MacPhail: Pitching Plan Experiment in the Minors

[jorgenswest]

On this week’s episode of Inside Twins Drew MacPhail spoke about a pitching plan in the minors that looks to a scheduled four day rotation. They chose pitchers that were not in a starting rotation spot and are giving them a scheduled 4 day cadence in a quasi-starter role pitching 3-4 innings. Travis Adams game log in AAA fits this cadence. The claim is that they are getting more innings than some of their starters and they have seen the strikeout numbers tick up.

I went searching for these pitchers on this 4 day cadence other than Adams. Looking at the game logs the group in Wichita was the easiest to identify. Wichita has probably had less interruption in their schedule due to rain helping to keep the cadence at four days. The four quasi starters at Wichita have been John Klein, Mike Paredes, Justin Whorff and Pierson Ohl. There is evidence of others on the same schedule but Wichita had the most clear group.

The first claim was that they were matching or surpassing innings of the starters.

• Not quite. Klein and Paredes have near the same amount of innings as Baker and Rozek who are a 6 day starter schedule.

The second claim is that the numbers are improved. 

• Klein has improved in all areas. Strikeout rate is up from 20% to 28%. Walks have dropped 1%. His ERA,  xFIP and FIP are clearly better. Last year he threw 100 innings in a starter role. He is on pace to match or better that with his 44 this year.
• Paredes has gone the opposite direction with his strike out and walk rates. His ERA is better though at 2.49. He is on pace to significantly increase his innings pitched. He is already at 43. Last year he threw 65 innings in a relief role.
• Whorff was moved to AAA but spent most of this year in AA. In AA his strike out rate went from 24 to 30 and walk rates dropped from 9 to 5.5. His ERA, xFIP and FIP are all improved. He has 34.2 innings this year. Last year he had 71.
• Ohl started the season late due to injury and joined Wichita on April 25. His strike out rate has gone from 24 to 30 while his walk rate remains below 4%. ERA, xFIP and FIP are much improved over 2024. His innings (32.2) may not match last year’s (102) due to the later start. 

MacPhail said that the  hope is that pitchers will see improved success and be able to build back really well with this 4 day quasi-starter cadence. He ended with that maybe it something we will see in the major leagues with the Minnesota Twins.

So far the cadence for the starters in the minors has not changed. They pitch about every 6 days. I think we would see some changes with that starter cadence before we see it in the major leagues. What might that look like?

Do they use 8 pitchers in a 4 day cadence planning to get into the 7th or 8th before handing it off to the 5 man bullpen? Is it one group of 4 starters on that cadence with a 9 man pen? Can they afford to have the typical 5 man starting staff and 4 pitchers in the pen scheduled every 4th day leaving 4 unscheduled pitchers in the pen?

All teams need to be seeking ways to keep their pitchers healthy while improving their performance. I am glad the Twins are looking for ways to accomplish those goals with their minor league staffs.

 

[chpettit19]

Interesting stuff. It's what I was hoping/kind of expecting them to do with Varland this year. Maybe it's something they'll do with him in the future once they've proved the hypothesis in the minors. Being able to have even 1 guy who could do this in the majors would be huge. Giving the rest of the pen a day off every 4 days would definitely be worth a pen spot. 

The challenge then becomes what happens when that guy doesn't have it on one of his days and only gets you 1 inning? Probably not the end of the world most of the time. But can be a real killer depending on what the games around it are like. 

The other challenge is simply being able to have that many guys who can go that many innings effectively. I'd guess the idea is to be able to be fluid. Train everyone to be as effective as possible in the role that best suits them and be able to adjust as needed. You need to have a really good AAA pitching staff, though.

[Linus]

Interesting stuff. With traditional starters slowly going away I think these are the kinds of concepts that will be tried. At the end of the day it’s all about having your best pitchers pitch as much as they safely can no matter what it looks like. If Prielipp can be dominant 3-4 innings at a time for example, then figure out a way to deal with the other six instead of saying you can’t be a starter or you will only pitch 1 inning at a time. Time to throw out the traditional roles.