Why Does Bell Yank the Starter So Early?

[Cop-A-Freel]

I really want to love the guy but this drives me nuts. Is it analytics that is telling him to do this? When a dude is mowing people over and his pitch count is low, why not roll with him? I was actually excited he stuck with the reliever last night for a bunch of innings.

[M2]

Bell doesn't yank his SPs early. It's just modern baseball. He's a little quick on the trigger through 10 games, but it's a tiny sample size and it's nothing particularly notable. In the previous two seasons, he's stuck with his SPs longer than most other managers.

Year - Reds IP/GS (NL rank) - NL average IP/GS

2021 - 4.9 (11th) - 5.2
2020 - 5.2 (3rd) - 4.8
2019 - 5.5 (4th) - 5.4

[klw]

Another way to look at it is through 10 games Reds starting pitchers are averaging 81 pitches per game, just 2 fewer than the league average. A downside to striking out more batters is that it can lead to more pitchers per batter and a shorter outing in terms of innings if not pitches.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...pitching.shtml

[Cop-A-Freel]

Bell doesn't yank his SPs early. It's just modern baseball. He's a little quick on the trigger through 10 games, but it's a tiny sample size and it's nothing particularly notable. In the previous two seasons, he's stuck with his SPs longer than most other managers.

Year - Reds IP/GS (NL rank) - NL average IP/GS

2021 - 4.9 (11th) - 5.2
2020 - 5.2 (3rd) - 4.8
2019 - 5.5 (4th) - 5.4

I guess that makes sense since I don't really pay attention to that level of detail to other teams.

[Hoosier Red]

Bell doesn't yank his SPs early. It's just modern baseball. He's a little quick on the trigger through 10 games, but it's a tiny sample size and it's nothing particularly notable. In the previous two seasons, he's stuck with his SPs longer than most other managers.

Year - Reds IP/GS (NL rank) - NL average IP/GS

2021 - 4.9 (11th) - 5.2
2020 - 5.2 (3rd) - 4.8
2019 - 5.5 (4th) - 5.4

It's a bit of chicken and egg thing, but the longer outings than the average starters probably comes from the fact that the Reds starters have been better than the average starters across baseball.
I think Bell's actually had a pretty good feel for making sure pitchers don't get overexposed. Having relievers like Antone who can go 2-3 innings at a clip helps too.

One thing he's been really careful with to my naked eye has been making sure the back end of the rotation in particular doesn't go through a line up a third time. Which makes sense. Even if Wade Miley's mowing down opponents, you know it's only a matter of time before the other team sizes him up correctly.

[Larry Schuler]

Username + thread title = A+

[Mitri]

Miley could have gone another inning last night, but they wanted to stretch Tejay out to 60 pitchers or so. Mahle was really inefficient in his last start, resulting in a 4-inning outing.

Bell should have yanked De Leon earlier than he did over the weekend, but basically made him take one for the team.

[Puff]

So the OP can have “Cop-a-Freel” and I can’t have “2-in-the-Wink”?

[KronoRed]

We're lucky he leaves them in that long, Bell starts the game already thinking about his first double switch.

[dfs]

I guess that makes sense since I don't really pay attention to that level of detail to other teams.

Not banging on you, but fwiw there is a lot of this in general reds fandom. Folks who have not caught on how the game has changed in the last 50 years and want to see things the way they remember them.

You see quite a bit of it on this board which is by far the best reds dialog on the net. Lots of....well ....cesspools out there where folks seem to think the reds should throw a complete game two hitter with three grand slams every game.

After Baker, Bell looks like he's pushing buttons and pulling knobs all the time, but that's just the way modern rosters are constructed and used.