2015 Cubs Offseason: Building a Winner Around David Ross

[Eli]

Basically, you need to use up about 400 innings between the last two rotation spots so you can spread those innings out between 4 pitchers (or how many ever) and maximize their effectiveness.

I think the 5-man rotation is one of the last bastions of old-school thinking in baseball. Pitchers don't want to deviate from their routine and managers are reluctant to mess with that. Even someone like Maddon.

[SKO]

Basically, you need to use up about 400 innings between the last two rotation spots so you can spread those innings out between 4 pitchers (or how many ever) and maximize their effectiveness.

I think the 5-man rotation is one of the last bastions of old-school thinking in baseball. Pitchers don't want to deviate from their routine and managers are reluctant to mess with that. Even someone like Maddon.

Also there's a fuck ton of money tied into being a starter, hitting 200 IP, etc that players aren't going to want to give up either. If you make everyone into a reliever there's a lot of money being lost by a lot of people. They're going to fight that

[Quality Start Machine]

Basically, you need to use up about 400 innings between the last two rotation spots so you can spread those innings out between 4 pitchers (or how many ever) and maximize their effectiveness.

I think the 5-man rotation is one of the last bastions of old-school thinking in baseball. Pitchers don't want to deviate from their routine and managers are reluctant to mess with that. Even someone like Maddon.

I was actually wondering about this, if Joe was thinking about having the "bullpen days" from last September (of course, it's easier when you've got about 20 guys in the bullpen) and somehow implementing it this year - like maybe Hendricks and Warren being co-fives.

When you're got a bunch of guys who are able to play multiple positions, you might be able to shorten the bench by a man in order to accomodate this.

Not saying they should do this, mind you...but it's within the realm of possibility.

[World's #1 Astros Fan]

Basically, you need to use up about 400 innings between the last two rotation spots so you can spread those innings out between 4 pitchers (or how many ever) and maximize their effectiveness.

I think the 5-man rotation is one of the last bastions of old-school thinking in baseball. Pitchers don't want to deviate from their routine and managers are reluctant to mess with that. Even someone like Maddon.

Are you suggesting a 4-man rotation or a 6-man rotation?

[SKO]

Basically, you need to use up about 400 innings between the last two rotation spots so you can spread those innings out between 4 pitchers (or how many ever) and maximize their effectiveness.

I think the 5-man rotation is one of the last bastions of old-school thinking in baseball. Pitchers don't want to deviate from their routine and managers are reluctant to mess with that. Even someone like Maddon.

Are you suggesting a 4-man rotation or a 6-man rotation?

I don't think he's suggesting either, I think he's saying Joe probably is probably still going to use a normal 5 man rotation and try to let those guys pitch like normal starters. He has a quicker leash than most, and they've built a pretty good group of swing men, but he's not going to go so far as to basically declare the designation of starter meaningless and just piggy back a bunch of guys every 4th and 5th day. Most likely the players would really not be fond of it, and like I was saying, destroying the distinction between reliever and starter will have a lot of financial implications players probably won't like either.

[Oleg]

Basically, you need to use up about 400 innings between the last two rotation spots so you can spread those innings out between 4 pitchers (or how many ever) and maximize their effectiveness.

I think the 5-man rotation is one of the last bastions of old-school thinking in baseball. Pitchers don't want to deviate from their routine and managers are reluctant to mess with that. Even someone like Maddon.

Are you suggesting a 4-man rotation or a 6-man rotation?

Neither.

I'm suggesting running the top three out every 5 days, as usual.

Then, using the flexibility of Hammel, Hendricks, Warren, and Cahill for three (or so) innings a piece the other two days.  Hell, yu can even stagger them so that they could be available in emergencies on the days they're not scheduled.

Something like:
Arrieta
Hammel/Warren
Lester
Lackey
Hendricks/Cahil
Arrieta
Hammel/Richard
Lester
Lackey
Hendricks/Warren
Etc
Etc

Arrieta, Lester, and Lackey would be good for around 630 innings.
Hammel can go 120 or so.
Hendricks and Warren can give you about 100 each.
The rest is mop up for Cahill and Richard.
????
Profit!

But, yeah...getting the players buy-in would probably be a non-starter.

[Quality Start Machine]

Basically, you need to use up about 400 innings between the last two rotation spots so you can spread those innings out between 4 pitchers (or how many ever) and maximize their effectiveness.

I think the 5-man rotation is one of the last bastions of old-school thinking in baseball. Pitchers don't want to deviate from their routine and managers are reluctant to mess with that. Even someone like Maddon.

Are you suggesting a 4-man rotation or a 6-man rotation?

Neither.

I'm suggesting running the top three out every 5 days, as usual.

Then, using the flexibility of Hammel, Hendricks, Warren, and Cahill for three (or so) innings a piece the other two days.  Hell, yu can even stagger them so that they could be available in emergencies on the days they're not scheduled.

Something like:
Arrieta
Hammel/Warren
Lester
Lackey
Hendricks/Cahil
Arrieta
Hammel/Richard
Lester
Lackey
Hendricks/Warren
Etc
Etc

Arrieta, Lester, and Lackey would be good for around 630 innings.
Hammel can go 120 or so.
Hendricks and Warren can give you about 100 each.
The rest is mop up for Cahill and Richard.
????
Profit!

But, yeah...getting the players buy-in would probably be a non-starter.

Especially since you forgot Travis Wood. That's essentially a 9-man rotation.

[World's #1 Astros Fan]

Basically, you need to use up about 400 innings between the last two rotation spots so you can spread those innings out between 4 pitchers (or how many ever) and maximize their effectiveness.

I think the 5-man rotation is one of the last bastions of old-school thinking in baseball. Pitchers don't want to deviate from their routine and managers are reluctant to mess with that. Even someone like Maddon.

Are you suggesting a 4-man rotation or a 6-man rotation?

Neither.

I'm suggesting running the top three out every 5 days, as usual.

Then, using the flexibility of Hammel, Hendricks, Warren, and Cahill for three (or so) innings a piece the other two days.  Hell, yu can even stagger them so that they could be available in emergencies on the days they're not scheduled.

Something like:
Arrieta
Hammel/Warren
Lester
Lackey
Hendricks/Cahil
Arrieta
Hammel/Richard
Lester
Lackey
Hendricks/Warren
Etc
Etc

Arrieta, Lester, and Lackey would be good for around 630 innings.
Hammel can go 120 or so.
Hendricks and Warren can give you about 100 each.
The rest is mop up for Cahill and Richard.
????
Profit!

But, yeah...getting the players buy-in would probably be a non-starter.

Especially since you forgot Travis Wood. That's essentially a 9-man rotation.

The 40 Theriot roster would club the shit out of those posers.

[Saul Goodman]

All this stuff about rotations and pitcher usage was addressed by Joe Sheehan in his newsletter yesterday. However there is no way I'm posting it from my phone again, so if someone else doesn't post it first I will whenever I get around to it.

[SKO]

All this stuff about rotations and pitcher usage was addressed by Joe Sheehan in his newsletter yesterday. However there is no way I'm posting it from my phone again, so if someone else doesn't post it first I will whenever I get around to it.

Cool, I'd like to read it. I mean it's a fun thought exercise and the statistical arguments for it are sound, I just don't know what it would take to get the players to go for it, when Zack Greinke is getting 195 million and Darren O'Day is getting 31 million you're not going to be able to convince too many guys who view themselves as starters to accept that role.

[R-V]

It's $30 a year, wankers.

As we approach the 2016 season, I get back to one of my favorite framing devices, "20 years ago." I find that to be a key time frame for looking at changes, a generation of baseball, one in which almost the entire player pool turns over. The only player slated to play in 2016 who also played in 1996 is Alex Rodriguez. The only players who played in 1996 and 1976 were Dennis Martinez, Andre Dawson and Dennis Eckersley.

The player strike of 1994, which served to shorten both that season and 1995, made the 20-year framework problematic. The sample size of both years was large, but with neither season playing to conclusion and all the statistics truncated, you just about had to throw out both years for analytical purposes. (I do the same with 1981, which would otherwise have some historically bad team offensive performances.) So for the last two years, I've had to avoid the 20-year framing in lieu of "since 1996" or something similar that leaves the 1994 and 1995 seasons by the wayside. Now, we can get back to it.

Twenty years ago, the MLB leader in innings pitched was Pat Hentgen, with 265 2/3. The top ten ran down to Chuck Finley at #10, with 238. Forty-eight starters, nearly two per team, threw at least 200 innings. Last year, the MLB leader in innings was Clayton Kershaw, with 232. The bottom of the top ten was R.A. Dickey, with 214 1/3, and just 28 pitchers threw at least 200 innings -- fewer than one per team. Starting pitchers, top ones, durable ones, are paid incredibly well, and over the course of a generation we've asked them to pitch about 10-15% less in a season than before. The drop has come in frequency of starts -- 30 pitchers made at least 34 starts in 1996 and just one, Chris Archer, did last year -- and length of starts. There were 290 complete games in 1996, one in about 6% of starts. Last year, there were 104 complete games, fewer than one per day, and they occurred in about 2% of starts. Go beyond complete games; in 1996, a starting pitcher completed eight innings 719 times (16%). Last year, it was just under half that, 367 times (8%).

The role of starting pitcher, constantly changing, is now defined as "pitch as long as you can, and don't worry about finishing the game." The effect of the 1970s spurt in complete games and innings pitched, a fluke borne of a low offensive environment and pitchers whose developmental years were spent on high mounds in an even lower one, has finally washed out of the game. Clayton Kershaw is on his way to being an inner-circle Hall of Famer, and in his entire career he's faced 87 batters in the ninth inning. David Price just got a massive free-agent contract, and he's faced 79 batters in the ninth. We simply no longer concern ourselves with whether a starting pitcher can pitch complete games. We ask less and less from the very best pitchers in the game. This is borne largely out of concern for keeping them healthy, whether we know a 32-start season or max pitch counts of 120 or average pitch counts of 105 correlate with better health or not.

[R-V]

The innings the top starters in the game used to throw have to go somewhere, of course. Those ninth innings have belonged to relief aces and then closers for a while. Those eighth innings, more and more, belong to one-inning relievers themselves. Teams don't match up in the eighth inning these days so much as they give the eighth to one pitcher. Bullpens are now being constructed not just with a closer in mind, but with a specific eighth-inning role and increasingly, a seventh-inning role. It's a push-button way of assembling a pen, but as the baseball industry has become ruthlessly efficient at producing one-inning relievers, it's also been an effective one. There were twice as many outings of exactly one inning last year (7542) as there were in 1996 (3867). The average relief outing in 2015 was exactly one inning long.

These usage patterns are contributing to the max-strikeout, min-offense nature of today's game. Asked to pitch less frequently for fewer pitches, both starters and relievers have gained velocity. The development of the cut fastball in conjunction with that increased velocity has shifted the balance of power between pitchers and hitters, with the latter having to react more quickly to pitches that give off fewer clues as to what they'll be doing. The larger called strike zone has had an impact as well, but the biggest factor in the baseball we watch now is increased velocity enabled by smaller individual workloads, especially among relief pitchers.

A running theme in last year's postseason coverage was the "third time around the order effect." As originally presented by Mitchel Lichtman, all pitchers are less effective the third time around the order, and because of this -- and the depth and quality of bullpens -- many starters should be removed before facing a lineup a third time. This is particularly important in the postseason, where each inning and each game has increased meaning. I've been writing about this a lot, and one reaction to my coverage was fans saying they hoped the game wouldn't continue in this direction, with starting pitchers going 18 batters and then being removed. I understand this thinking; we're attached to the idea of "starting" pitchers being a breed apart from others, particularly middle relievers, the images of Young and Mathewson, Grove and Spahn, Gibson and Marichal, Maddux and Clemens a throughline of the game's history. What we're learning, though, is that once you get past the top of the pyramid, there's not much to separate, oh, Yovani Gallardo from Brad Brach. What separates most starting pitchers isn't their run prevention, but their durability, their ability to throw 100 pitches 32 times a year without breaking down or being destroyed by the opposition.

The Choice

SPs, third time through: .269/.328/.436
RPs, all:                       .245/.316/.386     

That's not entirely fair, as the second category includes a lot of pitchers who won't be used in the sixth or seventh innings. On the other hand, the first category includes a lot of pitchers who will be left in to pitch the sixth and seventh because they're good enough to lose effectiveness and still be better than the available relievers. The number of pitchers in that subcategory, however, is far smaller than you'd think.

[R-V]

What we have now are multiple trends leading to a place that may be aesthetically displeasing, but necessary to winning baseball games. The majority of MLB starting pitchers will be less effective the third time through the order than the fourth reliever on the staff will be the first time through. This is exacerbated by the lineup effect; the first batters a pitcher sees his third time through are the top of the lineup, usually the best or among the best hitters. A game is almost never more at risk than in batters 19-23.

The problem is that aesthetic part, the one that causes us to recoil at the idea of a starting pitcher being used in this matter. What about pitcher wins, which require a five-inning stint just for consideration? (Use better statistics.) What about days when the starter has pitched well and thrown very few pitches, leading to calls to leave the starter in the game? (Not predictive at all of future performance.) What about people management, treating players as humans rather than Strat cards? (This does that; Strat cards perform the same at all times, human pitchers don't.) All of the objections can be shot down, but at their core is the idea that starting pitchers are supposed to be special, and not interchangeable with relievers. This is less and less true with each passing year.

There will always be aces, but as we've seen, those aces are asked to do less and less with each passing generation. If you think the gap between 2015 and 1996 was large, check out 1976, when more than a quarter of starts were completed, when 24 guys threw 250 innings, and 61 threw at least 200. We don't do that any more. In time, it will seem less and less strange to have starters go 18 batters and leave.

What I'd like to see, however, is for some imaginative team to abandon the idea of the starting pitcher in two or three rotation spots in favor of a leveraged relief inning. The first inning is always pretty high-leverage. It's a scoreless game and you're always facing the top of the lineup. You usually have a fresh starting pitcher in the game, which is helpful, but the problem comes when that starting pitcher has to face those same hitters a third time around. Strict third-time-around strategy dictates you remove the pitcher at batter #19, because you don't want to give good hitters that third look.

What if, instead, you started the game with a one-inning reliever, probably your third-best one? In today's game, that's a pretty good pitcher throwing a moderate-leverage clean inning against the top of the lineup -- a situation you may not be able to get later in the game. Then, you would bring in your "starting" pitcher to throw the second, and he would pitch to at least 18 batters. The benefit here is that when it comes time to face batters a third time, he's not seeing 1-2-3 (and possibly 4-5), but rather the lesser hitters. The risk in leaving in the pitcher to face hitters a third time is mitigated in part by the lower quality of the hitters. The 18-batter strategy could be a 24-batter strategy with less added risk. This could even solve the pitcher-wins problem; official scorers can't give wins to starting pitchers who fail to complete five innings, but they can give wins to relievers who throw 3-4 effective innings.

In the early days of baseball, there were no starting pitchers, just pitchers. Just pitcher, really. The thinking we have about starting pitchers, about them having special status in our game, stems from a time when you were 30/70 to come back from a game without having been punched in the face. We've chipped away and chipped away at the mythos around starters over the past 140 years -- and certainly over the past 40. What I'm proposing here isn't a revolution, it's an evolution. Pitchers with the ability to throw 100 pitches 32 times a year will still have value, but they can be deployed in a manner that avoids the third-time penalty and gives their team a better chance to win.

[ChuckD]

Cool, I'd like to read it. I mean it's a fun thought exercise and the statistical arguments for it are sound, I just don't know what it would take to get the players to go for it, when Zack Greinke is getting 195 million and Darren O'Day is getting 31 million you're not going to be able to convince too many guys who view themselves as starters to accept that role.

Well, you wouldn't do it with guys like Greinke. You do it with a handful of 'tweener guys who would be bouncing between mid-long relief and spot start duty anyway (and probably paid accordingly).

But you're right in that there would need to be a  ...

paradigm shift
... in how compensation is structured to get many guys to buy in. You might be able to get by with lower quality pitchers in doing so. Since you're planning on pulling them in the 3rd from their "starts" they don't need to keep anything in the tank for the 4th-6th innings. Because: market inefficiency!

[SKO]

Cool, I'd like to read it. I mean it's a fun thought exercise and the statistical arguments for it are sound, I just don't know what it would take to get the players to go for it, when Zack Greinke is getting 195 million and Darren O'Day is getting 31 million you're not going to be able to convince too many guys who view themselves as starters to accept that role.

Well, you wouldn't do it with guys like Greinke. You do it with a handful of 'tweener guys who would be bouncing between mid-long relief and spot start duty anyway (and probably paid accordingly).

But you're right in that there would need to be a  ...

paradigm shift
... in how compensation is structured to get many guys to buy in. You might be able to get by with lower quality pitchers in doing so. Since you're planning on pulling them in the 3rd from their "starts" they don't need to keep anything in the tank for the 4th-6th innings. Because: market inefficiency!

I lol'd hard at the paradigm shift. Fantastic.