M’s announce rotation order
I have no idea why you’d do this. Baker.
Also:
What’s more, the team intends to use Batista — if he’s needed — out of the bullpen in weeks where his No. 5 spot is skipped.
“He’s aboard,” manager John McLaren said moments ago. “He’s already volunteered his services.”
The M’s don’t skip their 5th starter. The only time they’ve done it is over the All-Star break, when they’ll re-organize as they go.
Anyway, it’s another fine example of the team’s obsession with roles. The #2 starter has to do something different than the #3 starter. The lineup needs a left-handed hitting power hitter with middle-of-the-lineup experience. The bullpen needs a left-handed veteran setup man. And on and on and on.
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Maybe because one of the lefties was Horacio Ramirez…
You’d think results are more indicative of talent levels (for the most part, let’s not get into that discussion here) not if what “role” they were in works for them or not.
If Horacio were to claim that his lack of performance last year was due to being right after Washburn in the rotation, he’s… well he is actually a perfect fit for the organizations’ thought process. And that makes me want another pony 🙁
It’s a simple game: you throw the ball, you catch the ball (except you Raul), you hit the ball. Can’t someone explain the distinction between sophistry and analysis to these guys?
The Mariners need a lot of things. Jose Vidro is not one of them. Miguel Cairo is not one of them. And some flaky rotation announcement…is not one of them.
Can we please sign an outfielder that can…field outs?
You know I just realized the sad part to this…
2007: Washburn and Horacio, back to back = Bad results
2008: Bedard and Washburn, not back to back = Good results (we hope)
I’m afraid the assumptions the front office will make with that data… “Well we’ll throw Horacio back in there in 2009 and he should be much improved if he’s not following a lefty, history has shown us this…”
You do this to have an extra spot on the bench.
It’s been a little while since I’ve looked at the site, so maybe I’m missing something, but why be so dismissive? Sure, historically the M’s haven’t skipped their fifth starter, but we’ve also never had Bedard and Felix waiting in the next two slots. If they actually did skip Batista say, even three times, doesn’t that theoretically get Bedard and maybe Felix a few extra starts? And wouldn’t you rather have those two pitching as much as possible? And as megapaw said, that might occasionally mean the M’s might have a little more wiggle room to make moves with the bench/bullpen? Sure, they might not actually skip Batista at all, but with them thinking about getting Bedard a few more starts, why would that not be a positive thing?
Yep – it’s a signal they intend an 11 man pitching staff.
RE: 6,7
Believe it when I see it when it comes to the Mariners.
#7 — I doubt that they carry only 11 pitchers. I will believe it when I see it.
I will also not believe that Batista will be used out of the bullpen until I see it. Grover did it once. Mac had a chance to do it last year and didn’t. He used Rick White.
If they truly intend to skip the fifth starter and utlize Batista in the bullpen, which would allow them to carry 11 pitchers the entire season and have and extra bench player, great. Yet I doubt this will occur.
Also, if the team only wanted to split up Wash and Bedard, simply have Felix pitch opening day. Then proceed with Bedard, Silva, Batista, Wash. But Bedard has a whopping ten more major league victories than Felix, so there is no way that he could be relegated to pitching on game two.
The M’s turn very easy decisions into complex, convoluted ones that do not benefit them.
Funny, that should read #8. It was comment #7 just a bit ago.
Yeah, but there was too much pressure on Felix, so we need to not have him be our #1 starter, because it’s too much pressure. I mean, look at last year. There was so much pressure that he had to throw a one-hitter to the future world series champs. Then, the pressure hurt his arm. Pressure!
Sure, historically the M’s haven’t skipped their fifth starter, but we’ve also never had Bedard and Felix waiting in the next two slots. If they actually did skip Batista say, even three times, doesn’t that theoretically get Bedard and maybe Felix a few extra starts? And wouldn’t you rather have those two pitching as much as possible?
No. Neither one of those two has ever cracked 200 innings, and even if they are never skipped in the rotation, they are slated to throw over 200 innings in the regular season. And if things go as planned, they are also supposed to throw deep into the postseason. (ONETWOPUNCH!) Keeping them healthy is more important than getting them a handful of extra starts over the course of the season, which could ultimately lead to them wearing down at the end of the season anyway.
Or rather, even if Batista is never skipped in the rotation, Felix and Bedard are slated to throw over 200 innings in the regular season.
If part of the plan is to break up Washburn and Bedard, it doesn’t seem to work because off days don’t naturally come on a team’s 5th starter’s day. In the first week of the season Washburn and Bedard would pitch back to back on 4/4 and 4/5 and would continue on that pattern through at least early May. You will need a schedule to follow along what I assume would be the pitching pattern under this scheme:
EB-FH-CS-OFF
JW-EB-FH-CS-MB-JW-EB-FH-CS-MB-JW-EB-FH-CS-MB-JW-EB
OFF-FH-CS-JW-EB-MB-FH
OFF-CS-JW-EB-FH-MB-CS-JW-EB-FH
Hickey discussed it yesterday, and Drayer checks in with some of the media’s discussion on the subject
Would trading Washburn or Batista for Coco Crisp be a bad trade for us?
17. It would be a bad one for the Champs.
Has there been any analysis about the success rate of two left handed starters back to back in the rotation? I guess it seems odd that it is not a big deal for two righties to be back to back and yet it is amazingly horrible to have two lefties…
If they are projecting Felix and Bedard to make 38 or 39 starts this season, that easily projects to 240+ innings each for the season. On the surface this seems like a particularly bad idea to me for both of these pitchers.
Teams use either a five-day rotation or a five-game rotation.
A few years ago, most teams used a 5-game rotation, using the 5th starter only when necessary. (Ideally, the number of starts went 35-35-34-34-24.)
Nowadays–with most teams using a 5-game rotation (figuring those pitchers can use the extra day of rest)–the rotation ideally goes 33-33-32-32-32 (as it did for the Mariners in 2003).
What’s more interesting is that we may get a chance to see BP’s Joe Sheehan’s observation: “Most GMs would rather pay a player to lose games for them, than to sit at home, playing cards with his brother.”
Two examples: suppose that Dickey sees a lot of ST action, and compiles an ERA of 2.00; and the # 3, # 4, and # 5 starters combine for an ERA of 7.00? It won’t matter.The rotation has already been set.
What if our pencilled-in 1B hits .200 and his substitute hits .300? It won’t matter. Most GMs would rather…
20 – no one makes 38 starts in a season. 34 or 35 is the most possible with a 5-man rotation.
And hey, the Sox signed Bartolo Colon. Maybe Epstein read Dave’s post on Mr. Colon.
Teams use either a five-day rotation or a five-game rotation. A few years ago, most teams used a 5-game rotation, using the 5th starter only when necessary. (Ideally, the number of starts went 35-35-34-34-24.)
Thanks for adjusting my math John. 35 starts still stretches Felix and Bedard to 220-230 innings figuring on 6+ innings per game. I still think that’s too much for those two.
in the later blog update,Baker added: “yes, I do get the impression Washburn could get skipped if a matchup favored Batista. In fact, manager John McLaren said this could happen when we asked him about it this morning.”
ooh, he also has an Evil Rick Rizzs sighting!
To be fair, ST doesn’t determine a whole lot about how the season will turn out. Last year, Sherrill had a terrible ST, JJ was injured for most of it. WFB was hot. (doesn’t WFB usually produce well during ST?). Didn’t really determine how the regular season turned out. So I guess it would be hard to argue to Mac and co. to put Dickey in the rotation simply because he has a good ST.
Maybe this will spawn a new thread — or maybe it’ll get me dinged from the site for a while — but…. When *I* was a child, rotations were four pitchers. At some point this changed, but my question is, why?
Did we find that pitchers were better only starting every 5 games? Snappier stuff? Worked later into the game because they were rested? Or what?
In the dim and distant days of the late 60’s and early 70’s I was growing up in Buffalo NY. I was an Orioles fan. Seems to me that a rotation of, oh, say, Cuellar, Palmer, Dobson, and McNally, was pretty freakishly good. Is there some good reason why teams don’t use 4-man rotations any more? To bring it on topic, I wonder if we wouldn’t be better with Bedard, Felix, Jarrod, and Silva or Batista, whichever works better for that start, and then, lather/rinse/repeat?
Actually, yes, we did find that pitchers are better starting every 5 games.
No we didn’t.
Bill James has called the 5-man rotation an evolutionary dead-end. Rany’s done a huge amount of writing about this at Baseball Prospectus.
The short version though is that to go back to a four-man, you have to get starters who are willing to do it, and that turns out to be the huge barrier to implementation.
Well, props to Batista for putting up with this kind of foolishness. I like Batista’s attitude, which is “I won’t be the 5 starter too long, I’ll work my way up.” Nice to see that kind of desire, really, they need to move him up in the rotation so he can eat up some innings. Maybe if Morrow makes a big improvement this year, he could wind up in the rotation, with Washburn being used as trade bait for a decent outfielder.
DMZ, I assume everyone is on a 5-man rotation because of larger workloads causing more injuries then?
Thank you, Catherwood. for that trip down memory lane.
I would add for the benefit of those who weren’t yet born in 1969 that Palmer, Cuellar, Dobson and McNalley EACH were 20-game winners that year. Pretty damn amazing.
Plus, you gotta love a team with a first baseman named “Boog.”
I assume everyone is on a 5-man rotation because of larger workloads causing more injuries then?
Nope.
Here’s a good link @ BPro about 5 man rotations.
#31, and, damn, if he didn’t look like a guy named Boog.
I hear his bbq is pretty good, too.
Maybe if Morrow makes a big improvement this year, he could wind up in the rotation
How does that happen when he’s designated as a reliever and only pitches one inning a game? He may have stretched out and remembered his non-fastball pitches in winter ball, but if he spends all of ST and the first half of the season being nothing but a reliever, he’s not going to magically become a starter in July. He would have to go back to the minors to get ready, but MacLaren has said that he wants him in the bullpen to win ballgames. So he’s in the bullpen for the season, unless the team is so far out of contention that they start planning for the future. For your “trade Washburn” scenario to work Morrow would have to break camp with the team as a starter and demonstrate he can be a starter for most of the season. That might happen in ’09, so he could conceivably replace Washburn in ’10… but that’s because Washburn is a FA by then.
And while that would show a remarkable confluence of good timing in Morrow’s development and foresight on Bavasi’s part, I’m not going to believe it until I see it. More likely at some point they quietly stop this charade of sending Morrow off to winter ball and just confirm his role both as a late-inning specialist and a waste of a first-round draft pick. The best likely upside is that he replaces Putz, not Washburn.
That BPro article that galaxieboi linked in #33 is really good — I remember reading it at the time, but I missed parts 2 and 3 (follow the “next column” link at the bottom of each article). The “Fuson formula” shows real creativity that you’ll probably never see at the major league level, but the articles certainly make a good case for the four man rotation (with strict pitch count limits). Alas, the series concludes with:
…it was written in the summer of 2002.
Isn’t it pretty much agreed (at least at in the blogosphere not Mariners FO land) that we’d be better off with Batista out there any given day than with Washburn? I like them saying they’ll look at the matchups if they’re really going to do that. But in a vacuum I think I’d take my chances with Miguel. Especially considering they decided OF defense was worth sacrificing.
“The lineup needs a left-handed hitting power hitter with middle-of-the-lineup experience.”
If one was out there and available, that would be kind cool.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/pecota/bondsba01.php
[ot]
Re: #35
I just the Mariners’ are missing the boat on Morrow. I was one of those who thought it was a good idea to have Morrow be on the roster out of spring training. I admit that I was wrong on that count, probably would’ve been better to have Morrow be a starter all last year in Tacoma, and now he’d be in the mix a bit more. I’m just not sold on Washburn. Call me dumb (as people no doubt will!) but I don’t like this idea of keeping Morrow as a one-inning set up guy, and not giving him a chance to become a starter, even if that means a full year in AAA.
Sorry, my first sentence should read: I just think that the Mariners’ are missing the boat on Morrow.
Man, I would love to see Bonds on this team.
louder, I think just about everybody here will agree with you. It may be that Morrow was never cut out to be a starter (and it may have taken more than one year in AAA), but we may never know. Certainly they claimed to be signing him as one, and had they been willing to “bust slot” they could’ve got one in Miller. It’s obviously a huge waste of a first round pick to get a guy you never use more than one inning a game. It would seem Morrow has been sacrificed on the altar of expediency — but in a situation where everybody is on the “hot seat,” that’s pretty much the outcome you have to expect. I worry that Clement will be next.
As for Bonds, well, he may not have the opportunity to swing the bat for anybody (except for Ricky “Wild-Thing” Vaughn’s former team in the California Penal League); and while the team has shown in the past couple of years some willingness to depart from its “fan friendly” dogma when signing guys , I suspect they’re not willing to go that far. Not to mention they already have more than a couple of players signed than they have room for (where exactly is Cairo playing, anyway?)
Roy Halladay made 36 starts as recently as 2003.
(where exactly is Cairo playing, anyway?)
Fukuyama?
Sorry…the feeble joke would have been better if I said Fukuoka, which is what I meant to say.
45 – When I see the name Fukuyama, I think of Edward Said’s statement critiquing his “End of History” as the “End of Fukuyama”. Which I suppose is funny in its own way.
Re: # 19.
I guess it seems odd that it is not a big deal for two righties to be back to back and yet it is amazingly horrible to have two lefties…
Re: # 19:
I guess it seems odd that it is not a big deal for two righties to be back to back and yet it is amazingly horrible to have two lefties…
I thought it odd too.
In 1954, the Cleveland Indians used a rotation of five (5) RHP, and won 111 games.