Bring back 4 man rotations?

[Gurgi]

Posted May. 1, 2008 11:44 am by Ben Badler

Filed under: Daily Dish, Promotions, Stat Pack

Angels righthander Nick Adenhart, the top pitching prospect in the organization, was called up today from Triple-A Salt Lake to make his major league debut against Oakland.

Adenhart, 21, has made five starts for Salt Lake, holding down a 0.87 ERA with a 19-15 K-BB ratio in 31 innings.

The Angels haven’t babied Adenhart’s workload, letting him throw 153 innings last year in Double-A. His pitch counts in five games this season with Salt Lake have been 85, 110, 93, 103 and then 98 in his last start on Sunday. That means Adenhart, who is now four years removed from having Tommy John surgery when he was drafted in 2004 as a 14th-rounder, will make his major league debut on just three days rest.

For major league pitchers, there is a marked difference, on the whole, for those forced to pitch on three days rest.

MAJOR LEAGUE STARTERS, 2000-2007

REST G ERA W L IP

3 days 597 5.04 179 216 3,108

4 days 20,282 4.55 7,341 7,134 121,464

5 days 11,224 4.50 4,005 4,007 67,143

[…] Continue Reading »

[Gurgi]

I would guess these stats would suggest the extra days rest really does help quite a bit. Half a run is quite alot. More than I figured on.

[crawdad]

It may be affected by pitch counts or even how well planned those starts were on 3 days rest.. One might assume that a suitable pitch count for a 4 man rotation may not be the same as a 5 man rotation. It may be that even managers who dont use pitch counts are looking to remove guys based on 4 days rest instead of 3. It is difficult to see what is really going on because our available data is so limited. But, yes, nothing seems readily apparent that a 4 man rotation would work well.