Five-Three-One

[Can_of_corn]

As anyone who has been on the board for any length of time and doesn't have me on /ignore knows, I enjoy contemplating the future look of major league pitching staffs.  The O's practice of having pitchers throw three innings in the minors coupled with the starting pitcher problems has led me to come up with yet another idea.

I'm calling it the 5-3-1.  Five starters who are designated to go five innings a start, no more no less.  Ideally if they blow up in the third they stay in and take their lumps until their innings are done.  The bullpen will consist of four guys who are on the three inning plan, they will pitch the sixth, seventh and eighth innings.  With them only going three instead of five innings you should be able to keep them on a one on three off schedule.  Next is the two one inning guys to finish off the games.  You can do it closer and non-closer if you like.  That uses 11 pitchers, if a team has 12, like the Orioles currently do, it would be another guy that can go multiple innings and fulfill a variety of low leverage roles.

A number of these pitchers will have to optionable and pieces that can fulfill their roles will have to be ready at Norfolk or Bowie.

As far as workload goes, not counting extra innings and games in which the O's don't have to pitch in the ninth we would be looking at:

Starters- ~160 innings

Three inning pitchers- ~120 innings

One inning pitchers- ~80 innings

I don't see why those workloads would be unmanageable if the pitchers are used to the roles.  There will also be pitchers in the minors that could give a guy a breather for a week and the 12th pitcher who would soak up some innings.

[Going Underground]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

As anyone who has been on the board for any length of time and doesn't have me on /ignore knows, I enjoy contemplating the future look of major league pitching staffs.  The O's practice of having pitchers throw three innings in the minors coupled with the starting pitcher problems has led me to come up with yet another idea.

I'm calling it the 5-3-1.  Five starters who are designated to go five innings a start, no more no less.  Ideally if they blow up in the third they stay in and take their lumps until their innings are done.  The bullpen will consist of four guys who are on the three inning plan, they will pitch the sixth, seventh and eighth innings.  With them only going three instead of five innings you should be able to keep them on a one on three off schedule.  Next is the two one inning guys to finish off the games.  You can do it closer and non-closer if you like.  That uses 11 pitchers, if a team has 12, like the Orioles currently do, it would be another guy that can go multiple innings and fulfill a variety of low leverage roles.

A number of these pitchers will have to optionable and pieces that can fulfill their roles will have to be ready at Norfolk or Bowie.

As far as workload goes, not counting extra innings and games in which the O's don't have to pitch in the ninth we would be looking at:

Starters- ~160 innings

Three inning pitchers- ~120 innings

One inning pitchers- ~80 innings

I don't see why those workloads would be unmanageable if the pitchers are used to the roles.  There will also be pitchers in the minors that could give a guy a breather for a week and the 12th pitcher who would soak up some innings.

I thought everyone on the internet has you on ignore.Wikileaks and RT excluded 

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Going Underground said:

I thought everyone on the internet has you on ignore.Wikileaks and RT excluded 

So does that mean you are actually an alt account of mine?

[Pheasants]

I think, with the number of our starters who have trouble going long, that this is a good idea.  It would even prevent tiredness coming back to haunt a pitcher who threw 7-8 innings of great baseball one game and then had nothing the next--possibly Bundy the last start and I can hardly wait for Ubaldo the next. If not for the tiredness factor, it might even be possible to go back to a four-man rotation.  Or, if we think the pitchers are even enough, we could flip the starter and 3 inning reliever occasionally

[SteveA]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

As anyone who has been on the board for any length of time and doesn't have me on /ignore knows, I enjoy contemplating the future look of major league pitching staffs.  The O's practice of having pitchers throw three innings in the minors coupled with the starting pitcher problems has led me to come up with yet another idea.

I'm calling it the 5-3-1.  Five starters who are designated to go five innings a start, no more no less.  Ideally if they blow up in the third they stay in and take their lumps until their innings are done.  The bullpen will consist of four guys who are on the three inning plan, they will pitch the sixth, seventh and eighth innings.  With them only going three instead of five innings you should be able to keep them on a one on three off schedule.  Next is the two one inning guys to finish off the games.  You can do it closer and non-closer if you like.  That uses 11 pitchers, if a team has 12, like the Orioles currently do, it would be another guy that can go multiple innings and fulfill a variety of low leverage roles.

A number of these pitchers will have to optionable and pieces that can fulfill their roles will have to be ready at Norfolk or Bowie.

As far as workload goes, not counting extra innings and games in which the O's don't have to pitch in the ninth we would be looking at:

Starters- ~160 innings

Three inning pitchers- ~120 innings

One inning pitchers- ~80 innings

I don't see why those workloads would be unmanageable if the pitchers are used to the roles.  There will also be pitchers in the minors that could give a guy a breather for a week and the 12th pitcher who would soak up some innings.

So you yank a starter who has gone 5, given up 1 run on two hits and no walks, and thrown 72 pitches?  In a 2-1 game.

And bring in a guy who is probably not as good (since your five starters and 2 closers are probably you best arms)?

And that guy, let's just make up a name and call him Yabriel Gnoa, immediately gives up a run in the 6th, and walks the bases loaded but escapes thanks to a great DP turned by your defense, you then trot him out there again in the 7th and 8th in what is now a tie game and maybe he gives up 4 more runs?

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, SteveA said:

So you yank a starter who has gone 5, given up 1 run on two hits and no walks, and thrown 72 pitches?  In a 2-1 game.

And bring in a guy who is probably not as good (since your five starters and 2 closers are probably you best arms)?

And that guy, let's just make up a name and call him Yabriel Gnoa, immediately gives up a run in the 6th, and walks the bases loaded but escapes thanks to a great DP turned by your defense, you then trot him out there again in the 7th and 8th in what is now a tie game and maybe he gives up 4 more runs?

Yes, I yank him.  Maybe the reason he has gone five and given up one run is because he is pacing himself for five and the lineup hasn't turned over a third time yet.  It's a differing process, you don't deviate from a process the first time an irregularity shows up.

I don't see why the overall quality of the bullpen would be lower in this case than the way it is now.  If you can't find quality arms you end up with a Gnoa pitching, if you can find quality arms you have a quality arm following the five inning starter.

I'm not suggesting the O's switch to this tomorrow.  In fact 2018 might be overly optimistic.  A pitching staff like this will have to be built and that will take some time and some personnel changes.