Rotation

[BungleBengals]

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/eye-...elbow-shoulder

I know this is a Yahoo article, but I can see it being relevant to our team. It is a long article, but the gist is that it might be more effective to limit the innings of pitchers so they can pitch in more games.

The author uses the example of the Nationals pitchers:

Game 1:
Stephen Strasburg: 3 innings
Gio Gonzalez: 4 innings
Tyler Clippard: 2 innings


Game 2:
Jordan Zimmerman: 3 innings
Dan Haren: 3 innings
Craig Stammen: 2 innings
Rafael Soriano: 1 inning


Game 3:
Ross Detwiler: 3 innings
Drew Storen: 2 innings
Ross Ohlendorf: 2 innings
Henry Rodriguez: 2 innings

This is just an example, but the advantages are many. First, you get to throw Strasburg and Gonzalez in every series -- no rival gets to play the Nats without facing both of those guys (and Zimmerman). Second, you save guys' strength for the postseason. They still throw 6-8 innings a week, but they do it with more recovery time and less strain on their arms. Third, you get to give your bullpen consistent innings. As a reliever you're no longer sitting in the 'pen the entire game speculating about whether or not you'll throw. Reliever's workloads become more consistent and their arms would benefit as well.

I think this would be effective with our rotation when Cueto returns because then we would have 6 good starters in the rotation and this way they would all get some time to pitcher as well as keeping our BP loose. Not to mention the limit of 3 to 5 innings would be very good for Cueto and his lat issues. Also, this could be good for payroll as our pitchers would not have much weight to throw around come negotiation time.

Again I know this is Yahoo and would not likely happen in this organization with our manager and talent, but just thought it would be interesting to gauge the community about how it would affect this team if it was implemented.

[Norm Chortleton]

Interesting. But it will never happen. Even if it were a good idea, and I don't think it is, agents will never let it happen.

I know it's in style for a segment of baseball fans to hate the W and ERA stats; but that is how agents get the top pitchers in the game paid. They'll never allow their cash cows to make more appearances, most of which do not qualify for a W.

[RadfordVA]

I have always thought the next revolution would be when a team does something similar. What I like to call accountability baseball. Get 8 pitchers with back end rotation resumes. They pitch 4 innings and thats it. No matter what. Then the next guy pitches 4 innings. Enough with a manager trying to matchup and decide who to use on what day in a bullpen. It is quite silly really. Just say these are your 4 innings and it is your job to pitch them no one is bailing you out. The manager doesn't have to answer a million questions on decisions. The 4 remainder spots you could use for emergency situations and last innnings when it is needed.

There is a consistent advantage every season in the batter seeing the pitcher first time around. You would almost always have this advantage.

[kaldaniels]

I have always thought the next revolution would be when a team does something similar. What I like to call accountability baseball. Get 8 pitchers with back end rotation resumes. They pitch 4 innings and thats it. No matter what. Then the next guy pitches 4 innings. Enough with a manager trying to matchup and decide who to use on what day in a bullpen. It is quite silly really. Just say these are your 4 innings and it is your job to pitch them no one is bailing you out. The manager doesn't have to answer a million questions on decisions. The 4 remainder spots you could use for emergency situations and last innnings when it is needed.

There is a consistent advantage every season in the batter seeing the pitcher first time around. You would almost always have this advantage.

This would never work out.

[IslandRed]

From the article:

This is just an example, but the advantages are many. First, you get to throw Strasburg and Gonzalez in every series -- no rival gets to play the Nats without facing both of those guys (and Zimmerman). Second, you save guys' strength for the postseason. They still throw 6-8 innings a week, but they do it with more recovery time and less strain on their arms. Third, you get to give your bullpen consistent innings. As a reliever you're no longer sitting in the 'pen the entire game speculating about whether or not you'll throw. Reliever's workloads become more consistent and their arms would benefit as well.

Throwing on two days' rest instead of four days' rest is not more recovery time, it's less. The point of such a strategy is to give them less to recover from because they never pitch until truly fatigued.

Besides institutional inertia, the main problem I can see with it is, scripting three days' worth of pitching for 11 guys doesn't leave much room to adjust for extra innings or a guy who can't hit the side of a barn that day. Also, the first team that tries this had better have front-line homegrown pitching running out its ears for the foreseeable future, because it'll be very difficult to sign anyone from the outside who aspires to being more than a middle reliever and has other options.

Not saying it's not worth trying someday, but this is the sort of thing that might be best tried on the minor-league level first.

[RadfordVA]

This would never work out.

The Reds have had 4 starts this season where they didn't make it 4 innings. Only one less than 3 innings was Cueto's start where he was injured. A starter not being able to go 4 innings happens an insignificant amount of the time.

[Hollcat]

The Reds have had 4 starts this season where they didn't make it 4 innings. Only one less than 3 innings was Cueto's start where he was injured. A starter not being able to go 4 innings happens an insignificant amount of the time.

It's not the front end starters that would most likely be the issue. It's guys like Ross Olendorf in the original example trying to get through the sixth and seventh. When you bring someone like him in with a two run lead and the first three batters go double, single, double you have to make a move for someone who is not slated to be in the rotation that day and that throws off the next day because you have to use one of those pitchers and the issue just snowballs after a couple of outings that don't go how they are scripted.