Foolish Baseball

[LookinUp]

I follow this account on Twitter and thought this was a very interesting tweet that they sent yesterday. Note that they are not an Orioles account. It's a baseball account in general, so their observations about the Orioles aren't exactly Homer McFanboy types of observations. Anyway, I thought this might be an interesting discussion.

[Sports Guy]

Been saying this for a while.  I think the Os have a lot of guys that could be interesting openers.  I don’t know how many of them can go 5-6 innings but definitely agree that they have 2-4 inning guys galore.

[LookinUp]

Right.

Akin is a perfect example. So is Kremer. They have some swing and miss stuff, but not a deep 4-pitch arsenal that gets them through the lineup a 3rd time. 

With enough good arms like this, you can manage your way through lineups pretty effectively.

[Sanfran327]

12 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Been saying this for a while.  I think the Os have a lot of guys that could be interesting openers.  I don’t know how many of them can go 5-6 innings but definitely agree that they have 2-4 inning guys galore.

 

1 minute ago, LookinUp said:

Right.

Akin is a perfect example. So is Kremer. They have some swing and miss stuff, but not a deep 4-pitch arsenal that gets them through the lineup a 3rd time. 

With enough good arms like this, you can manage your way through lineups pretty effectively.

How many of these 2-4 inning arms would we need to get through 1,458 innings?

[Frobby]

Just now, Sanfran327 said:

 

How many of these 2-4 inning arms would we need to get through 1,458 innings?

Between 364 and 729.   

Oh, you meant they’ll pitch 2-4 innings more than once.  In that case, I have no idea.   
 

[Moose Milligan]

5 minutes ago, Sanfran327 said:

 

How many of these 2-4 inning arms would we need to get through 1,458 innings?

7 or 8, probably.

I'm not impressed until I am.  IMO, we've got a bunch of Rick Krivdas, Jimmy Haynes and Rocky Coppingers here, until proven otherwise.  Seen this one too many times before.

[Sanfran327]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

Between 364 and 729.   

Oh, you meant they’ll pitch 2-4 innings more than once.  In that case, I have no idea.   
 

Ha. I get it. 

[Sanfran327]

4 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

7 or 8, probably.

I'm not impressed until I am.  IMO, we've got a bunch of Rick Krivdas, Jimmy Haynes and Rocky Coppingers here, until proven otherwise.  Seen this one too many times before.

Would be interested to see a proposal of what a pitching staff would look like. Obv the 2-4 inning guys would offset some of the 1-inning specialists, but we'll still end up with at least 2-3 of those guys I'd think. From a roster standpoint, I wonder how it would make sense. You'd probably have to wear out the taxi squad to make it work, which we've done before. 

I like the idea and I have since it first came up on these boards 10+ years ago. I'm glad Tampa showed it could be successful last year. 

[NCRaven]

Keep in mind that you might have 2-3 in Baltimore at any given time.  But, if they're optionable, you have another 2-3 in Norfolk or the secondary site that you can shuttle up and down, as needed.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Sanfran327 said:

Would be interested to see a proposal of what a pitching staff would look like. Obv the 2-4 inning guys would offset some of the 1-inning specialists, but we'll still end up with at least 2-3 of those guys I'd think. From a roster standpoint, I wonder how it would make sense. You'd probably have to wear out the taxi squad to make it work, which we've done before. 

I like the idea and I have since it first came up on these boards 10+ years ago. I'm glad Tampa showed it could be successful last year. 

Yep.  I have also been an advocate.  It is a natural progression.

[Sports Guy]

49 minutes ago, Sanfran327 said:

 

How many of these 2-4 inning arms would we need to get through 1,458 innings?

I think that answer will depend on how many other guys you have that can go 5+ innings.

If I had to guess, you are lucky to have 3 guys in a rotation that give you 550 innings.

I think if you can get 3 guys to do that and then mix and match the other 2 days, you are in good shape.  I could see that being the best way to maximize your staff.  Most starters struggle once they go through the lineup 2-3 times.  So, don’t ask them to do it.

[Frobby]

12 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I think that answer will depend on how many other guys you have that can go 5+ innings.

If I had to guess, you are lucky to have 3 guys in a rotation that give you 550 innings.

I think if you can get 3 guys to do that and then mix and match the other 2 days, you are in good shape.  I could see that being the best way to maximize your staff.  Most starters struggle once they go through the lineup 2-3 times.  So, don’t ask them to do it.

I think it’s a lot easier to play these games if you do have at least a couple of solid guys in your rotation who can get through 6 pretty often.   Otherwise the math doesn’t really add up.    

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think it’s a lot easier to play these games if you do have at least a couple of solid guys in your rotation who can get through 6 pretty often.   Otherwise the math doesn’t really add up.    

I think it's a lot easier to find a couple solid guys who can get through six pretty often then it is to find four of them.

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think it’s a lot easier to play these games if you do have at least a couple of solid guys in your rotation who can get through 6 pretty often.   Otherwise the math doesn’t really add up.    

Yes, I would agree with that.
 

I guess my real point is that we worry so much about finding a 5 man rotation but perhaps if we (or teams in general) focused on a 3 or 4 man rotation, it would be easier to fill and you could use openers the rest of the time.  
 

[big_sparxx]

As I said in a previous thread. I think traditional starters are doomed. As Fangraphs notes the average innings per start has been getting lower and lower over the past several years. 

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/starting-pitcher-workloads-have-been-significantly-reduced-in-2020/

The nature of the game I believe is based on pitch counts now. Sure it's great to have guys who can throw 100 pitches over 7 or 8 innings, but I think there aren't that many guys who can do that any more.

We're gonna move to 3 innings per pitcher and hopefully  the effective guys won't get through the oppo lineup more than once.