Brock Beauchamp
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Everything posted by Brock Beauchamp
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If there was a special trick that allowed teams to hide bad pitchers, someone would have figured it out 80 years ago.
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The defense still wins in that situation. You've spread your best hitters through the lineup instead of stacking them together and later in the game still allows for favorable matchups.
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Wow, there are loads of people here who don't seem to actually understand the purpose of an opener. Clayton Kershaw is not going to have an opener start the game for him. The same goes for Verlander, Berrios, and all other starting pitchers who regularly show the ability to manage an opposing offense 3-4 times through a lineup. That entire argument is a strawman. The opener is not going to impact the best (or even good) starting pitchers in the game. It's for the other guys who aren't good enough to pitch more than 150 innings in a season and perform adequately in the traditional starting pitcher role (but still have enough talent to get through a lineup a couple of times).- 55 replies
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Getting better pitchers is the solution to literally every pitching problem. A smart team trying to work within the margins of the game, no matter the quality of their roster, is a separate issue.
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Ditto. Watching guy after guy miss the ball makes for a bad spectator experience.
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For the past 30+ years, the long reliever has been synonymous with mop-up (and limited) duty, usually filled by one of the team's worst overall relievers. So, no, this isn't the same thing, especially given its reverse order.
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The idea literally debuted in MLB this season. Not sure what you're really expecting here. By this rationale, no idea can ever succeed.
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Except that's not happening. What is happening is that the front office has decided there is a third kind of pitcher, one being underutilized in today's game: a guy who can go through a lineup once or more and get guys out, but is incapable of going through a lineup three times in a row.
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Because they've been trained to accept that swinging really hard and missing the ball is better than mediocre contact the majority of the time.
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I think the real argument here is that baseball, especially hitting, has changed. Today, there isn't a guy in MLB who can't drill a 94mph fastball with regularity. Pitchers keep ramping up velocity but it has side effects: you can't go as deep into a game if you need to ratchet your arm speed to 96mph for hitters 1-9. Doubly so because not only are hitters better but they're far more selective with their swings nowadays, running up pitch counts early. Therefore, we've seen a decline in starting pitching IP. There simply aren't that many guys who can effectively get through a lineup three times because, unlike previous decades, they no longer get to phone in the bottom of every lineup (or, in some cases, half or more of every lineup). So teams are figuring out new ways to get those outs. The opener idea has its merits for that reason.
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Oy, come on, vanimal. And teams used to scoff at people who drew walks regularly and considered it a non-skill, yet those teams still managed to make the postseason on a regular basis.
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That's my thinking as well. It would be an interesting experiment to aggressively pursue "tweeners" this offseason. Guys like May who could be very good one-inning relievers or, maybe more effectively, pretty good three-inning relievers twice a week. Then match that tweener with another tweener like Odorizzi and you use two pitchers through 7-8 innings of baseball, all at a relatively low cost to payroll. Except in that situation, May doesn't only need to pair up with Odorizzi. He could also pair with another pitcher later in the rotation. If done correctly, you could have two Mays match up with three Odorizzis in the rotation. That means you have seven pitchers who should be able to get you no fewer than six innings a game every game, hopefully as many as eight innings on a regular basis.
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Dunno. I think a lights-out one inning guy as opener has its merits but I also see the merit in using a guy like May to advantageously match the opposing lineup and have him go more than one inning. By going through two innings, you're essentially getting through the lineup once (or close to it), eliminating the need for a sixth or seventh inning guy a couple of times through every rotation turn. The upside there is that you might be able to shift a former bullpen piece to an offensive platoon, helping you on the other side of the ball with better matchups and more flexibility.
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In baseball, two of anything is never enough to make an informed decision. Also, it's quite the take to claim it's a failure after two attempts but then pre-emptivly "hot take" the opposition if they have the audacity to claim it's a success after one attempt.
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I think this is the problem with your thinking. Why do pitchers need to be binary? They're either a starter or reliever, case closed. What about the two guys mentioned in your post, May and Odorizzi? Both are more than short-appearance or mop-up long relievers but pretty questionable as starters. So why not throw out the current binary approach to pitchers and use those two guys to their fullest potential? Get 2-5 innings from each of them because they're capable of maintaining a pretty high level of performance in those situations but struggle beyond that point. And I'm not worried about May pitching the eighth if he gives 2-3 innings of good performance at the beginning of the game. Every out counts the same when all is said and done. Never mind that it's easier to keep hitters off-balance if you're tossing May (RHP, four pitches, high velocity) for two innings and then following with Gonsalves (LHP, decent stuff, unimpressive velocity). The idea has its merits. Whether those merits will be on display in real-world situations is the question.
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I see the validity in the idea but think it's going to require a specialized roster to make it work to its fullest. For example, Trevor May is a very good candidate to make this work. Maybe Magill is as well. Guys like Berrios and Gibson start every game. That's a no-brainer. But when you come to a guy like Odorizzi or Gonsalves/Stewart, you don't start the game with a one-inning reliever. You have 2-3 longer inning guys available to work in front of them. The goal should be two innings at a minimum for the opener, going to three innings depending on performance. Properly executing that concept might allow a team to actually carry a smaller bullpen than the average team carries today. You get two innings from May and then five innings from Odorizzi. Boom, you're now in the eighth inning of the game and May is still available to go in 2-3 days again. Even a good team could use this strategy once or twice through every rotation turn. But this kind of decision is pretty hard to implement mid-season using a roster built to carry standard bullpen usage. If anything, I wish the team would have started using this on August 1st to get through some of the growing pains. That way they might have a better idea how it works over a longer period of time instead of forcing a decision based on a ~10 game sample size.
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I'm going to give them a lot more than two games before calling the idea a bust. In a lost season, this is exactly the kind of thing the front office should be experimenting with and trying. And for the record, I don't like the idea of the opener from a spectator standpoint. I kinda hope it's a failure across baseball for that reason... but if it does work, I want my favorite team to use it.
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Site question: Self-signed cert?
Brock Beauchamp replied to raindog's topic in Twins Daily Issues & Suggestions
No, they're not expensive, but they require some effort that I haven't gotten to yet. -
Mad Men audition...Create the new 2019 Twins slogan.
Brock Beauchamp replied to twinssporto's topic in Minnesota Twins Talk
The Minnesota Twins: Forget to Know ‘Em -
Yeah, I think everything was going okay until that mid-April snowstorm. And it's not as if the Twins were the only team affected by that storm. I think either Cleveland or Chicago had a slew of postponements.
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There's no excuse for them not to feel like they're going to be competitive. They have $60m to spend, a slew of young players, and a good farm system.
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I haven't watched Saul yet, just wanted to rib you a bit. But seriously, check out The Expanse. It's sooooooo good.
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The Expanse objects to your brazen statement presented as fact.
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But that’s the point. It’s NOT simple. Each person has a sliding scale... and that’s how we got here in the first place.
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It’s really weird to have witnessed this game and say “the Twins deserved to win this one” and have it be true.
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