Pitch Counts & Arbitrary Relief

[bluesky5]

Relief pitcher has to be the most inconsistent position in sports. Even most "closers" are unable to be consistent for more that 2-3 years at a time. Positional overturn from team to team has to be astronomical compared to every other position in pro sports, including special teams players in the NFL. I really don't understand how it can be justified to carry 6-7 relievers other than the closer. Who should be working more than one inning a game. It's almost laughable if I didn't find it so pointless and pretentious.. and it didn't ruin ball games.

[milladrive]

That was a good article. Wish it was more in depth.

Yeah, me too. He asks a lot of very good a very poignant questions, but offers very few answers.

Relief pitcher has to be the most inconsistent position in sports. Even most "closers" are unable to be consistent for more that 2-3 years at a time. Positional overturn from team to team has to be astronomical compared to every other position in pro sports, including special teams players in the NFL. I really don't understand how it can be justified to carry 6-7 relievers other than the closer. Who should be working more than one inning a game. It's almost laughable if I didn't find it so pointless and pretentious.. and it didn't ruin ball games.

I totally and utterly agree with that post.

[Tyrus4189Cobb]

What I find just as interesting is that after those 100 pitches, we often see pitchers come in for one or two batters, only to be replaced by yet another pitcher who may or may not be on his game that day. It becomes like musical chairs, only with pitchers. Batters now work the counts purposely to get the starter out of the game. Without that "milestone," I believe batters would revert to that more aggressive hitting we once saw.

The use of relievers for certain situations is strategically oriented, made easier by the mass accumulation of statistics in recent years. This has nothing to do with durability. Some of it is asinine, some of it is reasonable.

I agree with your point about batters purposefully tiring the pitcher, but this strategy isn't new either. It is unclear when batters are or are not purposefully working the pitcher because no matter what, they're going to be facing someone. Just because someone is coming in for relief doesn't mean you're going to fare better. (I'm not arguing anyhting here just expanding on the thought).

I'm of the school of thought that the five-man rotation hurts pitchers more than it helps. There is too much of a break between starts, making their arms "stiffer" from less in-game use. Then there is the issue of injury treatment, where pitchers are sent to the disabled list for blisters. Pitchers aren't allowed to simply pitch. Managers believe their arms will dissolve if they work "too hard," something that irritates me to no end. But in the end, it's about money. So much money is thrown at even the worst pitchers, from their salaries to clubhouse expenses to minor league training, that managers would rather baby them then treat them as expendable resources.

[milladrive]

The use of relievers for certain situations is strategically oriented, made easier by the mass accumulation of statistics in recent years. This has nothing to do with durability. Some of it is asinine, some of it is reasonable.

I agree with your point about batters purposefully tiring the pitcher, but this strategy isn't new either. It is unclear when batters are or are not purposefully working the pitcher because no matter what, they're going to be facing someone. Just because someone is coming in for relief doesn't mean you're going to fare better. (I'm not arguing anyhting here just expanding on the thought).

I'm of the school of thought that the five-man rotation hurts pitchers more than it helps. There is too much of a break between starts, making their arms "stiffer" from less in-game use. Then there is the issue of injury treatment, where pitchers are sent to the disabled list for blisters. Pitchers aren't allowed to simply pitch. Managers believe their arms will dissolve if they work "too hard," something that irritates me to no end. But in the end, it's about money. So much money is thrown at even the worst pitchers, from their salaries to clubhouse expenses to minor league training, that managers would rather baby them then treat them as expendable resources.

Excellent post. I can't disagree with any of it (especially the point of starters being hurt more by going out there every fifth day instead of every fourth). In fact, the whole post makes a great deal of sense. I do realize, based on those words and what you've previously written, that you don't necessarily approve of this micromanaging of relief pitching and pulling starters who still have their stuff that day. Despite that SI article not answering many questions, it does reveal to a good extent the total disregard of how well a starter is doing when he is pulled from the game. Indeed, including the forced role of "closer," it all seems to come down to dollars and cents (or nonsense, if you will).

[Jackaroo Dave]

I think by consensus and by design, starters are better pitchers than relievers. Yet as Tom Tiger has pointed out, relievers as a group have a lower era because of the way they are used (3.69 to 4.06 in 2011 MLB).

The interminable queue of relief pitchers annoys me as much as anyone, but it is hard to fault managers or gms for using a strategy that gets higher level production out of lower level players.

This is one of those cases where what's good for one side is bad for the game, and a rule change might help.

Whether or not a huge bullpen is the best use of a limited roster is another question.

[PocketWocket]

This is interesting, but I want to comment on relief pitching. What I find amazing is the lefty specialist. Sure a lefty is more likely to get a lefty out than a righty, but why don't they leave the lefty to face the righty? If managers and GMs, today, are supposedly relying on stats, a lefty who has a .300 batting avereage against by righties is still going to get an out 70% of the time.

[scorekeeper]

… I'm of the school of thought that the five-man rotation hurts pitchers more than it helps. There is too much of a break between starts, making their arms "stiffer" from less in-game use. …

I happen to have the privilege of having one of the people most responsible for the 5 man rotation becoming so popular in the ML, and I once tried the same logic on him that you used here. The result was, I was told quite plainly but politely that I didn’t know jack about the workload of ML starters, how they should prepare themselves between starts, but mostly how much that extra day of rest affected their performances at the end of the year.

You may be correct, but I’ll trust someone who was a 20 year pro pitcher, an 8 year scout, and a 12 year ML pitching coach’s judgment about whether or not the 5 man rotation makes sense or not.