Should the Orioles use an opener?

[Thato'sfan]

I was looking at Kevin Gausman's stats. His  career ERA in the first inning is 5.21

This year it is at 4.5

Theoretically, an opener would allow him to avoid the top of the order bats in the first.

This year he has greatly struggled in other innings, but I'm willing to try out an opener. If his performance improves with an opener, his trade value would increase and it could be a stepping stone to unlock his untapped potential. 

It is a longshot, but perhaps it is one worth taking. This is a lost season, we might as well explore options to improve player performance.

Also, I wouldn't start this until after the trade deadline. If there is a good offer now, I would take it.

 

[wildcard]

Sure, I couple of beers before Kevin pitches might help.

[Luke-OH]

29 minutes ago, Thato'sfan said:

I was looking at Kevin Gausman's stats. His  career ERA in the first inning is 5.21

This year it is at 4.5

Theoretically, an opener would allow him to avoid the top of the order bats in the first.

This year he has greatly struggled in other innings, but I'm willing to try out an opener. If his performance improves with an opener, his trade value would increase and it could be a stepping stone to unlock his untapped potential. 

It is a longshot, but perhaps it is one worth taking. This is a lost season, we might as well explore options to improve player performance.

Also, I wouldn't start this until after the trade deadline. If there is a good offer now, I would take it.

 

Yacabonis and Hess would both make sense as openers as they don't have the arsenal to go through the order more than once anyways but could easily handle 2-3 innings if pitching well. 

[weams]

I don't care for openers. I think it is a fad. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

1 minute ago, weams said:

I don't care for openers. I think it is a fad. 

Seems like a good way to burn out your bullpen.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, weams said:

I don't care for openers. I think it is a fad. 

I think it's a precursor.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

Seems like a good way to burn out your bullpen.

I don't see why.

Starter goes innings 2-6 instead of 1-5.  What's the difference?

[SteveA]

I see that Axford is starting for the Blue Jays today.   That means either:

   -- Toronto is jumping on the opener fad

or

   -- they are actually converting a longtime short reliever to a starter

or

   -- they didn't have anyone ready in the minors to bring up after dealing Happ that could start today so they are going with a "bullpen day" as a one time thing

[Luke-OH]

7 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I think it's a precursor.

To all pitchers except a handful of ace-level types being flexible multi-inning capable pitchers who only go once through the line-up?

[El Gordo]

18 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

Seems like a good way to burn out your bullpen.

Not really, your bullpen become 12 men. 

[El Gordo]

9 minutes ago, Luke-OH said:

To all pitchers except a handful of ace-level types being flexible multi-inning capable pitchers who only go once through the line-up?

An idea whose time is coming

[Thato'sfan]

21 minutes ago, Luke-OH said:

To all pitchers except a handful of ace-level types being flexible multi-inning capable pitchers who only go once through the line-up?

I think it doesn't even depend on "aces only." It has to be assessed on a case by case basis.

IMO, Andrew Cashner has been grossly misused. He has show a significant drop off when working into the sixth inning. He is not an innings eater, but he is being used as one. In fact, if he we limited him to five innings per start he would have much better stats.

In our rotation,

I would give Gausman an opener and let everyone else start. Bundy has shown the ability to put up ace-like numbers Cashner pitches like a mid-rotation guy up to the sixth inning, based on analytics, I would bring in a guy like Yacabonis afterwards(Can work through a lineup one, maybe twice without getting tired). Cobb is the closest thing to an innings eater and can put up mid-rotation stats(very pitch efficient, performance drop offs have been inconsistent. Yefry Ramirez would be a great piggyback guy as he does really well twice through a lineup but gets tired around the 80 pitch mark. I would piggyback Ramirez with Wright/Hess/Yac/Castro. If we can't have a homegrown ace, we have to maximize our pitching performance potentials.

Wright, Hess, Castro, and Yacabonis are all flexible options that can probably give us close to 100 innings a piece. 140 innings from Ramirez, 150 from cashner, 170 from Bundy, 180 from Gausman and Cobb. A season without extra innings is around 1460 innings. Those totals give you around 1,220 innings from 9 guys. The bullpen then has a strong backend of power relievers at 60 innings a piece(180 more innings). We would need about 80 extra innings to finish out the season, meaning that options and flexibility are musts.  An eight-man bullpen would be another solution. This would leave your best relievers fairly fresh for postseason, and the same applies to many of the starters.

This would be difficult to manage, but it should theoretically improve the performance of a below average pitching staff.

[Just Regular]

The thing I've grown to like about it more seeing it in practice is how it transfers the offense's first 3rd looks at the "real" starter to the bottom of the order.  I know that the penalty is persistent regardless of if the starter is pitching well or not, but I haven't seen any studies of whether 5-9 hitters enjoy less than 1-4 hitters.

Of course most of the current data for 5-9's are hitters enjoying the Third (And A Half) Time Through The Order Penalty.

Obviously real aces will still emerge some and not be trifled with this, but the bar for entry to that could become a badge of honor for tomorrow's starters, something that even today's Kevin Gausmans are borderline to achieve.  It's like multiplying the Opening Day Starter honor 162x for the staff.

The real workshops to follow for how the best orgs look at this when they're trying their hardest was the postseason.  My biggest takeaway from last fall was Rich Hill.  He amassed 6.5 wins across 45 starts in 2017-2018.  He was healthy in October, as designed.  He had the WAR/162 of a 4-5 WAR/season guy, and he was routinely pulled after 18 batters faced, even when running well.  

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

15 minutes ago, El Gordo said:

Not really, your bullpen become 12 men. 

I could see this taking off if the rosters are expanded to 26 or 27 players.

I miss the days of Jim Palmer or even Scott McGregor for that matter.

 

 

 

[Thato'sfan]

1 minute ago, OrioleDog said:

The real workshops to follow for how the best orgs look at this when they're trying their hardest was the postseason.  My biggest takeaway from last fall was Rich Hill.  He amassed 6.5 wins across 45 starts in 2017-2018.  He was healthy in October, as designed.  He had the WAR/162 of a 4-5 WAR/season guy, and he was routinely pulled after 18 batters faced, even when running well.  

Exactly. We might find some nuggets with more analytical management of a pitching staff, a guy like Yacabonis could become our Rich Hill. In addition, the extra need for flexibility could lead to a model in which we constantly restock our farm system by trading decent pitchers out of options. In theory, a constantly cost-controlled bullpen and rotation would allow for more expenditures on free agents or analytics, etc. It would be difficult to get rid of decent pitchers entering arbitration, but it's a business and we have to maximize our potential for sustainable winning.