March 30, 2015

Rocky Rotation

The Colorado Rockies are still trying to determine who will fill out the last two slot of their rotation:

One slot in the rotation remains open — maybe two. Three big names, and two outliers, are making their pitches to be the guy.

The Rockies are considering youngsters Eddie Butler, Jon Gray and Christian Bergman to replace Jhoulys Chacin, a veteran pitcher who was released last week. Jorge De La Rosa, still recovering from a groin injury, may need a fill-in.

“They want a guy who can go out every time and give them six innings, keep them close, give the team a chance to win,” Butler said of the Rockies.

The Rockies don’t need a fifth starter until April 15th, so they have a little time before this becomes a big issue. I also wonder, however, if six innings is asking too much. Maybe it’s time to try something radical, with four starters going no more than five innings, and a long man coming in for the next two. Provided De La Rosa gets healthy by the middle of April, the Rockies will have six or seven pitchers capable of starting, none of whom may be very good. Let them all pitch a short amount of time more often. The best four go four or five innings every fourth game (depending on pitch count), with the other three filling in two innings in relief every three games. So the starters would pitch around 180 innings over a season, few stressful, and would avoid seeing hitters for the third time. The other three would pitch around 110 innings, always knowing when they would work for proper preparation. The would still all the Rockies to have four or five relievers around for when things blow up.

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