Os may limit 3rd time thru the order for SP

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

It would be glorious to have someone break the record for starts in a season.  Which currently sits at 75 by Will White (1879) and Pud Galvin (1883).  Of course they did it in seasons of less than 100 games...

What I also want to see is someone designated The Winner, who only comes in to relieve the opener when his team is tied or ahead.  The opener is ineligible for the win, so The Winner gets it.  Maybe 40-50 times in a season if you work it right.

But Galvin has that PED taint.

[SteveA]

3 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

So the issue with openers, and the reason you slot in all your relievers at the end, is that you can pick and choose the best relievers for important situations.  If you use all your best relievers to start the game you'll often have your dominant short guy, like peak Zach Britton, pitching the first inning or two of a 12-3 game.  At first pitch you have no way of knowing how the game will turn out. He'll have little impact on the outcome of a lot of games.

Last year Ryan Stanek was the Rays' opener 29 times.  He ended up with a leverage index of 1.14.

Zach Britton's LI during his good run as O's closer, just as a 9th inning standard closer with Buck managing to the save rule, was between 1.5 and 1.7.  So his average appearance was 40% more important than Stanek's.  His pitching was far more impactful in about the same number of innings as an opener's.

Maybe there are legitimate reasons to use an opener, but I don't see any way an opener would be as valuable as a late inning reliever.

The reason to use the opener is to allow your actual starter to go more than 2 times through the order without facing the better hitters 3 times.   You let the opener face 5 or 6 batters, whether he does that in one inning or two, then you bring in your starter.   He goes twice through the order, but then when he starts seeing guys 3 times, he is seeing the 6-7-8-9 hitters who presumably aren't nearly as good as the top 3 so even though there's a TTTTOP, he is paying against lesser hitters.   THEN you take him out. Yes, you have one less reliever to use later, but you have hopefully pushed your starter at least one inning, maybe more, towards the end of the game.   And based on the score at the time you can then decide whether to use your best remaining relievers for the last few innings.

Also if your opener pitches with a differennt hand, or even different style, than the starter who follows him, you might gain a small advantage there, especially against a team that platoons at a  position or two.

So yeah, you do pitch the guy in nearly even leverage because he's starting the game.   I would think you might rather it be your 2nd or 3rd or 4th best reliever rather than your Kimbrel for that reason.

[SteveA]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

It also didn't backfire, but those times aren't near as memorable.

And of course some of the times it "backfired", the reliever would have blown it too, but no one ever thinks of that.   It's always assumed that if you leave a starter n and he gets hit, that any reliever would of course have 100% for sure gotten out of it, so it's clearly a bad decision.   Even though if it's the 5th inning, you are probably choosing between your 5th and 6th best reliever to bring in.   But he would have gotten the out, and the manager blew the game, yessiree.

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

It would take a lot of work to determine if Buck did that more often than other managers.   We certainly know that the O’s ranked 11th of 15 in IP/start in the AL (Tampa was last by far due to their “opener” gambit).     

I think it’s really challenging to pull a starter who is doing pretty well after 5 innings, when you have a rotation of guys who are often being pulled in innings 2-4 for poor performance.    That’s asking a lot of your bullpen.    

I think you do it in a case by case basis. You don't necessarily pull a guy automatically after five innings or after he's gone through the order twice, but you have guys up and ready to go. The starter gets a very short leash, especially in a close ballgame.

[Frobby]

18 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I think you do it in a case by case basis. You don't necessarily pull a guy automatically after five innings or after he's gone through the order twice, but you have guys up and ready to go. The starter gets a very short leash, especially in a close ballgame.

I think it will be interesting to see if we detect clear differences between the Elias/Hyde regime and the Buck regime in this regard.   Note I didn’t say the Dan/Buck regime, because I never felt that Dan had any input into Buck’s on field tendencies, though I think Elias will have some input with Hyde.  

[Just Regular]

50 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

What I also want to see is someone designated The Winner, who only comes in to relieve the opener when his team is tied or ahead.  The opener is ineligible for the win, so The Winner gets it.  Maybe 40-50 times in a season if you work it right.

And this should absolutely be someone like 38-year old Jacob DeGrom to fix his stats from last year.

It will be interesting to watch how this plays out the next couple seasons, especially for mid-career guys whose longevity may depend in part on their adaptability.

Jon Lester will fade away before this permeates all teams as much as I imagine it will; for Josh Hader, this kind of usage pattern may be all he ever knows.  But what becomes of Kyle Hendricks?

Andrew Miller probably won't have a Hall of Fame case 10 years from now, but if any Hader type can do it 110 innings for 12 years, what are they?

I do think the 50 or so starters who are the best will continue in roles that look familiar for a long time, but the drama the next year or two will come as clubs try to get starters who are a bit more "established" to not freak out when this stuff happens.  If they are still on the team August 1, I can see Alex Cobb and Dylan Bundy as possible 2019 cases.  I'd try it with Cashner even before then.

 

[Tony-OH]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

I think it will be interesting to see if we detect clear differences between the Elias/Hyde regime and the Buck regime in this regard.   Note I didn’t say the Dan/Buck regime, because I never felt that Dan had any input into Buck’s on field tendencies, though I think Elias will have some input with Hyde.  

Agreed. It's clear Elias will have his hands in everything. The only question is will he be able to multi-task enough to do all of those jobs? He apparently will be GM, Scouting Director, and Farm Director at least for now. Maybe because the candidates he wants weren't available when he got the job, but between those roles and working with lineup and roster management, you gotta think the man will be quite busy.

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, Tony-OH said:

Agreed. It's clear Elias will have his hands in everything. The only question is will he be able to multi-task enough to all of those jobs? He apparently will be GM, Scouting Director, and Farm Director at least for now. Maybe because the candidates he wants weren't available when he got the job, but between those roles and working with lineup and roster management, you gotta think the man will be quite busy.

If there’s a character trait about Elias that worries me, it’s his tendency to want to do too much himself.   But as you say, that may be because the candidate pool was thin by the time he got the GM job.    We’ll see how this evolves over the next 12 months.  

[now]

10 hours ago, Pheasants said:

4 starters doing 5 innings each.  3 relievers doing 2 innings per game. (Can come back faster than the starters because less innings.) 3 finishers to do the 8th and 9th, and a long man for when the starter is bombed in the first three innings.  11 man staff; of course the Orioles might need 3-4 long men.

Surprised no one has commented on this proposal. Seems like a good plan, and that Elias/Hyde might be innovative/flexible enough to try it... Especially with Weaver/Palmer cheering them on (the four best guys to start, why water it down?--The same could be said of adding the 12th or 13th guy).

[sportsfan8703]

Can the SP even make it 3 IP?  Let along 3 times through?  

There is nothing positive to post about openers, piggy backing, Norfolk shuttle, because 75% of our P has been lit up in ST. It would just be rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. 

We’re also not doing the P any favors with OF defense. 

[DrungoHazewood]

14 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

But Galvin has that PED taint.

It was never illegal or against the rules to inject yourself with Doctor Herinomius T. Whipple's Magic Bull Testicle Extract.  That was the era where mothers happily gave their children cocaine in their mercury pills to fight the lumbago.

[DrungoHazewood]

13 hours ago, OrioleDog said:

And this should absolutely be someone like 38-year old Jacob DeGrom to fix his stats from last year.

It will be interesting to watch how this plays out the next couple seasons, especially for mid-career guys whose longevity may depend in part on their adaptability.

Jon Lester will fade away before this permeates all teams as much as I imagine it will; for Josh Hader, this kind of usage pattern may be all he ever knows.  But what becomes of Kyle Hendricks?

Andrew Miller probably won't have a Hall of Fame case 10 years from now, but if any Hader type can do it 110 innings for 12 years, what are they?

I do think the 50 or so starters who are the best will continue in roles that look familiar for a long time, but the drama the next year or two will come as clubs try to get starters who are a bit more "established" to not freak out when this stuff happens.  If they are still on the team August 1, I can see Alex Cobb and Dylan Bundy as possible 2019 cases.  I'd try it with Cashner even before then.

I think that we'll see almost all individual pitchers drop below the threshold where they can be nearly as valuable as pitchers used in traditional roles.  If you're pitching 110 or 140 innings a year and your leverage index is around 1.0 you have to be twice as effective per inning as a regular starter.  If your typical HOF starter has a 3.00 ERA in 240 innings for 15 years, your 120 inning guy needs to have a 1.50.  That's not happening.  So either they adjust the HOF thresholds downward, or they stop inducting pitchers.