Foolish Baseball

[NCRaven]

Roster limits, whether it's 25 or 26, will always mean that starting pitchers that can go 6 or more innings will have greater value than others.  They won't be doomed, just harder to find and more expensive to pay.

[Frobby]

Here’s a look at innings per appearance for Tampa’s 2019 staff  (minimum 5 appearances):

5+: Morton (33), Yarbrough (28),  Chirinos (26), Glasnow (12).

4+: Snell (23)

3+: Beeks (33), Pruitt (14), McKay (13)

2+: Nobody

1.5+ Wood (19)

Here’s the Orioles’ 2019 staff:

5+: Bundy (30), Means (31), Cashner (17)

4+: Wojo (17), Hess (23), Brooks (14), Straily (14), Blach (5), Cobb (3)

3+: Ynoa (36), Eshelman (10), Shepherd (5)

2+: Rogers (5)

Not really that drastically different.  Tampa’s staff was just a lot better.

 

[LookinUp]

I don't think we're talking about 2-3 IP guys. I think it's more that we'll have guys who can go 4-6 IP, but few if any taking us into the 7th (assuming Felix/Harvey don't get their stuff back).

It's a staff of #3-5 starters, but potentially with depth there. 

[OFFNY]

3 hours ago, Sanfran327 said:

 

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

 

o

 

Harlan James: l Hey, look !!! A Reggie Jackson signed bat.

Marlon: l Whoa, man. Awesome.

Marlon and Harlan James: l Reggie, Reggie, REGGIE, REGGIE !!!

Harlan James: l How many homers did Reggie hit, like ...... in his lifetime ???

Marlon: l I don't know ...... a bunch.

 

 

 

o

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, NCRaven said:

Roster limits, whether it's 25 or 26, will always mean that starting pitchers that can go 6 or more innings will have greater value than others.  They won't be doomed, just harder to find and more expensive to pay.

No they won’t be doomed..but your prototypical #4 and #5 starters are going to be dinosaurs imo

[Can_of_corn]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Here’s a look at innings per appearance for Tampa’s 2019 staff  (minimum 5 appearances):

5+: Morton (33), Yarbrough (28),  Chirinos (26), Glasnow (12).

4+: Snell (23)

3+: Beeks (33), Pruitt (14), McKay (13)

2+: Nobody

1.5+ Wood (19)

Here’s the Orioles’ 2019 staff:

5+: Bundy (30), Means (31), Cashner (17)

4+: Wojo (17), Hess (23), Brooks (14), Straily (14), Blach (5), Cobb (3)

3+: Ynoa (36), Eshelman (10), Shepherd (5)

2+: Rogers (5)

Not really that drastically different.  Tampa’s staff was just a lot better.

 

You would have to remove those removed due to ineffectiveness.

 

[DrungoHazewood]

3 hours 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.    

1458 divided by 12 is 121 innings a piece.  So if you take a modern staff and divide up the workload evenly you just need 12 guys who can get you 121 innings each.  That's 2-3 innings once every three games, two innings more often than three. 

I'd be tempted to try that with a team like the Orioles who have a very long list of guys who could potentially be starters but none yet have the ego and service time to push back against not getting their 5-6 innings once a week.

I think it's inevitable that a team will try this, or something very close to it, and be successful.  Only then will we have reached the theoretical limit of the progression that's been going on since about 1871.

[jabba72]

 I remember being in an OOTPB league in 2016 and a few teams were doing this with their entire staff so this theory has been out there awhile. Tampa must like what the simulations are telling them. I think it makes the game more dull by not using a true SP, and just going by openers. 

[Just Regular]

4 hours 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. 

Tampa did for 60 x 9.

The 2019 Dodgers allocated IP among their Top 12 pitchers.   

180/180/180/150/90

Four others started between 6 and 15 games in middle distance land, and pitchers 6-12 went:

80/70/60/60/60/50/50

Of course they had Cy Young contenders cooling their heels and if we have ONE there will be the temptation to do Brewers CC Sabathia things.

I did hear Chris Holt's 105.7/podcast comments last week as suggesting we'll stick with a 5-man rotation, and change its makeup rather than considering 6-man.

[now]

There's always the Weaver method: better to give more innings to your best few guys than spread the load downward. Which holds true even if the top three aren't named Palmer, Cuellar, & McNally. (Btw how's that for the name of a crackerjack law firm?)

[Birdie99]

We’ve got some arms to be real excited for...granted I’m a glass half full guy. 
 

I’m here for this concert:

https://www.masnsports.com/steve-melewski/2021/03/getting-the-bowie-band-back-together-in-sarasota.html
 

 

[Just Regular]

2 hours ago, Birdie99 said:

We’ve got some arms to be real excited for...granted I’m a glass half full guy. 
 

I’m here for this concert:

https://www.masnsports.com/steve-melewski/2021/03/getting-the-bowie-band-back-together-in-sarasota.html
 

 

That's a good piece!   It's fuzzy in my brain if covid made me forget, or if I just didn't appreciate the arc of the Baysox 2019, and that all five SP were that good most of the year.    Fingers crossed Baumann can again do the trick of splashing in halfway through and becoming the "best one".  (No hitter optional).

[Sanfran327]

16 hours ago, OrioleDog said:

Tampa did for 60 x 9.

The 2019 Dodgers allocated IP among their Top 12 pitchers.   

180/180/180/150/90

Four others started between 6 and 15 games in middle distance land, and pitchers 6-12 went:

80/70/60/60/60/50/50

Of course they had Cy Young contenders cooling their heels and if we have ONE there will be the temptation to do Brewers CC Sabathia things.

I did hear Chris Holt's 105.7/podcast comments last week as suggesting we'll stick with a 5-man rotation, and change its makeup rather than considering 6-man.

I just had this same thought myself. They did it in a shortened season with other extremely high-caliber starters in the rotation to shoulder the load for the openers/bullpen games. I don't think it works when you have 3-4 "decent to pretty good" starters and a pool of 2-4 inning guys over 162. The wear and tear of the full season would cause a lot of burnout, but still, that's why you have the taxi squad. Even if you want to think of the season in 30, 45, or 60 day increments, those are still rolling increments, and I think it's hard to gauge how what Tampa did last year would apply to us in 2021. I think we're talking about two vastly different pitching staffs. 

[cnmilton]

Here is the game plan I would employ:

Have a 3 man squad deployed every 3 days with 2 relief pitchers in the bullpen. Each pitcher would pitch 3 innings, allowing for minimal times battesface each pitcher. This scenario, through 162 games, would give pitchers around 162 innings on the year, saving some wear and tear on their arms.

[now]

On 3/6/2021 at 5:25 AM, Birdie99 said:

We’ve got some arms to be real excited for...granted I’m a glass half full guy. 
 

I’m here for this concert:

https://www.masnsports.com/steve-melewski/2021/03/getting-the-bowie-band-back-together-in-sarasota.html
 

 

Hmm, I'm getting a strong deja vu looking at this list:

* Zac Lowther had a 2.55 ERA (13-7, age 23)
* Alexander Wells had a 2.95 ERA (8-6, age 22)
* Michael Baumann had a 2.31 ERA (6-2, age 23)
* Dean Kremer had a 2.98 ERA (9-4, age 23)
* Bruce Zimmermann had a 2.58 ERA (5-3, age 24)

... going back to Bowie's staff (division champs) in 2008:

* Jason Berken 12-4, 3.58, age 24
* Brad Bergesen 15-6, 3.22, age 22
* David Hernandez 10-4, 2.68, age 23
* Chris Tillman 11-4, 3.18, age 20
* Zach Clark 4-2, 3.60, age 24

Gaudy W-L records aside, that earlier squad had ERAs roughly a run worse than our current "band" of hopefuls. It produced one decent ML starter (Tillman) and reliever (Hernandez). Obviously Tillman's age at that level sets him apart. Otherwise I like our chances of improving the overall outcome in future MLB ceilings. What do you in-house talent scouts think of this comp?