’ rest.
   
3. If Bauer and Berríos are both unavailable, and if Kenta Maeda has had at least four days’ rest, Maeda pitches.
   
4. If all three of the above are unavailable, and if Michael Pineda has had at least four days, he pitches.
   
5. If all four of the above are unavailable, Randy Dobnak pitches, as long as he’s had at least four days’ rest. (It’s possible, technically, for the first thing to be true without Dobnak having had sufficient rest, if there’s a doubleheader involved, but obviously, that would be very rare.)
   

If you’re wondering, I placed Berríos above Maeda in this pecking order not out of any belief that Berríos will be better in 2021 (though he could be), but because Berríos is much younger, has been more durable, and derives more of his value from eating innings.

I mapped this algorithm for starting pitcher deployment onto the Twins’ current 2021 schedule. Obviously, that’s a vast oversimplification of the problem at hand. Injuries disrupt things for every team, every season. Weather forces delays, reschedulings, and the aforementioned doubleheaders. Most importantly, this particular time around, the coronavirus could well force another abnormal abomination of a season, and that contorted campaign could be unfriendly to this gambit.

For the sake of the exercise, though, let’s pretend that that algorithm could be repeated and applied all year. Over 162 games, that would lead to 45 starts for Bauer (yes, really), 33 for Berríos, 32 for Maeda, 30 for Pineda, and 22 for Dobnak. Without really losing a start by any of the three incumbents in whom they have full confidence, the Twins could, by signing Bauer and going this route, shift 10 or 11 starts from the back end of their rotation to their new ace.

Now, shortening Bauer’s rest between starts would mean shortening his starts themselves, but two things make that a minor concern, at most. First, Bauer threw more pitches per start than anyone except Lance Lynn in 2020, and got more outs per start than anyone but Zach Plesac and Kyle Hendricks. If he pitched 17 percent less in each outing, he’d still be at least league-average in terms of per-game workload. Second, almost every team is embracing quicker hooks and more bullpen work from their starters, including the Twins, so a series of five-inning, 81-pitch outings by Bauer (most of them ending with the opponent having scored one run) would pose no major problems.

This effect is, frankly, enormous. Bauer’s ability to continue overwhelming opponents the way he did this season, should the league crack down on the foreign substances he used to enhance his performance this year, is somewhat in doubt. He’s earned some credibility when he boasts about his conditioning and durability, but skepticism is still warranted. Most importantly, the fact that he could plausibly take the ball in over a quarter of Minnesota’s games does not change the magnitude of his negative effect on the likability and chemistry of a team that has been eminently likable and enjoyed good chemistry over the last two seasons. It might even exacerbate that effect.

To make Bauer worth the phoniness, the immaturity, the callousness, and the arrogance, one has to get a pretty good deal on him, and believe he can both perform well in his own right and open things up for the rest of the roster. That said, there’s room to imagine that the Twins could do both of those things. He has as positive a relationship with Derek Falvey as with any executive in the majors. The Twins, with their solid depth and limited budget, could gain flexibility by sliding Dobnak into (essentially) a swingman role, and raise the ceiling of their pitching staff in the same stroke.

Even if you don’t ultimately buy it (I don’t), the exercise is enlightening. One challenge in any 162-game season is to balance and modulate workloads, to keep starters fresh until the end of the season. This experiment illustrates how, if a pitcher could truly break the modern molds of pitcher usage, it might allow their team to alter the process by which they do that juggling act, and have a significant, positive impact on their whole pitching staff.