Return of the Four-man Rotation

50PoundHead

50PoundHead

Hessmania Forever
Our resident cranky columnist in Minnesota (Patrick Reusse) has written a lot about baseball over the years and his latest column talks about Tampa Bay returning to a four-man rotation. I think Enscheff mentioned this strategy last fall in a couple of posts about how pitching strategy is changing and what Tampa Bay is doing appears to bear that out. In some sense, it's a return to those thrilling days of yesteryear with more statistical back-up to justify the strategy.

Link: http://www.startribune.com/rays-may-be-on-to-something-with-permanent-four-man-rotation/476434263/
 
Pitching will eventually morph into a handful of studs going 3 times through the lineup, and the rest of the pitchers being limited to 1-2 times through the order.
 
thethe said:
That's an interesting philosophy. Baseball is certainly evolving.
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It always has and will as long as the game is being played. It's also a copy league so once this catches on in a few places then you will see it en masse.
 
thewupk said:
It always has and will as long as the game is being played. It's also a copy league so once this catches on in a few places then you will see it en masse.
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But this strategy is a throw-back of sorts. Up until the 1970s, the four-man rotation ruled. Of course, pitching staffs usually consisted of 10 guys back then in the pre-DH era. The different spin here is that unlike back then when the complete game was an expectation and not a rarity, relief pitchers play a much larger role now. The interesting thing will be seeing if and how a lot of one-inning relief guys can transform their game to go two (or three innings). Possible new niche for guys who aren't making it as a starter.

You guys should take a look back at pitcher usage in the 1950s and 1960s and see how staffs were constituted and used back then. A lot of guys who appeared in 35 or 40 games with 10 to 15 starts. Very few one-inning relievers. Aces used in save situations. Can't do a lot of that anymore with the greater amount of stress placed on arms because of concentration on the fastball, but instructive nonetheless.
 
50PoundHead said:
But this strategy is a throw-back of sorts. Up until the 1970s, the four-man rotation ruled. Of course, pitching staffs usually consisted of 10 guys back then in the pre-DH era. The different spin here is that unlike back then when the complete game was an expectation and not a rarity, relief pitchers play a much larger role now. The interesting thing will be seeing if and how a lot of one-inning relief guys can transform their game to go two (or three innings). Possible new niche for guys who aren't making it as a starter.

You guys should take a look back at pitcher usage in the 1950s and 1960s and see how staffs were constituted and used back then. A lot of guys who appeared in 35 or 40 games with 10 to 15 starts. Very few one-inning relievers. Aces used in save situations. Can't do a lot of that anymore with the greater amount of stress placed on arms because of concentration on the fastball, but instructive nonetheless.
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We can also use as a model Iron Joe McGinnity, who starred when you were a kid.
 
50PoundHead said:
But this strategy is a throw-back of sorts. Up until the 1970s, the four-man rotation ruled. Of course, pitching staffs usually consisted of 10 guys back then in the pre-DH era. The different spin here is that unlike back then when the complete game was an expectation and not a rarity, relief pitchers play a much larger role now. The interesting thing will be seeing if and how a lot of one-inning relief guys can transform their game to go two (or three innings). Possible new niche for guys who aren't making it as a starter.

You guys should take a look back at pitcher usage in the 1950s and 1960s and see how staffs were constituted and used back then. A lot of guys who appeared in 35 or 40 games with 10 to 15 starts. Very few one-inning relievers. Aces used in save situations. Can't do a lot of that anymore with the greater amount of stress placed on arms because of concentration on the fastball, but instructive nonetheless.
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The Rays 4 man rotation is nothing like the olden day 4 man rotations.

The Rays are using 4 traditional starters and allowing the BP to handle the job of the 5th starter.

Eventually, teams will move towards having a couple guys allowed to go 180+ innings, and several guys going 100+ innings. They will use the 10 day DL and minor league options to rotate enough arms into the mix to make it work.

The whole idea will be to virtually eliminate pitchers seeing a lineup a 3rd time...exactly like playoff baseball is played now.
 
Enscheff said:
The Rays 4 man rotation is nothing like the olden day 4 man rotations.

The Rays are using 4 traditional starters and allowing the BP to handle the job of the 5th starter.

Eventually, teams will move towards having a couple guys allowed to go 180+ innings, and several guys going 100+ innings. They will use the 10 day DL and minor league options to rotate enough arms into the mix to make it work.

The whole idea will be to virtually eliminate pitchers seeing a lineup a 3rd time...exactly like playoff baseball is played now.
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I think the key to making the Rays plan work is having 3 or 4 guys in the pen who can go 2-4 innings. It is easier to make this work in the American League. I like the idea. It opens up a way to use a type of pitcher who has been squeezed out in recent years by all the power arms that teams have populated their pens with. This would be the marginal starting pitcher who doesn't have a great strikeout pitch but has enough of a repertoire to get through a major league lineup twice. If a couple of them also have options and can be shuttled back and forth between the majors and AAA I think it could work nicely for a team like the Rays.
 
nsacpi said:
I think the key to making the Rays plan work is having 3 or 4 guys in the pen who can go 2-4 innings. It is easier to make this work in the American League. I like the idea. It opens up a way to use a type of pitcher who has been squeezed out in recent years by all the power arms that teams have populated their pens with. This would be the marginal starting pitcher who doesn't have a great strikeout pitch but has enough of a repertoire to get through a major league lineup twice. If a couple of them also have options and can be shuttled back and forth between the majors and AAA I think it could work nicely for a team like the Rays.
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I think the biggest issue will be breaking the recent "one-inning" mindset that has been the modus operandi for most relief pitchers. I will be curious to see how big league teams run their Triple A pitching staffs. Like you say, C-minus starting pitchers may have a new career opening.
 
50PoundHead said:
I think the biggest issue will be breaking the recent "one-inning" mindset that has been the modus operandi for most relief pitchers. I will be curious to see how big league teams run their Triple A pitching staffs. Like you say, C-minus starting pitchers may have a new career opening.
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I think there are some choices to be made about how to build a pen. Teams have been skewing toward the high effort high strikeout guys, but maybe the pendulum starts swinging back to the multi-inning types.

Thinking about the Braves pen this year. Viz and Minter are obviously more of the high effort high strikeout type. But we have quite a few who could go two--Ramirez, Winkler, Gomez, Freeman. The thing is with those four it is probably just two. The wrinkle the Rays are showing an interest in requires some guys who can go 3-4 innings. Presumably we will have one guy like that, whether it be Kazmir, Wisler, Sims or Fried. Obviously we are not trying to do what the Rays are. But if we wanted to, we do have guys like Kazmir, Wisler, Sims, Fried. Maybe add Touki, Weigel and Sanchez to the list in a year or so.
 
nsacpi said:
I think there are some choices to be made about how to build a pen. Teams have been skewing toward the high effort high strikeout guys, but maybe the pendulum starts swinging back to the multi-inning types.

Thinking about the Braves pen this year. Viz and Minter are obviously more of the high effort high strikeout type. But we have quite a few who could go two--Ramirez, Winkler, Gomez, Freeman. The thing is with those four it is probably just two. The wrinkle the Rays are showing an interest in requires some guys who can go 3-4 innings. Presumably we will have one guy like that, whether it be Kazmir, Wisler, Sims or Fried. Obviously we are not trying to do what the Rays are. But if we wanted to, we do have guys like Kazmir, Wisler, Sims, Fried. Maybe add Touki, Weigel and Sanchez to the list in a year or so.
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In that scenario, do guys like Moylan become a luxury? Is the LOOGY going to go the way of the dinosaur.
 
50PoundHead said:
In that scenario, do guys like Moylan become a luxury? Is the LOOGY going to go the way of the dinosaur.
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I think there is probably always room for one specialist regardless of which way you go. Maybe 2 in an 8-man pen. If we go with a 7-man pen we probably should not carry both Brothers and Moylan, who need to be used mostly against same-sided hitters. With an 8-man pen it is more feasible.
 
It will be interesting to see how Snitker's bullpen management changes this year, now that he is getting some different analytical input. Subtle topic change here. The input last year seems to have consisted of Hart berating him over bringing Jim Johnson in during a high leverage situation.
 
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