[Pelican]

Anecdotal (I haven’t done a study; but recall one from Baseball Prospectus), but I suspect using an opener backfires as often as it succeeds. The best use seems to be a decent reliever for an inning or two, and then a proven starter. But what if the reliever get in trouble, say in the second inning. Do you bring in the starting pitcher as a “follower”? Remember, this is a guy who may never have entered a baseball game with inherited runners on base. That’s a big adjustment.

More common than the above use of an opener seems to be the “bullpen game”, where some random reliever pitches first, and then a bunch of guys contribute an inning or two. But it’s a risky trade-off, resting your starters for a day, while using most of your bullpen. If each of four or five relievers throws 25 pitches, not so bad. But what are the chances of that? If things go awry, you may use the whole bullpen to throw, say, 175 pitches total. Then who pitches the next night, when the (rested) starter gets knocked out early?

I suppose you could assemble a roster of openers and followers, and groom pitchers for these roles. But then you are all-in, and it would be hard to maintain a standard rotation at the same time. I mean, you only have so many pitchers, and they can’t pitch every day.

To me, the opener/follower routine is another gimmick of sorts, perhaps worth trying, but not producing good results. I don’t mean to suggest it should be banned. It’s fine to have a trial and error, and some innovation. The lack of success and the difficulty establishing roles has limited and reduced its use. I think it will die a natural death, so to speak.