GDT 6-2 Smyly and Smith behind the dish

If he’s a 4 inning guy then he needs to go to the bullpen...

There are ways to help this.

1) Use an opener. That may extend Smyly by an inning or two. By the time he's pitching the third time through the order (for him) it will start after Turner/Soto, etc.

2) Use our plethora of AAAA starters to piggy back with him.

This is becoming a failure of AA and Snit to continue to to allow this to happen.
 
If Smyly is a 4 inning guy, what difference does it make if he is a SP or a BP guy? It's 4 innings either way. The sooner folks get this SP vs BP classification system out of their dinosaur brains, the sooner the Braves can modernize their pitcher utilization.

Smyly is a good enough pitcher to face 15-20 batters, depending on fatigue and platoon advantages. Period. That's what he is, and no amount of desire to chase some silly W statistic will change that fact. So use him accordingly.

It doesn't matter if you like it. It doesn't matter is he makes $1M or $11M. It doesn't matter if he is a SP or a BP arm. All that matters is he is deployed correctly to maximize the Braves chances of winning on a particular night. The Braves need a manager capable of doing that, and they don't have that guy currently...and it is costing them wins.
 
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There are ways to help this.

1) Use an opener. That may extend Smyly by an inning or two. By the time he's pitching the third time through the order (for him) it will start after Turner/Soto, etc.

2) Use our plethora of AAAA starters to piggy back with him.

This is becoming a failure of AA and Snit to continue to to allow this to happen.

Either of those options work, but I just don't think Smyly can be involved in any late-inning high leverage situations. The game has changed and pitching wins is largely irrelevant now. It is going to be interesting when MLB reinstitutes the limit on pitchers on the roster next season. One wonders how that will mesh with new patterns of pitcher usage.
 
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