Sergio Romo; Tampa’s new #3 starter. And #4 starter sometimes … photo via Zimbio.
The Tampa Bay Rays, thanks to a run of injuries to their starting rotation this spring, and perhaps a bit of typical organizational ingenuity, are doing something this year that has a lot of people talking; they’re essentially using a closer-quality pitcher to start games, get through the top of the opposing team’s order the first time, then hands it over to the real “starter” (or in most cases longer man) who pitches a typical starter-length outing.
They seem to be sticking to conventional outings for their two best starters (Chris Archer and Blake Snell) even now, but spring training elbow injuries to planned starters Brett Honeywell and Jose De Leon (both Tommy John surguries), plus recent injuries to #3 starter Jake Faria, Yonny Chirinos (not Laurel Chirinos!) and Nathan Eovaldi and a lack of upper-end SP prospects has led them to this point.
This strategy is getting put to its biggest test over the Memorial Day weekend series they have with Baltimore, announcing that they’ll be “starting” relievers all three games.
So far this season, they’ve used the strategy at least twice; with Sergio Romo starting on back to back nights.
- 5/20/18: Romo pitches the first and strikes out the side before handing off to starter Ryan Yarborough, who pitches 6+ and gets the win.
- 5/21/18: Romo, going back to back nights, faces the first 6 batters; walks two, gets the other four out, zero runs; the rest of the game is a bullpen game, but the team loses to Shohei Ohtani and the Angels.
Of course, reaction to the moves is already as you’d expect it to be, given our current climate of hot-take/knee jerk reactions. You’ve got “get off my lawn” types talking about how this isn’t “good for the game.” You’ve got Joel Sherman (who has been around the sport long enough to know what they’re doing) calling the strategy “Bizarre.” And you’ve got progressive types like Houston’s A.J. Hinch praising the move.
So, what do I think of this?
Well …. honestly this is the natural evolution of the trend towards specialized relievers that we’ve been seeing lately. A mediocre/failed starter can be converted to a highly valuable reliever by just having them throw harder and focus on mastering two pitches instead of attempting to master three or four, and it happens All The Time. See Rivera, Mariano and Eckersley, Dennis for hall of fame exhibits A and B here (ok .. to be fair Eckersley was by no means a failed starter … but he would not be in Cooperstown had he not become a dominant closer).
Well, what if you had an entire roster of specialized relievers instead of spending tens of millions of dollars on a rotation?
Take the Nats: our top four starters this year are earning north of $80M this season. What if you had spread that $80M around on a bunch of closer/near-closer types, the kinds of guys who go for significantly less per annum? What if you had an entire team of guys like Ryan Madsen ($7.6M) or Sean Doolittle ($4.3M) or Brandon Knitzler ($5.5M). Heck, why not load up y our team with pre-arb guys like Sammy Solis ($560k) and Matt Grace ($557k) and spend that $80M on improving the out-field players?
I’ve often wondered if a team couldn’t just have essentially 12 relievers and would basically turn every game into a bullpen game. What if you deployed your staff kind of like this:
- Three “Closer” quality guys (like our Doolittle)
- Three solid RH 7th/8th inning types like Madsen and Kelley.
- Three left-handed match-up guys (Solis, Grace)
- Three long-men types who could soak up innings but who can’t turn over a lineup more than twice (kind of like Jeremy Hellickson but perhaps more like a 4-A starter, or what Edwin Jackson is doing in AAA).
You take half this squad and they’re the A-team; that gives you 5-6 arms to pitch the first game of the week. Then, they all get a break and the other 5-6 arms get the next game. In a typical week every reliever then gets three to four days off with off-games and off-days. The long-men only go every two days, since you’re asking them to do 3-4 innings, but still get plenty of rest. So a pattern of games could look like this:
- Game 1: Closer1 pitches the 1st, RH1 and LH1 combine to pitch 2nd and 3rd. Longman1 comes in and throws 4th through the 7th. Then depending on where you are in the game he returns for the 8th or you go to your RH2/LH2 guy before handing off to Closer2 in the 9th. So that’s 5 to 6 arms used in the first game.
- Game 2: Closer3 starts. RH3 throws next two innings. Longman2 throws innings 4-7. LH3 finishes it out, perhaps throwing Closer1 a second day in a row if need be.
- Game 3: Closer2 starts. Perhaps you go right to Longman3 for a 5 inning stint. Back to RH1 and LH1 for the 7th/8th, then either let these guys do a 2 inning stint or go back to Closer3 for back-to-backs to finish the game.
So the workload for a 3-game series goes like this:
- Closers: 2 innings each with an off-day
- RH guys: 2-3 innings each with an off-day
- LH guys: 2-3 innings each with an off-day
- Long-men: 3-4 innings each with two off-days
That’s basically 27 innings across three games, assuming your middle relievers throw a couple of 2-inning stints in there, or one of your long-men does 4 innings instead of three.
Tell me why this wouldn’t work? Everyone gets a ton of rest, and if you burn out one of your longmen you just call up re-inforcements from AAA to do mop-up games here and there. You always have a closer going against the top of the order in the first inning, then you try to work it out so that you can do match-ups the next time they come up with a 7th/8th inning quality guy. The best hitters on the other team will eventually get a shot at your “long man…” but under this plan, they’re getting four at bats generally against four different arms. That’s going to give the advantage to the pitcher every time; batters don’t get to study up the opposing starter every night for research; they’re going to be seeing gas, trick pitches and one-trick ponies that have ridiculous BAAs and BABIPs thanks to their specialty.
So, who would love this?
- Owners. no more 9-figure contracts for starters who have like a 50% injury rate.
- Some Pitchers: more opportunities for guys who just couldn’t cut it as starters but who crush it as releivers.
Who wouldn’t like this?
- High end starters: less jobs, less demand for you. Maybe. I mean, right now Tampa is sticking with their two solid starters and only doing this for the other slots. Maybe a team with two Aces like the nats just lets them roll normally then does this kind of bullpen game the other three games out of five.
- Any baseball fan born before 1970, since they hate any change, any game modification. I mean come on, there’s people demanding that we ban the shift (including the commissioner).
- The Players union; you’d have to think salaries would plummet
- Maybe most every baseball fan? Offense drives fan interest … and this plan is specifically designed to neutralize the opposing team’s best hitters.
Thoughts?