Bullpens and State of the Game

[silverslugger]

I love baseball. I love watching baseball, reading about baseball, talking about baseball, and I used to love playing baseball in my younger days. I don't love 3 1/2 hour games (by the way, 3 of the Twins first four games have been 3 1/2 hour affairs). I don't love watching managers trot out to the mound 3 times in a single inning. I don't love situational moves multiple times in the 5th and 6th inning. Furthermore, I can't understand a manager attempting to tell the media and the fans that his bullpen is gassed and thin after all of three games over the course of four days, especially when said bullpen has 7 members. Jared Burton was apparently toast after having thrown all of 12 pitches on Wednesday and 10 pitches on Thursday. Seriously.

 

I long for the days when teams had a deeper bench instead of a deeper pen. I long for the days when most games were 2 1/2 hours, not 3 1/2. Simply put, I'm ready for change. Should there be a new rule where a reliever must pitch to a certain number of batters? It's the only way I think we can somewhat reduce the managerial blundering that is going on in most organizations right now. Anyone else on board? Any other ideas?

[BrentMpls]

I agree with you, but I think if anything there will be more and more of the trend to pitch less.

 

On 1500 this morning Souhan was interviewing Jason Roenicke (who pitched 3 innings last night), and talked about the 'hybrid' or 'piggyback' system that Jason just came from (Colorado experimented with and St. Louis used in their minor league system) where rather than have a pitcher go to the new magic number of 100 pitches, the pitcher is only expected to go for 4-5 innings tops and then pull in relievers.

 

/sarcasm So in that sense, the Twins have been very progressive. /sarcasm

 

You can find the Roenicke interview here:

Sunday SportsTalk | 1500 ESPN Twin Cities ? Minnesota Sports News & Opinion (Twins, Vikings, Wolves, Wild, Gophers)

 

I miss the days of having your starter carry the game and no pitch count. But I think this trend of pitching less with more people more often is becoming the norm, especially when you don't have a Verlander type guy on the team. It also is great for the advertising opportunities so I doubt you'll ever see the front office complain.

 

Pretty soon all games will be yankee-like in duration and not just because of delay tactics.

[ThePuck]

I have zero problem with the length of baseball games.

 

I do have issues with how easily a reliever can be 'unavailable'.

 

The pitching pool is diluted. More teams, more starters per team, more relievers per team. I wouldn't be surprised if at least 1/3 of the pitchers in baseball have no business being major leaguers, but because of the volume of pitchers needed, they are.

[IdahoPilgrim]

I hear where you're coming from - I don't like 3+ hour games either. But I don't see that changing, and while I wouldn't be opposed to your idea I don't think it would shorten the game dramatically.

 

There's a couple of things that are going on to contribute to this (IMO): 1) pitchers are throwing (and expected to throw) harder than they did back in the "old days." Either that, or players or just coming to the big leagues with more fragile arms (and I don't think that's the case). Harder throwing means more wear and tear on the arm which means longer recovery times which means the need for a larger pitching staff. I would love to go back to having a 4-man rotation and 15 players on the bench, but it ain't happening.

 

2) With the advent of advanced statistics, batters are getting smarter and have learned to work at-bats better, hence the longer games. It used to be if it was in the strike zone you hacked at it; now, it has to be "your pitch" or you lay off or foul it off.

 

P.S. These are just my impressions from watching the game now compared to watching it 40 years ago. I have not tried to evaluate my thoughts by pouring through a batch of statistics, nor am I going to try to (I have better things to do with my life). Stat-heads are welcome to refute me or ignore me as they wish - I'll sleep just fine either way.

[jay]

I'd agree completely with your first point and call that the larger factor. Today's pitchers, especially in the BP, are much closer to max exertion on every pitch. Thus, the number of relief appearances has increased.

 

The second point, I'm not as sure about, but the numbers support your impression. Pitches per game have also increased since 1988. The average number of pitches thrown per game is rising » Baseball-Reference Blog » Blog Archive

[spideyo]

I wonder how much a difference it makes in terms of relievers getting worn out/over used/injured when you look at how few pitchers are throwing 7,8,9 innings a start. Is it easier to stay healthy when you are only throwing every 5th day, even if you are throwing 5-10 times more pitches?

 

It also seems like you get a lot more pitchers who have had significant, and often multiple, arm surgeries that are still pitching. I'm guessing part of this is because there is a push to throw harder and more arm-twisting breaking balls at an earlier age, but also I think a lot of the guys that do these surgeries may have just retired earlier 20+ years ago. While the technology has certainly improved the chances of successful surgeries and decreased rehab time, I don't think anyone would claim that a pitcher is going to be more durable after a surgery, regardless of how well they recovered. I know if I'd had shoulder surgery or something, I'd be a lot less inclined to push to stay in longer or pitch more frequently, if only because in the back of my mind I'd always be nervous that I'd end up on the operating table again