Twins pitching piece to share

[Riverbrian]

 

My interest is finding a way to have a 12 man staff for the majority of the season.

I don’t think that is possible with the stacking strategy.

I wonder about the opener. I would like to look at the Rays opener starts and see how many pitchers were typically needed in those games and then compare that to the number of pitchers needed in starts by Twin fifth starters. Is the opener a greater burden on the bullpen?

While I do wonder about the opener strategy I am certain that the Twins need 5 good arms they can rely on in the bullpen or it doesn’t matter how they configure their rotation. I think they need to add 3 relievers.

 

If you do the research.. I'd be interesting in viewing it. 

 

[old nurse]

 

You don't need to get 160 innings out of all the starters. It does not make sense to apply old metrics to a new approach and you would not need 8 of them. You need to cover roughly 1500 innings. If you only need 3 regular SPs we should be able to come up with 3 that average 180+. Let's say you get 186 and 2/3 that's 560 innings. If 4 "stacked" SPs give you another 500, you need 440 innings out of 6 RPs or 73 and 1/3 per RP.  

 

I think this concept has merit. We know that most SPs do considerably worse the 3rd time through the order. It sure makes sense to take an approach that mitigates this problem. 

The average baseball season is 1780, not 1500 innings .   That would be 720 innings out of 6 RP.  440 out of 6 would be a rarity, 720 is not happening. Even then, Hildenberger and Rodgers were called overused at pitching 73 and 69 innings

Having 2 SP average 180 innings is difficult enough, having 3 effective ones is a challenge.

[Mr. Brooks]

You don't need to get 160 innings out of all the starters. It does not make sense to apply old metrics to a new approach and you would not need 8 of them. You need to cover roughly 1500 innings. If you only need 3 regular SPs we should be able to come up with 3 that average 180+. Let's say you get 186 and 2/3 that's 560 innings. If 4 "stacked" SPs give you another 500, you need 440 innings out of 6 RPs or 73 and 1/3 per RP.

 

I think this concept has merit. We know that most SPs do considerably worse the 3rd time through the order. It sure makes sense to take an approach that mitigates this problem.

Only 35 pitchers pitched 180+ innings last year. Quite doubtful that the Twins are going to find 3 that can do that.

[Riverbrian]

 

Only 35 pitchers pitched 180+ innings last year. Quite doubtful that the Twins are going to find 3 that can do that.

 

MLR's numbers may be off a little bit... but the concept is spot on.

 

You are correct but only, if you look at each individual player and not the roster spot each player occupies.  

 

For Example, If Archer throws 96 innings and is traded to the Pirates for Glasnow who goes on to throw 55 innings. That is basically 151 innings for one spot on the roster.  

[old nurse]

 

 

Depending on how it's structured, the Twins could have a 12- or 13-man pitching staff with the proposal. You would have Berrios and Gibson, then three spots paired up, which would be another 6. If you thought the stacking could go 5/4 in two of those three spots, you could pretty easily hold 4 relievers on top of that.

 

Part of what would make it work is that the relievers the Twins have all have options left. They could shuffle through a group of 6-8 relievers for those 4 spots pretty well.

The ideas is to have the starter go through the batting order twice. 18 batters faced.  Perfect game, 6 innings. If your 3/4/5 pitchers become league average  on those 18 batters 1.5 will get a walk, there will be 4.5 hits.  That is counting on 6 pitchers to be league average to get 4+ innings each out of them. Double plays and caught stealing average less than 2 a game total, hence the plus with the 4.  Pitcher 3 and 4 could be league average or better, I would have doubts on 4-6 being league average

[Mr. Brooks]

MLR's numbers may be off a little bit... but the concept is spot on.

 

You are correct but only, if you look at each individual player and not the roster spot each player occupies.

 

For Example, If Archer throws 96 innings and is traded to the Pirates for Glasnow who goes on to throw 55 innings. That is basically 151 innings for one spot on the roster.

The poster I quoted specifically said 3 individual starters get 180+ innings each, not combined innings for a spot.

[Riverbrian]

 

The average baseball season is 1780, not 1500 innings .   That would be 720 innings out of 6 RP.  440 out of 6 would be a rarity, 720 is not happening. Even then, Hildenberger and Rodgers were called overused at pitching 73 and 69 innings

Having 2 SP average 180 innings is difficult enough, having 3 effective ones is a challenge.

 

In 2018. MLB had an average of 1449 across baseball. The Twins were at 1443.1 innings. 

 

This makes sense because 162 X 9 is 1458. 

 

1780 divided by 162 is an 11 Innings per game average. 

 

TEAM IP
Chicago Cubs 1476.1
LA Dodgers 1476
Oakland 1465.2
Arizona 1463
San Francisco 1461.1
Milwaukee 1461
NY Mets 1460.2
Boston 1458.2
Cleveland 1457.1
San Diego 1457
Atlanta 1456.2
NY Yankees 1456.1
St. Louis 1455.1
Houston 1455
Colorado 1452.1
Seattle 1448.2
Tampa Bay 1448.1
Washington 1446
Philadelphia 1445.2
Minnesota 1443.1
Miami 1442
Cincinnati 1441
LA Angels 1437.1
Chicago Sox 1437
Pittsburgh 1434
Toronto 1433.2
Kansas City 1432
Baltimore 1431
Texas 1431
Detroit 1425.1
IP
Amer. Lea. 1444
Nat. Lea.  1455
Baseball 1449

[Riverbrian]

 

The poster I quoted specifically said 3 individual starters get 180+ innings each, not combined innings for a spot.

 

Well... then you nailed him. 

[Riverbrian]

 

151  is not close to 190 unless you are Vietnamese currency, aptly names the dong. So as to avoid trouble, other people can make the joke about https://www.greatamericancoincompany.com/products/one-million-vietnamese-dong-vnd

 

My mistake... I forgot to include the 27 innings thrown by Wilmer Font. 

[old nurse]

 

 

In 2018. MLB had an average of 1449 across baseball. The Twins were at 1443.1 innings. 

 

This makes sense because 162 X 9 is 1458. 

 

1780 divided by 162 is an 11 Innings per game average. 

 

TEAM IP
Chicago Cubs 1476.1
LA Dodgers 1476
Oakland 1465.2
Arizona 1463
San Francisco 1461.1
Milwaukee 1461
NY Mets 1460.2
Boston 1458.2
Cleveland 1457.1
San Diego 1457
Atlanta 1456.2
NY Yankees 1456.1
St. Louis 1455.1
Houston 1455
Colorado 1452.1
Seattle 1448.2
Tampa Bay 1448.1
Washington 1446
Philadelphia 1445.2
Minnesota 1443.1
Miami 1442
Cincinnati 1441
LA Angels 1437.1
Chicago Sox 1437
Pittsburgh 1434
Toronto 1433.2
Kansas City 1432
Baltimore 1431
Texas 1431
Detroit 1425.1
IP
Amer. Lea. 1444
Nat. Lea.  1455
Baseball 1449

Even at 1400 innings the maths shows it is not sustainable for the bullpen production. Find a team that had 6 relievers  pitching  360 innings  much less 440. Theory versus what has been done.

[USAFChief]

My mistake... I forgot to include the 27 innings thrown by Wilmer Font.

the point though, is the same.

 

TB had one starter throw 180 innings...Blake Snell, who won 21 games.

 

The 200 inning starter is on the endangered species list, and 180 inning starters bear watching for possible inclusion.

[Major League Ready]

 

The poster I quoted specifically said 3 individual starters get 180+ innings each, not combined innings for a spot.

 

The Twins used 34 pitchers in 2018. It would have been a convoluted mess to try to explain this in any other way other than using roster spots. Of course, this is very obvious and the context of that post very clearly used roster spots. You ignored the hard facts and twisted the information rather than consider the merit of the alternative. 

 

You also ignored some very basic math here. They don't need to have 3 guys exceed 185 innings. They need 3 guys to average 185 innings. Berrios and Gibson had 189 innings so the 3rd guy would only need 171 innings. It's also reasonable to believe Berrios will become more efficient and add a few innings to his total.

[notoriousgod71]

25 years ago the Atlanta Braves used 13 pitchers the entire season and one of them pitched 1.2 innings and another pitched 23.2. Those were the days.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

You don't need to get 160 innings out of all the starters. It does not make sense to apply old metrics to a new approach and you would not need 8 of them. You need to cover roughly 1500 innings. If you only need 3 regular SPs we should be able to come up with 3 that average 180+. Let's say you get 186 and 2/3 that's 560 innings. If 4 "stacked" SPs give you another 500, you need 440 innings out of 6 RPs or 73 and 1/3 per RP.

 

I think this concept has merit. We know that most SPs do considerably worse the 3rd time through the order. It sure makes sense to take an approach that mitigates this problem.

exactly right, and we know that a number (maybe 200 or so) of innings are coming from pitchers not on the 25 man roster.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

25 years ago the Atlanta Braves used 13 pitchers the entire season and one of them pitched 1.2 innings and another pitched 23.2. Those were the days.

the average team uses close to twice that nowadays

[Riverbrian]

 

Even at 1400 innings the maths shows it is not sustainable for the bullpen production. Find a team that had 6 relievers  pitching  360 innings  much less 440. Theory versus what has been done.

 

Yeah but that's kinda the point. 

 

If you continue to try and slam this into the traditional model it isn't going to work so you got to stop doing that. 

 

The Rays are the only team that has tried it and they started trying it in May so you are not going to find teams that have 6 relievers reaching that pinnacle. All you can do at this point is look at the Rays and how do you divide up all those innings because they blurred the lines by removing the S's (starters) and R's (Relievers) from the P's (pitchers) and made them just P's (pitchers) in a lot of cases. 

 

The Math can work but it takes a new way of thinking. 

 

1450 Innings divided by 13 pitching roster spots and you have an average of 111 Innings per roster spot. 

 

If 3 guys (preferably your best guys  ) throw let's say 170 innings each. That's 510 innings. 

 

1450 minus 510 is: 940

 

Now take 4 traditional reliever roster spot who will give you about 60 innings a year. That's 240 Innings. 

 

940 minus 240 is 700

 

And those 700 innings are divided by the 6 roster spots who are used for stacking or whatever and you are back to 117 innings. Which is close to the original average of 111 innings (1450/13). 

 

Those 6 roster spots could go to a combination of: Odorizzi, Pineda, Mejia, Romero, Stewart and Gonsalves. But please don't get locked into those names... it's for example purposes.

 

Who's to say that Taylor Rogers who was arguably our most effective pitcher in 2018 couldn't stretch his inning count.

 

If you stop and think about it... why does it make sense to stop your best pitcher at 60 innings while forcing a guy with a 5.76 ERA to throw 160 innings just because one guy has an R in front of his P and the other guy has an S in front of his P. Isn't it about time we started to question the guy who said that starters have to go 6 and relievers only go one inning and nobody goes 3 ever!!! Unless something goes horribly wrong. 

 

Things don't have to be that systematic and as things start to improve... you can always adjust again. 

 

If the Rays had Snell, Archer plus Cole, Verlander and Kuechel... They wouldn't have tried it. If the Rays get, Cole, Verlander and Kuechel to join Snell next year... They will probably operate like the Astros did this year. 

 

It's about the distribution of the innings. Get your best pitchers more innings. 

 

 

[old nurse]

 

The Twins used 34 pitchers in 2018. It would have been a convoluted mess to try to explain this in any other way other than using roster spots. Of course, this is very obvious and the context of that post very clearly used roster spots. You ignored the hard facts and twisted the information rather than consider the merit of the alternative. 

 

You also ignored some very basic math here. They don't need to have 3 guys exceed 185 innings. They need 3 guys to average 185 innings. Berrios and Gibson had 189 innings so the 3rd guy would only need 171 innings. It's also reasonable to believe Berrios will become more efficient and add a few innings to his total.

57 pitchers pitched 160 or more innings last year.  58 the year before. I am not sure anyone was too excited about Shields or Bundy.  Gioloto would not have gotten those innings on a contending team, 17 had Hellickson, Moore and Hammel pitching out the year on bad teams.  Three spots averaging 180 innings may be far fetched let alone 3 players.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

The problem with this is, some clever team already decided that 5 starters, instead of 4, works better...and everyone followed suit.

And before that, some clever team decided that three starters was too few...and everyone followed suit.

And before that, some clever team decided that one pitcher per game, who pitches the entire game come hell or high water, wasn't the best way to play the game...and everyone followed suit.

Pitching has been evolving since the second year of organized baseball. Just because everyone did it that way a couple years ago has never prevented experimentation. Not today, and not 100 years ago.

Pitchers pitch fewer innings. That's been a trend forever, and I dont see that changing. I think it's more likely we see roster expansion than a return to smaller staffs with 5 Traditional starters.

It would be futile to argue against any of this (after all, you’ve been watching baseball for all that time, ba-dum tschhhh.)

 

I’m just skeptical that the Twins will discover any great advantage to doing these things. If the two guys in the stack can make it work, great, but then that’s two guys on the roster taking the place of one. I’m also not sold on the abilities of the guys listed who are candidates to take part in this. We hear a lot about the “pros” of doing these things, not so much about the “cons”.

[Major League Ready]

There are 32.4 starts for a 5 man rotation which means the top 3 spots (not individuals) need to average 5.2 IP for the concept of stacked SPs to work. This would result in 550IP. For example, Boston got 525 IP out of their top 3. Of course, Sale, missed 6 starts, and Price missed a couple. Therefore, their replacements would have only needed to manage 3 innings per start to get to 550 innings.

 

Let’s look at the playoff teams and see what their top rotation spots produced. In other words, instead of modeling the failures, let's model the successes.

 

Cleveland had 4 starters over 175 IP and 2 over 200. (780 IP) This does not account for any missed starts.

 

Houston had 3 guys over 200 Innings and a 4th with 167 that missed a couple starts.

 

The Yankee’s top 3 had 500 innings and missed 9 starts. They would have needed to get 5 ½ innings per start out the replacements to get to 550IP. Of course, they have a loaded BP so the usage makes sense. 

 

Oakland only had 1 guy with 160 innings.

 

Colorado had 4 guys that averaged 187 innings.

 

Cubs top 3 pitched 556. 

 

Braves top 3 had 525IP so they would have needed to get 4 and a third out of their replacements.  They also had Sanchez give them over 5 and 2/3 for 24 starts.

 

Dodgers had a lot of guys miss starts so it would takes some effort to see what they averaged from their rotation.

 

One could conclude that producing 550 IP out the top 3 rotation spots has a high correlation to contending.  It's also apparent that it's far from an impossible feat. 

[Major League Ready]

 

 

 

Ops, I quoted the wrong post so I deleted it. This is in response to Chiefs post which suggested this concept required two roster spots for producing the innings previously provided by one roster spot.

 

You are applying traditional and perhaps antiquated concepts. Why do we have to look at as two guys taking one roster spot. Why can't we look at as to stackers taking the place of to traditional RPs who now provide 120 innings instead of 60? The fact is that it's a little of both. 

[ashbury]

I love the thinking however, there will be issues with Odorizzi and Pineda buying in if you limit it to Berrios and Gibson.

Being manager is not easy.

 

My approach to getting buy-in is to offer to leave the "starter" in to face the top of the lineup a third time, if he is going well in a game begun by an Opener, and where there is a little bit of a lead to work with (so that I don't have to pull him after one baserunner). Show me he can be a three times through the full lineup guy, and we'll take the training wheels off and skip the Opener next time it's his turn.

 

Until then, "enjoy the show during the first inning and be ready to go after that."

 

Maybe I don't speak the language of top notch competitive athletes, though.

 

In that case, it's on the manager to find the right way to state it, in terms of it being a team game, yadda yadda.

[old nurse]

 

 

Yeah but that's kinda the point. 

 

If you continue to try and slam this into the traditional model it isn't going to work so you got to stop doing that. 

 

The Rays are the only team that has tried it and they started trying it in May so you are not going to find teams that have 6 relievers reaching that pinnacle. All you can do at this point is look at the Rays and how do you divide up all those innings because they blurred the lines by removing the S's (starters) and R's (Relievers) from the P's (pitchers) and made them just P's (pitchers) in a lot of cases. 

 

The Math can work but it takes a new way of thinking. 

 

1450 Innings divided by 13 pitching roster spots and you have an average of 111 Innings per roster spot. 

 

If 3 guys (preferably your best guys  ) throw let's say 170 innings each. That's 510 innings. 

 

1450 minus 510 is: 940

 

Now take 4 traditional reliever roster spot who will give you about 60 innings a year. That's 240 Innings. 

 

940 minus 240 is 700

 

And those 700 innings are divided by the 6 roster spots who are used for stacking or whatever and you are back to 117 innings. Which is close to the original average of 111 innings (1450/13). 

 

Those 6 roster spots could go to a combination of: Odorizzi, Pineda, Mejia, Romero, Stewart and Gonsalves. But please don't get locked into those names... it's for example purposes.

 

Who's to say that Taylor Rogers who was arguably our most effective pitcher in 2018 couldn't stretch his inning count.

 

If you stop and think about it... why does it make sense to stop your best pitcher at 60 innings while forcing a guy with a 5.76 ERA to throw 160 innings just because one guy has an R in front of his P and the other guy has an S in front of his P. Isn't it about time we started to question the guy who said that starters have to go 6 and relievers only go one inning and nobody goes 3 ever!!! Unless something goes horribly wrong. 

 

Things don't have to be that systematic and as things start to improve... you can always adjust again. 

 

If the Rays had Snell, Archer plus Cole, Verlander and Kuechel... They wouldn't have tried it. If the Rays get, Cole, Verlander and Kuechel to join Snell next year... They will probably operate like the Astros did this year. 

 

It's about the distribution of the innings. Get your best pitchers more innings. 

the Rays are using an opener then a primary, not a stacked system that Chase is saying. There is a big difference.  With an opener you want the primary to get to the bottom of the order for the third time through.  You are more likely to  get 6 innings out of your primary pitcher that way.

 

Glen Perkins was great as a reliever until the injuries, not so good with more innings. 

 

While there may be a few pitchers like Odorizi that are significantly worse the third time through, I would guess there are more like Mejia that are inconsistent or Lynn reaching near the pitch limit as reasons why they are not going longer

[biggentleben]

 

The ideas is to have the starter go through the batting order twice. 18 batters faced.  Perfect game, 6 innings. If your 3/4/5 pitchers become league average  on those 18 batters 1.5 will get a walk, there will be 4.5 hits.  That is counting on 6 pitchers to be league average to get 4+ innings each out of them. Double plays and caught stealing average less than 2 a game total, hence the plus with the 4.  Pitcher 3 and 4 could be league average or better, I would have doubts on 4-6 being league average

 

You don't think Stephen Gonsalves, Fernando Romero, Adalberto Mejia, Jake Odorizzi, Michael Pineda, Zack Littell, et al can produce six guys who are league average?

 

The league average point would give you six base runners on average. That means if they complete 18 hitters and record 12 outs, they're getting 8 innings per full pairing, requiring one bullpen inning. That's why I stated that with the ability to rotate through a number of relievers, you could keep a fresh arm available.

[Riverbrian]

 

the Rays are using an opener then a primary, not a stacked system that Chase is saying. There is a big difference.  With an opener you want the primary to get to the bottom of the order for the third time through.  You are more likely to  get 6 innings out of your primary pitcher that way.

 

Glen Perkins was great as a reliever until the injuries, not so good with more innings. 

 

While there may be a few pitchers like Odorizi that are significantly worse the third time through, I would guess there are more like Mejia that are inconsistent or Lynn reaching near the pitch limit as reasons why they are not going longer

 

The Rays didn't just use an opener... They Bullpenned their way through a significant amount of games. There were stretches when Snell was the only guy being rotated every 5 games. 

 

Your last paragraph is my point... There may be a few pitchers like Odorizzi who can't and few pitchers who can. And then there are guys like Perkins. When you consider all the shapes and sizes that pitchers take... Why does it make sense to shoe horn them into traditional set ups... meaning why force it like teams have done for decades... Why force Odorizzi to go through the order a third time when he consistently crashes? Reallocate the innings based on the context of your team.

 

Have a manager who can isn't locked into a 5 man rotation... The starter goes 6 innings... Relievers then throw an inning at a time. Distribute your innings better by opening the doors to new possibilities. 

 

 

[biggentleben]

The other end of this is that you don't have to stack with all three spots all year. Perhaps Pineda shows healthy and back to his best form in his prospect days. Then you have him work as any other starter.

 

As far as other teams doing this, the Dodgers, Braves, and Red Sox did this in the playoffs this season with a pitcher "prepared" from the 4th inning on with a starter that was intended as a piggyback setup of two starters executing the start of the game, not just calling the bullpen whenever the starter would falter, so teams have thought with this concept in the past and even in the postseason.

 

It's a utilized system by a few organizations in the minor leagues as well, especially in A-ball as pitchers are building stamina.

[Riverbrian]

 

Being manager is not easy.

 

My approach to getting buy-in is to offer to leave the "starter" in to face the top of the lineup a third time, if he is going well in a game begun by an Opener, and where there is a little bit of a lead to work with (so that I don't have to pull him after one baserunner). Show me he can be a three times through the full lineup guy, and we'll take the training wheels off and skip the Opener next time it's his turn.

 

Until then, "enjoy the show during the first inning and be ready to go after that."

 

Maybe I don't speak the language of top notch competitive athletes, though.

 

In that case, it's on the manager to find the right way to state it, in terms of it being a team game, yadda yadda.

 

And with that approach... I'd hire you to be my Manager. 

 

It's the same stuff I've been saying on the hitter side for months. Sing for your supper. Why would anybody give 500 AB's to a guy hitting under .200?

 

Why would you give over 120 innings to a guy with an ERA over 5.00? If a guy can't consistently get through the order a third time... why would you keep asking him to? The only answer is... because that's way it's been done for generations. 

 

(High Five) You are a brilliant man Ashbury John. 

[Mike Sixel]

If they don't do this, then they have two good starters and four or five minute ones you are trying to squeeze six innings out of. How's that going to work out? Not well, I'd guess. They should have tried this a few years ago. Instead look at the starters they tried. Yuck

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

The other end of this is that you don't have to stack with all three spots all year. Perhaps Pineda shows healthy and back to his best form in his prospect days. Then you have him work as any other starter.

 

As far as other teams doing this, the Dodgers, Braves, and Red Sox did this in the playoffs this season with a pitcher "prepared" from the 4th inning on with a starter that was intended as a piggyback setup of two starters executing the start of the game, not just calling the bullpen whenever the starter would falter, so teams have thought with this concept in the past and even in the postseason.

 

It's a utilized system by a few organizations in the minor leagues as well, especially in A-ball as pitchers are building stamina.

Ok well postseason is a completely different beast. You won’t see those teams do stacking by design during a regular season.

[ashbury]

(High Five) You are a brilliant man Ashbury John. 

Eclipsed only by your brilliance in recognizing me.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

 

I love the thinking however, there will be issues with Odorizzi and Pineda buying in if you limit it to Berrios and Gibson. 

 

The hardest part with the adjustment isn't the adjustment itself. A good manager can figure it out and just do it.

 

The Hardest part is going to be the thing that makes most adjustments hard. 

 

Money.

 

Starting Pitching makes a lot of money and bullpen pitching makes much less. This will be perhaps the biggest hurdle to player buy-in.

 

A front office can and should tear down the conventional walls if it improves your team... but once the wall comes down, there is another wall behind it and that wall (salary structure) is thick, entrenched and was based upon the model that has been removed.  

 

 

The analytic GM's are about to challenge that starting pitcher compensation model which will be added to the challenging of the free agent compensation model last off-season.

 

The next CBA negotiation is going to be horrible. 

 

Change is the slow boring of hard boards. 

This is true and no one else has addressed this important issue. There is more than one variable at play here. As that great American economist, Cuba Gooding Jr. said: "Show me the money".