Could this ever work...

[BigChara33]

So currently, MLB starters pitch once every 5 days.

What if some daring manager tried to change this?

Have 3 of the best starting pitchers in the MLB with a disgusting bullpen.

For every tier 1 elite starting pitcher making 25-30m a year, you could have 3 tier 1 elite bullpen guys making $8-10m a year.

Cut down the rotation to 3 starting pitchers.

That allows 2 extra arms in the bullpen.

Pitch your SP 3-5 innings and let your bullpen take over...

That allows your SP's to throw every 3-4 days and your bullpen to do the rest.
Pitch your bullpen guys 2 innings instead of one so they only have to pitch once every 3rd day... You also get two extra arms in the bullpen.

Just an idea but imagine having Sale, Price and Scherzer every 3 days with a bullpen of Barnes, Kelly, Holland, Iglesias, Davis, Kimbrel, Nichek + 2-3 more arms...

 

[keninten]

I`ve never understood why anything similar to this has not been tried. Don`t know how pitchers would feel about this, especially the aces.

 

[BigChara33]

I`ve never understood why anything similar to this has not been tried. Don`t know how pitchers would feel about this, especially the aces.

You'd think they'd like to be able to pitch 55+ times a year instead of 30. For an ace to start a 4 game series and end it as well?

 

[keninten]

They wouldn`t get the win unless they went 5 innings. A guy like Kimbrel would be used for the middle of a lineup instead of as a closer.

 

[BigChara33]

They wouldn`t get the win unless they went 5 innings. A guy like Kimbrel would be used for the middle of a lineup instead of as a closer.

Andrew Miller? He has what, 1 save on the season and is one of the best, if not the best reliever in the MLB.

 

[keninten]

I think the team that eventually tries this will get the guys like Miller who will get their paycheck and then do what`s best for the team.

 

[BigChara33]

I think the team that eventually tries this will get the guys like Miller who will get their paycheck and then do what`s best for the team.

I think the Sox are half way to it. Our bullpen is pretty nasty already. If the newly acquired additions didn't have their arms fall off we'd almost be ready to pull this off. Of course, this useless kid from the Brewers blew out his arm before he ever pitched an inning and we gave up one of the NL MVP's for him. Carson Smith is actually more useful not pitching than Wade Miley is pitching so...

 

[smastroyin]

Here are the reasons this won't work.

1) You can't implement it during a season. Seriously, you need to start planning for this type of thing the day after your previous season ends. You have to change pitcher routines, etc. and you have to get everyone up to speed.
2) Managers talk a lot about the long haul of the season, but mostly manage to short term goals, i.e. winning the game. In this scheme, you can't manage to win the game. You are managing to win 6 out of 10, and you can never stray. So if you have a guy going great, you've gotta pull him. If you run into a guy that can't get an out, you have to sacrifice him and the game. If you have a tense situation in the 9th, you can't bring in Kimbrel to save the day again. etc.
3) While it is tempting to value only the ability to get outs, a scheme like this (because of the aforementioned situations) absolutely needs at least 1 and probably 2 guys whose pitching ability is to simply absorb different amounts of usage without a problem. This is more rare than you think, but of course modern pitching staff construction doesn't value these guys. Anyway, these guys are what allow you any flexibility in your plan. The way you've constructed your staff would be a disaster. Too many one inning guys that you would have to use 5 times a week.
4) Probably most important - it is almost impossible to get the players to buy into this scheme. Look up La Russa's 3-3-3 experiment with the Oakland A's back in 1993. It didn't last long.

 

[Green (Tongued) Monster]

I think the Sox are half way to it. Our bullpen is pretty nasty already. If the newly acquired additions didn't have their arms fall off we'd almost be ready to pull this off. Of course, this useless kid from the Brewers blew out his arm before he ever pitched an inning and we gave up one of the NL MVP's for him. Carson Smith is actually more useful not pitching than Wade Miley is pitching so...

Are you and keninten actually the same person having a discussion with yourself? This is a terrible idea for the reasons mentioned above and many more. And saying that the Sox are halfway to this is ridiculous. Also your dream roster mentioned in the opening post currently costs over 100 million annually with scherzer's jumping by 20 mill soon. Please think before you post, let alone start a new thread.

 

[Was (Not Wasdin)]

An injury to any one of your "Tier 1" guys, especially a starter, and the whole scheme is at risk. Two injuries, and you are punting the season.

 

[doc]

Why not just go back to the 4 day rotation, it would start in your minor league system and you would have to train your pitchers to pitch Q4 instead of Q5 which is probably a mental adjustment rather than a physical one.

 

[Curtis Pride]

The biggest hurdle to this idea is the recovery time for the starters' arms. In this plan, the starters would be pitching on 2-3 days' rest, and the only way to limit their wear and tear is to limit them to 50-60 pitches, or 3 innings per game. Then it becomes a math problem: 54 starts (162/3) * 3 IP/G = 162 IP instead 180-200 IP per starter. Which means teams would probably need 6 "starters" and 7 bullpen arms, or a 13-man pitching staff.and a 4-man bench. And the Red Sox would end pitching the likes of Robby Scott and Heath Hembree more often. It's just not the optimal use of available resources.

 

[DJnVa]

You'd never sign a FA SP to come here and pitch 3 innings and accrue no wins.

I get the whole "wins aren't important stat for SP" thing and I agree, but it's simply not going to happen. You'd also have to get your entire farm system pitching that way and these guys won't want to because when they eventually go to a sane and rational team, they'll have to get used to pitching like sane and rational teams have their SPs do.

 

[Kid T]

This sounds like something Bobby Valentine would have come up with.

 

[Sampo Gida]

Teams have enough trouble building bullpens with 7-8 guys in the pen and it gets harder adding more innings given the fact bullpen guys have a lot of variance from year to year.

I prefer to have the 4th and 5th spot in the rotation using 4 starters who piggy back on each other (assuming neither of these 4 starters are more than back end guys) This could reduce workload of the bullpen. If the first of the tandem starters is pitching well you let him roll for more than 4 innings. If the games out of hand one way or another let the last starter finish the game and give the regular pen a day off. Most teams have 7-10 starters that they use during a season. Some form of bullpen/starting depth AAA--MLB shuttle would be required, as it is now with many teams

 

[smastroyin]

I prefer to have the 4th and 5th spot in the rotation using 4 starters who piggy back on each other (assuming neither of these 4 starters are more than back end guys) This could reduce workload of the bullpen. If the first of the tandem starters is pitching well you let him roll for more than 4 innings. If the games out of hand one way or another let the last starter finish the game and give the regular pen a day off. Most teams have 7-10 starters that they use during a season. Some form of bullpen/starting depth AAA--MLB shuttle would be required, as it is now with many teams

Roster rules mean you're going to need to accumulate 6 guys that can take this role, and plan carefully. Once you send a guy down, he has to stay for 10 days. As well, you need to consider the fact that minor league rosters are limited and someone needs to pitch those innings, so you can't just hold the guys you send down waiting for their call-up.

 

[charlieoscar]

You need to look at when the scoring happens and from 2010 through 2016 the home team won 3165 games and lost 1209 (.724), regardless of what the visiting team did in the top of the first. If the visiting team failed to score in the top of the first but the home team did score, then the winning percentage jumped to .826 (2573-543). And it goes up.

The problem with trying a different type of rotation (aside from starters screaming about not getting win opportunities, etc.) is that there aren't enough pitchers to go around. You don't necessarily need an ace to have a good team record (although if I were in post-season play I'd like to have one), you could have five starters who go 14-10 each. As long as all the other pitchers have .500-records, the team would win 91 games. One ace and one good starter along with .500-ball from the rest gets you up there. But when you have pitchers who aren't giving you at least .500-ball, it takes a lot from the others to make up for that.

Back to the argument: Suppose you have a great young prospect who was an ace in his early years and is now at the point where he could become a free agent. You move to re-sign him but let drop that your team is going to move away from the standard 5-man rotation to a rotating rotation where he would be pitching three innings every three days. Do you think you'll get his signature or would he just rotate his chair around to face the door?

 

[Infield Infidel]

When I started reading the OP, I thought it was going to lay out like this: have 3 normal starters pitch on normal rest, and then a big bullpen pitch days 4 and 5, in addition to finishing out the normal starters' games. That would save money, but you'd have to then skimp on backups for positional players, but if you had really solid utility backups, I guess that could work. With solid backups they'd get almost starter-level ABs.

For instance, have 3 SPs, 8 regular position players, 1 backup each at C, IF, OF, that's 14, and then you could have an 11-man bullpen, just sending guys out for 1-3 innings each on days 4 and 5, plus finishing the starts of the 3 normal starters. If the starters avg 6 IP/g, the bullpen would have 80ish innings per pitcher which seems extreme. If they starters avg 7 IP/g, the bullpen would have 70ish innings per pitcher, closer to normal. There's probably a reason this hasn't been tried, and really bullpen starts were usually for emergencies and have more or less gone the way of the dodo.