Piggyback 8 man rotation

[reillymcshane]

How about a 13 man staff.

 

Pitchers are assigned to four men per game. They pitch every four days. That's 12 guys.

 

The goal is to get each pitcher to go through the line up once - roughly 2.1 inning per game. This way you rarely have a guy being seen by the other team more than once in a game.

 

You have a 13th man - a rubber arm guy - maybe even a crappy knuckleballer. His job is to pitch whenever and wherever needed. Extra innings? Give him the ball the entire time. Injury? Send him in.

 

Just spitballing an idea.

[FVBrewerFan]

How about a 13 man staff.

 

Pitchers are assigned to four men per game. They pitch every four days. That's 12 guys.

 

The goal is to get each pitcher to go through the line up once - roughly 2.1 inning per game. This way you rarely have a guy being seen by the other team more than once in a game.

 

You have a 13th man - a rubber arm guy - maybe even a crappy knuckleballer. His job is to pitch whenever and wherever needed. Extra innings? Give him the ball the entire time. Injury? Send him in.

 

Just spitballing an idea.

 

Same issue I referenced above. You are basically assigning a massive amount of innings to pitchers who aren't very good. Whatever upside you may get from only facing the line-up once is totally blown up by the fact that the 5-13 spots on the staff are not going to be nearly as good as your top starting pitchers.

 

In theory if all 13 pitchers were equally as good, it would make sense. In reality though, that wouldn't be the case. Who knows, I could be wrong, but that's how I see it.

[monty57]

I would take extra innings from our starters this year. I don't know why anyone would suggest that we give additional innings to our bullpen. Our starters have actually been pretty good, while our bullpen is the reason we aren't double-digit games up on the Cubs.

[DHonks]

While I like the idea, I'd rather consider a 4-man rotation (70-90 pitches) and let some other starters specialize in 2-3 inning stints.

[jerichoholicninja]

If we don't want to mess with the whole "rotation" idea and whatnot why not start the game with your relievers and bring in your starter after the pitchers spot comes up. The Brewers bullpen kind of sucks right now so I don't see this as a good idea with the current team but if you were to have some above average relievers I think it's sound strategy.

 

For example, your "8th inning" guy starts and throws the first inning facing the opponents best hitters. Your "7th inning" guy pitches the second inning and faces the (in theory) 2nd tier hitters. Typically your pitchers spot should be up in the second or third innings and you pinch hit, then put your starter in. Your starter gets the bottom of the order to get going and then the top of the order sees a different pitcher their next time up. Let your starter go as long as you typically would and then have your bullpen pitch the last inning or two. Obviously there are drawbacks but really this would be using your pitchers in no different way than they already are, you're just switching around which innings they're pitching.

[FVBrewerFan]

If we don't want to mess with the whole "rotation" idea and whatnot why not start the game with your relievers and bring in your starter after the pitchers spot comes up. The Brewers bullpen kind of sucks right now so I don't see this as a good idea with the current team but if you were to have some above average relievers I think it's sound strategy.

 

For example, your "8th inning" guy starts and throws the first inning facing the opponents best hitters. Your "7th inning" guy pitches the second inning and faces the (in theory) 2nd tier hitters. Typically your pitchers spot should be up in the second or third innings and you pinch hit, then put your starter in. Your starter gets the bottom of the order to get going and then the top of the order sees a different pitcher their next time up. Let your starter go as long as you typically would and then have your bullpen pitch the last inning or two. Obviously there are drawbacks but really this would be using your pitchers in no different way than they already are, you're just switching around which innings they're pitching.

 

What happens when the SP doesn't pitch well and you lose 8-1? Now you wasted your late inning relievers in a blow-out. Plus, the late inning guys can only pitch so many times in a week. So for the other games you're relying on the worst pitchers on the roster to start games.

[jerichoholicninja]

If we don't want to mess with the whole "rotation" idea and whatnot why not start the game with your relievers and bring in your starter after the pitchers spot comes up. The Brewers bullpen kind of sucks right now so I don't see this as a good idea with the current team but if you were to have some above average relievers I think it's sound strategy.

 

For example, your "8th inning" guy starts and throws the first inning facing the opponents best hitters. Your "7th inning" guy pitches the second inning and faces the (in theory) 2nd tier hitters. Typically your pitchers spot should be up in the second or third innings and you pinch hit, then put your starter in. Your starter gets the bottom of the order to get going and then the top of the order sees a different pitcher their next time up. Let your starter go as long as you typically would and then have your bullpen pitch the last inning or two. Obviously there are drawbacks but really this would be using your pitchers in no different way than they already are, you're just switching around which innings they're pitching.

 

What happens when the SP doesn't pitch well and you lose 8-1? Now you wasted your late inning relievers in a blow-out. Plus, the late inning guys can only pitch so many times in a week. So for the other games you're relying on the worst pitchers on the roster to start games.

 

Not really. Like I said, you're using your pitchers the same way you were before just changing which innings they're pitching. And when you're starter gets blown up starting a game it ruins your bullpen too. No matter how you plan to use your pitchers it's not going to work every time and adjustments are going to be made.

[monty57]

This whole thread seems to be trying to find an "outside the box" solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

 

Most MLB starting pitchers should be able to get through 5-6 innings on a semi-regular basis. If you have a pitcher who cannot do this, you either replace him, or find a creative way to work with that one spot, not the entire rotation. Limiting the innings of your best pitchers and giving them to lesser pitchers would probably have a negative effect on their aggregate numbers.

 

Your starters are generally your best pitchers, so let them pitch as much as they are able. Your best relievers should be used at the most important time of the game. It could be argued that this is the late innings, or it could be argued that this is anytime when the game is on the line. I doubt you could argue that it is the first inning of a game, or that it is a scheduled appearance on a set day regardless of the situation. Your worst pitchers should be the least used, getting mainly "garbage" innings. They should not be scheduled to get as many innings as your top starters, sometimes replacing them early when the starter is pitching well.

[jerichoholicninja]

This whole thread seems to be trying to find an "outside the box" solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

 

Most MLB starting pitchers should be able to get through 5-6 innings on a semi-regular basis. If you have a pitcher who cannot do this, you either replace him, or find a creative way to work with that one spot, not the entire rotation. Limiting the innings of your best pitchers and giving them to lesser pitchers would probably have a negative effect on their aggregate numbers.

 

Your starters are generally your best pitchers, so let them pitch as much as they are able. Your best relievers should be used at the most important time of the game. It could be argued that this is the late innings, or it could be argued that this is anytime when the game is on the line. I doubt you could argue that it is the first inning of a game, or that it is a scheduled appearance on a set day regardless of the situation. Your worst pitchers should be the least used, getting mainly "garbage" innings. They should not be scheduled to get as many innings as your top starters, sometimes replacing them early when the starter is pitching well.

 

That's the thing though, that's not really true anymore. An average reliever is putting up the numbers of a top of the rotation starter. Just scouring the pitching leaderboards here is where the first starting pitcher falls in these categories.

 

ERA+: Kuechel 28th

FIP: Sale 31st

K/9: Salazar 28th

 

Those 3 were the easiest to sort through getting rid of guys who've only thrown a couple innings but every rate pitching stat leaderboard I looked at is dominated by relievers. And I understand it's because they only pitch an inning at a time but that doesn't really matter. All that matters is the results and the results show that the way they are used, relievers are better at getting outs than starters are. So unless you're Scherzer or Kershaw, you should be pitching less innings at a time to be more effective.

[monty57]

This whole thread seems to be trying to find an "outside the box" solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

 

Most MLB starting pitchers should be able to get through 5-6 innings on a semi-regular basis. If you have a pitcher who cannot do this, you either replace him, or find a creative way to work with that one spot, not the entire rotation. Limiting the innings of your best pitchers and giving them to lesser pitchers would probably have a negative effect on their aggregate numbers.

 

Your starters are generally your best pitchers, so let them pitch as much as they are able. Your best relievers should be used at the most important time of the game. It could be argued that this is the late innings, or it could be argued that this is anytime when the game is on the line. I doubt you could argue that it is the first inning of a game, or that it is a scheduled appearance on a set day regardless of the situation. Your worst pitchers should be the least used, getting mainly "garbage" innings. They should not be scheduled to get as many innings as your top starters, sometimes replacing them early when the starter is pitching well.

 

That's the thing though, that's not really true anymore. An average reliever is putting up the numbers of a top of the rotation starter. Just scouring the pitching leaderboards here is where the first starting pitcher falls in these categories.

 

ERA+: Kuechel 28th

FIP: Sale 31st

K/9: Salazar 28th

 

Those 3 were the easiest to sort through getting rid of guys who've only thrown a couple innings but every rate pitching stat leaderboard I looked at is dominated by relievers. And I understand it's because they only pitch an inning at a time but that doesn't really matter. All that matters is the results and the results show that the way they are used, relievers are better at getting outs than starters are. So unless you're Scherzer or Kershaw, you should be pitching less innings at a time to be more effective.

 

Those innings still have to be pitched, so if you take them away from your starters, then you are adding them to someone else. You are wrong in stating "...that really doesn't matter. All that matters is results..." because if you add those innings to your top relievers, their results will probably get worse. If you add them to your lesser relievers then they will blow more games as we've seen with the Brewers this year. If you do as the initial poster stated and give them to your AAA starters, then you have to have 8-10 legitimate MLB caliber starting pitchers. In the Brewers' history, they've rarely been able to find three legitimate MLB caliber starting pitchers in any given season.

 

As long as they play 162 nine-inning games, and rosters are 25 men, we will have to deal with a limited number of pitchers throwing all those innings. Most relievers are failed starters, so I'll stand by my belief that your starting pitchers are usually your best pitchers. Those failed starters made it to the MLB because they can do well when only pitching one inning at a time. Make them do more than that, and you are just taking innings from your successful starters and giving them to the guys who proved at an early age that they can't handle them.

[FVBrewerFan]

If we don't want to mess with the whole "rotation" idea and whatnot why not start the game with your relievers and bring in your starter after the pitchers spot comes up. The Brewers bullpen kind of sucks right now so I don't see this as a good idea with the current team but if you were to have some above average relievers I think it's sound strategy.

 

For example, your "8th inning" guy starts and throws the first inning facing the opponents best hitters. Your "7th inning" guy pitches the second inning and faces the (in theory) 2nd tier hitters. Typically your pitchers spot should be up in the second or third innings and you pinch hit, then put your starter in. Your starter gets the bottom of the order to get going and then the top of the order sees a different pitcher their next time up. Let your starter go as long as you typically would and then have your bullpen pitch the last inning or two. Obviously there are drawbacks but really this would be using your pitchers in no different way than they already are, you're just switching around which innings they're pitching.

 

What happens when the SP doesn't pitch well and you lose 8-1? Now you wasted your late inning relievers in a blow-out. Plus, the late inning guys can only pitch so many times in a week. So for the other games you're relying on the worst pitchers on the roster to start games.

 

Not really. Like I said, you're using your pitchers the same way you were before just changing which innings they're pitching. And when you're starter gets blown up starting a game it ruins your bullpen too. No matter how you plan to use your pitchers it's not going to work every time and adjustments are going to be made.

 

What do you mean not really? Your late inning guys are only used when you're winning to maximize their outings. If you START a game with them there will be lots of games where they were wasted because they lose those games. You only get 3-4 appearances or per week for a reliever, wouldn't you want Knebel, Barnes, etc. to be used in game they win? If you start them, you are wasting them in many games.