Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
May 03, 2004
Four Man Rotation

A reader alerted me to this story about the Rockies moving to a four-man rotation.


The No. 5 starter spot has been eliminated. The Rockies are going with a four-man rotation from now until, if all goes well, season's end.

"People are going to think we are crazy, but in this park, sometimes you have to go against the rules," said Jason Jennings, who joins Joe Kennedy, Shawn Estes and Scott Elarton as the Rockies' rotation. "You have to mix it up and try something different. We're all for it."

It's good to see the pitchers are on board. The Blue Jays tried this last year but it got torpedoed by the staff. The Rockies are going to limit the pitch count of their starters:

To help protect against arm fatigue, an 85-to-90-pitch limit will be placed on the starters, and Jeff Fassero becomes the extra eighth guy in the bullpen. Kennedy, who will be the first to start on three days' rest Wednesday in Montreal, needed only 74 pitches to record seven innings in his win April 25 against the Houston Astros. But there will be other times when 90 pitches won't get the starter through the fifth.

"I think it's a great idea," said Leo Mazzone, the Atlanta Braves' acclaimed pitching coach. "I think their pitch count might be a little too low. I think you can go 100, 110 pitches. But I think it's smart to go with a four-man rotation. How many teams have a fifth starter?"


Nice to see Leo thinks it's a good idea. Maybe the Braves will try it next. One thing that does bother me, however, is that they are just moving the fifth starter to the bullpen as a long man. I'd say eliminate that pitcher all together. If he can't start, he probably can't relieve, either.

It's a good experiment, and I hope it works for them. Teams are carrying too many pitchers these days and limiting themselves on their offensive moves. Ten pitchers should be enough for any team. Over that and you're just inserting lousy players into the game.


Posted by David Pinto at 11:49 AM | Pitchers | TrackBack (1)
Comments

David - when Mike Hampton left the Rockies - his big complaint wasn't that pitching at Coors that was the problem but the recovery time needed from pitching at Coors. Hampton said that he was a wreck the day after pitching at Coors.

Now the Rockies are going to a 4-man rotation? That means less recovery time and that will be a big problem.

They would be better off going to a six-man rotation to give the starters extra recovery time.

Posted by: chris at May 3, 2004 12:02 PM

You're listening to Mike Hampton?!

Posted by: Horshack at May 3, 2004 12:05 PM

Why no starty, no relievey?

Posted by: Rowdy at May 3, 2004 12:16 PM

Remember, Eric Gagne was pretty mediocre as a starter. Starting and relieving are both pitching, but the mentality and requirements are different. A lot of baseball is mental. Also, if a pitcher only has command of a couple of different pitches, he's better suited to relieving. Guys with unusual deliveries (sidearmers, lefthanders) can be valuable out of the bullpen, too, since they add variety. Of course, the most important thing is the ability to get people out.

Posted by: Adam VIllani at May 3, 2004 12:45 PM

Chi Sox are going to a pseudo-four-man-rotation also.

Posted by: tjlang at May 3, 2004 01:47 PM

In theory, no start != no relieve, but this is Jeff Fassero we're talking about.

Anyway, I think Mazzone is right on, and his point and David's point coincide: the pitch count is too low. It's only because of that artificially low pitch count that an extra reliever is deemed necessary. With a more normal pitch count, the Rockies could go with a normal number of relievers and free up a spot they could use to bring back Jack Cust.

Posted by: Jason at May 3, 2004 06:15 PM

IIRC, Bill James mentioned this in his updated Historical Abstract, about having fewer starters, but they only go 6 innings or so. I just wonder if an in shape David Wells type pitcher would succeed in Coors. Every pitcher's going to get hit, giving up hits and homers. Just don't walk anybody, there'll be less damage that way. And have track stars as your outfielders.

Posted by: Robert at May 3, 2004 08:47 PM

I think the pitch count is just about right. After all, this is Colorado we're talking about. Playing at .33 leagues over the sea does crazy things to people. I don't know if any research has been done on the subject, but I think it's likely that we need to scale the impact of each pitch on a pitcher's arm in the thin air: chris mentioned the increased recovery time above. Just off the cuff, that seems to me like the magic 120 cut off in normal parks might be more like 105 in Coors, which means 85 would be perfectly reasonable, pitching every fourth day. And the extra arm in the bullpen is needed for those games when 85 pitches won't get you out of the fourth in Coors. I think they could justify 2-3 long men with this sort of rotation, turning it into almost a tandem staff, with a specialist from each side (see Rany's article from today on BP; it's free), to really get maximum efficiency from their lackluster arms.

Posted by: Rick at May 4, 2004 03:24 PM