Read this morning that Tampa Bay is going with a rotation of 3 starters and 2 openers, aka relief pitchers. They play the Giants early and plan on pinch hitting for the openers. The article said they used this system late last year. I follow the Reds, but do not pay close enough attention to have heard of this. How did it work out last year? Do they have big enough roster for this move?

Read this morning that Tampa Bay is going with a rotation of 3 starters and 2 openers, aka relief pitchers. They play the Giants early and plan on pinch hitting for the openers. The article said they used this system late last year. I follow the Reds, but do not pay close enough attention to have heard of this. How did it work out last year? Do they have big enough roster for this move?

 

They had some success with this system. They even started the same guy two games in a row once. The big advantage is it allows you to play the matchup game early against what are usually a teams best hitters at the top of the order. You then bring a starter type guy in the second inning and he's only matching up twice against those best hitters (at the top of the lineup), and three times against the weaker hitters (the bottom of the order). It makes sense if you really think about it, and it's something I suspect you may see more and more of. Roster size really doesn't matter. As long as you have one guy who can get you 5 innings, what's it matter if he does the first 5, or the middle 5?

Definitely will be on the increase. You need the right kind of roster to figure out how to maximize the usage based on how many "true starters" you have.

 

I'm guessing things will get "cheeky" and may force a rules change at some point. Can see some managers putting a guy who pitched 3 innings the prior day as their starting P in order to take away some of the advantage the other manager has in knowing who the starter will be to set his lineup. You know the starter is not likely to actually start, so who do you plan your matchups for? RHP? LHP?

Definitely will be on the increase. You need the right kind of roster to figure out how to maximize the usage based on how many "true starters" you have.

 

I'm guessing things will get "cheeky" and may force a rules change at some point. Can see some managers putting a guy who pitched 3 innings the prior day as their starting P in order to take away some of the advantage the other manager has in knowing who the starter will be to set his lineup. You know the starter is not likely to actually start, so who do you plan your matchups for? RHP? LHP?

 

Last year, Tampa did start a guy two consecutive games. I'm not sure how the league can regulate this so teams "can set their lineup". As it stands, even if a starter scratches, teams have to announce a starter as soon as possible. Unless you force a team to announce their first two pitchers (which would be silly), there's not a lot that can be done.

This is another reason why the W or L statistic for pitchers is worthless. It really should not even be a statistic IMO.

I wonder what the gambling community thinks about this?

I wonder what the gambling community thinks about this?

 

They'll hate it. I think it's already required that managers run their lineup thru the commissioner's office (so that they can forwarded on to Vegas). But, you can't require that of your in-game substitutions. So...