Interesting idea

[Baseballman2K5]

(Scroll down to pic of Jim Hickey if you just want to read a few lines to get the jist of it)

Pitching Change: Renowned Coach Foresees An Era Of Bigger Staffs And Shorter Outings | ThePostGame

I like this idea and think it'd be cool to see baseball headed in this direction. What do you guys think of it?...and has anyone during an OOTP franchise done something like this, or enacted their own strategy completely foreign to the game?

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Baseballman2K5

(Scroll down to pic of Jim Hickey if you just want to read a few lines to get the jist of it)

Pitching Change: Renowned Coach Foresees An Era Of Bigger Staffs And Shorter Outings | ThePostGame

I like this idea and think it'd be cool to see baseball headed in this direction. What do you guys think of it?...and has anyone during an OOTP franchise done something like this, or enacted their own strategy completed foreign to the game?

I tried using multiple relievers as a makeshift fifth starter once. That experiment was a miserable failure.

[rocknfire7]

Its basically pretty close to how youth pitching staffs are run, or at least the ones I've been a part of.

Didn't Tony LaRussa try something similar in the 90's, but dropped it early on or before the season started?

[Curve Ball Dave]

The only arms Tom House didn't blow out were Charlie Hough and Nolan Ryan, two veterans who already knew what they were doing.

They can limit the innings and pitches all they want, but if the kid has bad mechanics or over throws he's gonna get hurt.

Teach the value of pitching instead of lighting up a radar gun, plus good mechanics that emphases the use of torso and legs like the great drop and drivers of the past, and teach 'em they don't have to strike out everyone they face and you'll have guy who will pitch over 200 innings without getting hurt.

[Left-handed Badger]

Originally Posted by rocknfire7

Its basically pretty close to how youth pitching staffs are run, or at least the ones I've been a part of.

Didn't Tony LaRussa try something similar in the 90's, but dropped it early on or before the season started?

I;ve actually been researching the history of "alternative" staff use, lately.

La Russa tried it for 5 games dividing 9 pitchers in groups of 3 to be the "starter". with Eckersley and a couple others as relievers. Some of the 9 were Van Poppel, Gossage, Kelly Downs, Ron Darling, Mike Mohler.

It seems to have been somewhat based off something a Mexican League team did at times in the 1970s. I think it was called "Sistema Peralta". Which called for 9 pitchers divided up into 3s to pitch 3 innings each. LaRussa based in his more on a soft pitch count. Havent been able to find too much on the Mexican League version except it was based loosely off an idea by Earnshaw Cook.

Earnshaw Cook was kind of a proto-sabermetrician. He had a book out at one point. Sports Illustrated did a story on him when the book came out in 1964, I found it on the internet, so you can probably do a search on it to read it. He had several ideas to "maximize" run production. Eschewing the sac bunt (sound familiar) was one of them. Another was to use the Bobby Bragan lineup have the lineup best hitter to worst (Bragan used it as manager with Pit in 1957 for several weeks, Dale LOng led off a lot of those games, the pitcher batted 7th a lot, with 8th/9th guys being a sort of table setter to the top of the order, it seems like a primitive effort at the "sabermetric lineup" in many ways.)

THe one on the pitching staff was basically to minimize the use of the pitcher as a hitter. Basically, to start a game with a relief pitcher. He pitches until his turn AB. The the "starter" comes in, whereas he pitches 4-5 innings, maybe bats once, but after that a PH gets used. And then you would have your regular bullpen usage.

[soxfan34]

Originally Posted by Baseballman2K5

(Scroll down to pic of Jim Hickey if you just want to read a few lines to get the jist of it)

Pitching Change: Renowned Coach Foresees An Era Of Bigger Staffs And Shorter Outings | ThePostGame

I like this idea and think it'd be cool to see baseball headed in this direction. What do you guys think of it?...and has anyone during an OOTP franchise done something like this, or enacted their own strategy completed foreign to the game?

Thanks for posting this, it was a great read. It makes you think...if you play as a small market team with a low budget, are you better off stacking your pitching staff with 12 good-to-great relievers at a few million each? Why waste $15-25mm/year on ONE guy? I like it. You'd probably have to play your games out to have it work properly, but this is definitely an interesting thought, game-wise, and I wonder if Markus could code it for 15?

[Orioles1966]

Why can't baseball develop long reliefers? A relief pitcher pitches 2 innings during a game and it's thought as a major accomplishment. Most if not all of MLB pitchers started out as starters in high school and college and using relief pitchers for just one inning is ruining the game.

Too many pitching changes. Games are too long to begin with.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by soxfan34

Thanks for posting this, it was a great read. It makes you think...if you play as a small market team with a low budget, are you better off stacking your pitching staff with 12 good-to-great relievers at a few million each? Why waste $15-25mm/year on ONE guy? I like it. You'd probably have to play your games out to have it work properly, but this is definitely an interesting thought, game-wise, and I wonder if Markus could code it for 15?

Was thinking the same thing. I wonder if using a pitch count would work if you wanted to sim instead of play games out?

[Painmantle]

Originally Posted by Curve Ball Dave

The only arms Tom House didn't blow out were Charlie Hough and Nolan Ryan, two veterans who already knew what they were doing.

They can limit the innings and pitches all they want, but if the kid has bad mechanics or over throws he's gonna get hurt.

Teach the value of pitching instead of lighting up a radar gun, plus good mechanics that emphases the use of torso and legs like the great drop and drivers of the past, and teach 'em they don't have to strike out everyone they face and you'll have guy who will pitch over 200 innings without getting hurt.

Charlie Hough? Is it actually possible for a Knuckleballers arm to "Blow out" , Usually they are a Knuckleballer because they already "blew out" their arm
The rest of the stuff is correct however LOL

[soxfan34]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

Was thinking the same thing. I wonder if using a pitch count would work if you wanted to sim instead of play games out?

To an extent, it would work, the only issue is you wouldn't be able to choose your "micro-rotations" as the article suggests. Players would come in randomly, or based on energy level.

[ohms_law]

This really was a great read. Thanks for posting it!

I had a similar idea a few years ago that we talked about some on the Mogul forums. My "experiments" with using an all relief rotation weren't a "disaster" at all, personally, but... both Mogul and OOTP are games, and neither is set up to simulate this sort of pitcher use.

In terms of real life though, the problem is this:

I tried to interview Rockies GM Dan O'Dowd for this piece but got shut down. Considering how badly he got lambasted in the media for initiating a 75-pitch maximum for his pitchers last year, I thought suggesting his concept had validity would pique his interest. It's not like I was asking to talk about Denny Neagle.

The fact is, it doesn't matter what theory or even stats say (at least, not unless the stats are completely overwhelming). People, and especially the people in the media, are just too conservative to accept new ideas like this being tried at the MLB level. Even when these experiments are somewhat successful, acceptance is very elusive.

[Left-handed Badger]

I kind of hope the pitching staffs dont get bigger though. Teams already carry 13 pitchers ( a lot anyway). Any bigger, and the position players on the bench will completely disappear. The NL will either have to go DH, or PH for pitchers with other pitchers.

[soxfan34]

Originally Posted by Left-handed Badger

I kind of hope the pitching staffs dont get bigger though. Teams already carry 13 pitchers ( a lot anyway). Any bigger, and the position players on the bench will completely disappear. The NL will either have to go DH, or PH for pitchers with other pitchers.

The point of the article isn't to make the pitching staff bigger, but rather the rotations smaller. Staff size would remain the same. Players and the MLBPA would never allow it though, seeing as how everything these days is based purely on the dollar.

[boshk]

if they didnt baby pitchers so much in the minors, and actually work on their arm strength and endurance, we wouldnt see so many injured pitchers these days.

[ohms_law]

Pitchers get plenty of work in the minors. They're not "babied" at all.
They are well managed though, and a lot more of them actually make it to the majors now.

[Orioles1966]

If MLB teams are allowed to carry more pitcher's,the games will never end.