Outside the box pitching rotation

[NYChez]

Day 1: Suppan pitches 4 innings and Villanueva throws the next 5.

 

Day 2: Vargas pitches 5 innings, Wise goes 2, Turnbow and Coco wrap it up.

 

Day 3: Capuano pitches 5 innings and Gallardo throws the next 4.

 

Day 4: Bush pitches 7 innings, Turnbow and Coco wrap it up.

 

Day 5: Sheets pitches 8 innings and Coco wraps it up.

 

Would we ever lose? How many of the past 6 games would have had different results if they went with this plan?

 

The big negatives are: it would limit our ability to pinch hit in close games (but Gallardo is probably a better hitter than anyone else we would send up there) and we'd be paying $10 million to a 4-inning pitcher.

[pitchleague]

this also assumes that the hitters do their part to make this plan work. If we only manage a few hits and/or solo homers, there is no way this plan lasts more than 3 days.

 

Otherwise, it's a good idea.

[IslandsAC]

I like the outside of the box thinking and in theory it looks pretty sweet. If Sheets or Bush struggled at all however (not at all outside of the realm of possibility), there wouldn't really be anywhere to go as Villanueva and Gallardo would have been used fairly extensively a couple days before.

 

Also, if Yost were to all of a sudden use this philosophy and stick to it, without making it public... boy oh boy, he would never hear the end of it.

 

I think the overall appealing concept of this post is that with the addition of Gallardo (and the apparently impending addition of Parra?) the Brewers have the obvious ability to give a struggling starter a shorter leash and go to one of the two (or three with Parra) future starters out of the pen and be in decent shape.

 

(Realized after I typed this that it may be better suited for the Bullpen Management thread, didn't mean to hijack)

[twobrewers]

Sign me up!

 

It obviously can't really be used. As it taxes the pen extensively and provides no real backup should something happen.

 

But I see nothing wrong with "planned" 3 - 4 inning outings for YoGa and Villy. I hate giving them only an inning here and there - often in junk time.

 

If you have 7 starting pitchers - why not use them!

[robfuhr]

Didn't Tom Trebelhorn Dabble with something like this?

 

For some reason I rememeber Bill Krueger and Mark Knudson pitching 5 and 4 innings on occasion...

 

I also rememeber Trebelhorn, IIRC, discussing 3 inning pitchers and have 3 3 inning pitchers and not give them as many off days.

[NYChez]

Quote:

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But I see nothing wrong with "planned" 3 - 4 inning outings for YoGa and Villy. I hate giving them only an inning here and there - often in junk time.

---

 

Exactly - How are Gallardo and Villanueva supposed to bridge their number of innings up from last year to next year by only throwing a few innings a week? A planned 4- or 5-inning outing every 5 days would get you there.

 

This would also put Gallardo in position to be a starter again in late September if we need him.

[RightFieldCoder]

I think we're limiting the innings now so we can use them in September and *knock knock* in October. Villy has pitched into September, but I don't think Yo or Parra have. And I don't think they are reducing the innings on Villy, they made a decision to keep him in the pen since he's been doing so well out there.

[viking188]

Would we ever lose? How many of the past 6 games would have had different results if they went with this plan?

___________________________________________________

 

As utterly frustrateing as the pitching staff (except Sheeter) is at times....the rotation/pitch staff is not the major thing that needs fixing.

 

A single or long fly with RISP and less than 2 outs would come in handy once and a while.

Not haveing 4 errors in one game sure wouldn't hurt.

Scoreing runs in more than one inning, and or scoreing more than 2 runs would improve the W/L record.

If the 2B could find the ball with his bat would help.

And finally; not falling completely apart on the road, for whatever reason would change results alot.

 

PS; On paper I like the idea, but as pointed out above, it destroys the BP should any unforseen pitching problem arise.

[RightFieldCoder]

Or how about scoring more than 4 runs in a game you hit 4 HRs?

[viking188]

Thanks Robin, I knew I forgot one.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

[rluzinski]

I think it would be interesting to lightly pencil in Yo to follow Vargas every start. Maybe a 5IP / 2-3IP approach. I'd rather Yo not make a bunch of 1 IP appearances anyway, so this might limit his innings while still keeping him at least a bit stretched out.

 

I think Villy is too valuable to not just use him as needed.

[igor67]

What I think would be practical and fun to try would be usage patterns based much more on workload and somewhat on leverage. I believe it was Rob Neyer had offered the idea that our current usage patterns for pitchers don't really take into account the idea that certain pitchers have more ideal patterns of usage. In some cases this comes into play like with Wise not pitching back to back days. On the other extreme we talk about long relief guys going over a week without pitching and not being sharp. The idea was basically to focus more on having pitchers throw when it is best for them. So you'd be more likely to see guys throwing once every 2-3 days then three in a row.

Now I think in practice this only works with a fairly deep bullpen where you have a number of players you'd trust in a close game. For all the dithering we do have a fairly deep pen. I think all of us are reasonably confident in throwing CoCo, T-bow, Villy, YoGa, and Wise into a close game. Essentially the bet here is that Wise on two days rest is better then Cordero after 3 or 4 days in a row.