Understanding Tampa’s pitching usage

[Frobby]

It has been suggested that the Orioles should adopt a pitching usage pattern similar to Tampa’s.    That’s debatable, but to debate it, we need to understand what Tampa actually does.   I spent a few hours really drilling down on this, and wanted to summarize what I found.
1.   Tampa’s starters threw 5+ innings in 100 of 162 games last year.   They went 6+ 46 times, including 11 games of 7+.   (FWIW, the Orioles’ starters went 5+ only 75 times, including 6+ 34 times.)
2.   Additionally, in 7 games where Tampa used an opener, the first reliever in (in all cases, either Ryan Yarbrough or Josh Fleming) went 5+ innings.    Those were clearly all planned.   So, that only leaves 55 games where nobody pitched 5+ innings.   
3.  Looking at the 62 games where the Tampa starter didn’t go 5 innings, in 27 the starter threw fewer than 3 innings; in another 11 the starter threw fewer than 4 innings; and in 24 the starter went fewer than 5 innings.   
4.   In the 27 starts under 3 innings, I’d say 24 were intentional uses of an opener strategy, 3 were cases where the starter got hit hard and was yanked.  As mentioned, in 7 of these games either Yarbrough or Fleming entered and pitched 5+.   In 7 others the first reliever threw 4+.  11 were true bullpen games, including the three that were just games where the starter pitched poorly.   There were a few of the bullpen games that look “unplanned” in that either Yarbrough or Wacha followed the opener but pitched poorly.

5.  Of the 11 games where the starter went 3+, it looks like 6 were intentional and 5 resulted from poor performance by the starter.   
6.   Of the 24 games where the starter went 4+. 18 appear to be intentional and 6 were the result of poor pitching.   
7.  There no particular pitchers who had a heavy diet of planned short starts.   Almost all the starters pitched 5+ the majority of the time.

My takeaways from this are that Tampa doesn’t intentionally use its starters for less than five innings as often as some people think.   Moreover, the fact that their starters go 6+ pretty often gives them more flexibility on the other days.  Finally, having a rigid rule that certain starters only go 3-4 innings is probably a bad idea and unworkable.   And that’s not what Tampa does.

I’m going to try to do a comparable analysis of the Orioles’ usage in another post.   But it suffices to say that there were a ton more games where the starter was pulled because he was pitching poorly.   

[wildcard]

 

These 10 starters  accounted for 141 starts.  The other 21 starts are from openers and bullpen games. 

Yarbrough:  pitched in 30 games;  8 of those were less the 5 innings;  5 of those he gave up 3 or less runs; The 3 in May and the 1 in Aug look planned looked planned.  Yarbrough pitch bulk inning 7 times.  21 Starts. ERA 5.11

Wacha:  pitched in 29 games;  13 were less than 5 innings; 9 of those games with  3 or less runs:  Wacha pitched bulk inning once. 23 Starts.  ERA 5.05

Fleming:   pitched in 29 games;  11 were  less than 5 innings;  12 of those games with 3 or less runs:  Fleming pitched bulk innings 7 times. 11 Starts.  ERA  5.09

Hill: pitched in 19 games;  7 were less than 5 innings;  3 of those games with 3 or less runs:   19 Starts.   ERA 3.87   Traded at the deadline.

McClanahan:  pitched in 25 games;   7 were less the 5 innings;  6 of those game with  3 or less runs;  Mostly of those early in the season.  25 Starts. ERA 3.43

Patino:  Pitched in 19 games;  11 were less than 5 innings;  9 of those games with 3 or less runs;   15 Starts.   ERA 4.31

Rasmussen:  Pitched in 20 games;  15 were less than  5 innings:  14 of those games with 3 or less runs;   Acquired in trade on May 21st.  10 Starts.  2.44 ERA

Baz: Pitched in 3 games;  1 was less that 5 innings:  1 of those games with 3 or less runs;  3 Starts.  ERA 2.03

Glasnow:  Pitched in 14 games:  2 were less than 5 innings; 1 of those games with 3 or less runs.  His last start.    Season ending TJ surgery.  14  Starts.  ERA  2.66

Archer:  Pitched in 6 games: 5 were less than 5 innings;  4 of those games with 3 or less runs.  2 as opener.  2 as 4 innings starts,  5 starts.    ERA 4.66

(Enns pitched bulk innings 3 times)

Bulk innings: Yarbrough 7, Fleming 7, Enns 3, Wacha 1.  That is a total of  18 times.

70  of the starts/bulk innings (49%) were by pitchers with an ERA over 5.00 including Yarbrough, Wacha and Fleming.

 

[wildcard]

 

How many times did these 10 pitchers go at least 5 innings? (Whether they started or pitched bulk innings)

Yarbrough:  22 out of 30

McClanahan:  18 out or 25

Wacha: 16 out of 29

Fleming: 11 out of 29

Hill: 12 out of 19

Glasnow: 12 out of 14

Patino: 8 out of 19

Rasmussen: 5 out of 20

Baz: 2 out of 3

Archer: 1 out of 6

In 107 out of 162 games these pitchers went at least 5 innings.  That is 66% of Tampa's games.

That is 107 out of 194 appearances  they went 5 innings.  So 55% they went at least 5 innings.  Clearly some of these pitchers were used as Starters/Relievers.

[wildcard]

How many times did these 10 pitchers go less than 5 innings and give up 3 runs or less?

Fleming: 6

McClanahan: 5

Patino:  6  of those 2 were as an opener

Wacha: 4 of those 3 were as an opener

Hill: 3  of those 2 were as an opener

Yarbrough: 3

Rasmussen:  3 of those 1 as an opener

Baz:  1

Archer: 4 of those 2 as opener

Total of 35 times.

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, wildcard said:

 

How many times did these 9 pitchers go at least 5 innings? (Whether they started or pitched bulk innings)

Yarbrough:  22 out of 30

McClanahan:  20 out or 25

Wacha: 16 out of 29

Fleming: 14 out of 29

Hill: 12 out of 19

Glasnow: 12 out of 14

Patino: 8 out of 19

Rasmussen: 5 out of 20

Baz: 2 out of 3

In 111 out of 162 games these pitchers went at least 5 innings.  That is 68.5% of Tampa's games.

That is 111 out of 188 appearances  they went 5 innings.  So 59% they went at least 5 innings.  Clearly some of these pitchers were used as Starters/Releivers.

A couple of corrections: McClanahan had 18 games of 5+, not 20; Fleming had 11, not 14; Archer had one you didn’t include.   That comes to 107 rather than 111.  That squares with para. 2 of my post, which said there were 55 games where nobody threw 5+.

[wildcard]

6 hours ago, Frobby said:

A couple of corrections: McClanahan had 18 games of 5+, not 20; Fleming had 11, not 14; Archer had one you didn’t include.   That comes to 107 rather than 111.  That squares with para. 2 of my post, which said there were 55 games where nobody threw 5+.

Thanks.  Made changes.  Added Archer.

[Just Regular]

The BP Annual had a chart of 2016-2021, comparing Rays vs. Rest of League in percentage of games a batter got a 3rd look at the starting pitcher.

2016: Rays and Other 29 teams 67% (Gausman leads O's 180 IP)

2017: Rays 62%, others 63%

2018: Rays 28%, others 58%

2019: Rays 35%, others 55%

2020: Rays 29%, others 40%

2021: Rays 35%, others 46% (Yarbrough leads Rays 155 IP, does NOT make playoff roster)

Breaking in McClanahan at Age 24, he was over 90 pitches just four times in 25 turns.   McClanahan also pitched just 125 minor league innings before his 2020 MLB debut in the postseason, and just 18 were in AA (0 in AAA).  McClanahan's track is highly different than many Rays SP stalwarts of the past who logged more minors time, but I'd guess the Rays don't mind if teams are copying what they were doing years ago.

[Aristotelian]

Sometimes the "opener" is a deliberate attempt to gain platoon matchup advantages. The real starter just come in the 2nd or 3rd with more favorable matchups, or the opponent has to empty their bench. You still need guys who can go 5+ innings. 

[Sports Guy]

I also think you will start to see a shift in how Tampa uses pitchers.  Their starting rotation is about to look really good.

[LookinUp]

Not sure what to make of all of these numbers. My takeaways are:

1. Tampa's pitchers are better than ours.

2. Tampa tries not to put their pitchers in disadvantageous situations (e.g., 3rd time through the order) as much as the rest of the league.

3. Not in the data, but guessing that when Tampa does let a guy stay in, it's a guy who is more likely to succeed if he stays in.