Observations at the 40% Mark

Baseball Observations at the 40% Mark
by Jeff Lewis

The baseball season is now over two-fifths complete, so I thought I'd weigh in with a few thoughts that I had while trying to write a poignant essay about conquering compulsive procrastination.

The Nine-Man Rotation

My favorite team, the San Francisco Giants, has an undeniably bad pitching staff. Any way you break it down, they are terrible: they have bad starters, bad closers and bad middle relievers. A case could be made that they only have three or four above-average pitchers on their staff—Jason Schmidt, Brett Tomko, LeTroy Hawkins and Scott Eyre—and Schmidt has some of the worst stats in baseball. Can anything be done to salvage this dismal season? Probably not, but after looking at the following data I have an idea:

WHIP of SF Giant Starters by Pitch Count as of 6/16/05

	1-15	16-30	31-45	46-60	61-75
Schmidt	1.09	1.85	1.60	1.32	2.09
Tomko	0.94	1.10	1.15	1.54	1.17, but ERA=10.54
Kirk Rueter	1.22	2.36	1.42	1.20	1.32
Noah Lowry	1.06	1.06	1.24	1.35	1.70

While two-fifth of a season doesn't provide enough data for a sure-fire study, the above data indicates that the Giants might be better off if their starters were limited to sixty or fewer pitches.

If he were to limit his starters, Giants' manager Felipe Alou could only expect them to make it through three innings, five tops. To make up the lost innings, I propose that the Giants switch to a nine-man rotation, comprised of:

One starter who pitches in the traditional manner (preferably Schmidt or Tomko).
Four teams of two "starters" who would collectively be responsible for making it through seven or eight innings.
The remaining three pitchers on the staff would be responsible for the eighth or ninth innings (with additional help coming from underworked starters on rest days).
Some "starters" could get periodic traditional "full" starts—perhaps every third start—if their pitching results seam to indicate that they can maintain excellence past their pitch quota. Also, if a "starter" is on fire during his start, the manager could decide to allow him to continue pitching past his quota until the first sign of trouble.
Teams could adapt this, based on the number of starters who are suited to make 90-100 pitches. For example, the Astros could use a eight man rotation with both Roger Clemens and Roy Oswalt pitching full starts and three "starter teams." (Andy Pettitte, whose WHIP this year jumps nearly half a point after his 60th pitch, may be better suited pitching less).

Example:

Noah Lowry—the first half of the "starter team"—would start a game and throw sixty pitches, reaching the fourth inning. Let's say he leaves the game with one on, one out and a left-handed batter at the plate.
Kirk Rueter—who pitched four innings three days ago and is on the day's "rested starter team"—is available as a lefty specialist to throw about 10-15 pitches. He gets the batter out.
Felipe Alou then brings in the second half of the "starter team," Brett Tomko, to finish off the inning. He throws his sixty pitches and gets the team into the seventh inning.
Jesse Foppert, the second half of the "rested starter team" gets the first two outs of the seventh.
Scott Eyre—one of the three designated relievers—finishes the seventh and pitches the eighth.
LaTroy Hawkins pitches the ninth. If he falters or if the game goes into extra innings, one half of the next day's "starter team" can finish off the game (in that case, the other half would make a traditional start the next day, with the three designated relievers and two "rested starters" able to support him). The "rested starter team" from two nights previous also would be available for limited duty in an emergency. If the game goes past fourteen innings, utility infielder/knuckleball specialists would finish the game (more on that later).

The Yankees attempted something similar during the 2004 playoffs, with Javier Vazquez and Kevin Brown splitting starts. However, this was a move of desperation rather than a calculated strategy. Both were sore-armed and untested in this role, and the playoffs are not an ideal time to experiment.

Baseball could stand to use a little more innovation. Many basketball and football coaches—Don Nelson and Bill Walsh, for instance—aren't afraid of radical new strategies; these sports are more dynamic than baseball because of them. While I'm not saying that what I'm proposing is necessarily a good idea, it is innovative and may have the following benefits:

The team would get ample media coverage, and all press is good press.
The Giants would be utilizing a commodity that currently isn't highly valued: starting pitchers with a track record of success for 60 pitches, but who fade after four innings and therefore are not valuable to teams with traditional starting rotation.
This strategy aims to allow each pitcher to throw an optimal number of innings. There are a lot of decent middle relievers who deserve to throw more than 75 innings a year but don't have the ability to throw 200 quality innings, and some starters who throw more innings than they should.
The pitching load—in terms of innings and days of rest—would be more evenly distributed throughout the pitching staff, possibly reducing injuries.
"Starting teams" could be comprised of two complementary pitchers, in order to make it difficult for teams to tailor their lineups to a particular starting pitcher. For instance, lefty/righty, fastball/junker, slow worker/fast worker.
"Starters" would generally be available to pitch as specialist short relievers on their middle rest day(s).
Managers could create more favorable pitching matchups in important situations throughout the game, particularly earlier in the game.

Difficulties that would need to be ironed out:

The "starters" responsible for actually starting the game would only be eligible for a loss, unless they complete five innings. However, they could make up for this through "vulture wins" in long relief. In the long run, the wins and losses should balance out, as long both members of a "starter team" take turns beginning games.
Most players, managers, fans and the media are reactionary fools when it comes to innovation. However, if Mike Krukow, Bill Walsh and Noam Chomsky promoted this notion, it would fly in the Bay Area; plus, it wouldn't hurt if this idea actually works.
The terms "starter" and "starter team" would need to be improved upon because radio play-by-play would sound awkward if commentators had to say: "That's it for Lowry today. His quote start unquote lasted only two innings, which puts pressure on the second half of his quote starter team unquote, Brett Tomko." On TV, the cameras could pan to the booth so that the color commentator could do air quotes, but eventually that would become annoying.

I would make one additional change, as well: teach all position players in the minor leagues how to throw a knuckleball, so that in future years, the team's utility players can double as mop-up relievers in blowouts. With luck, one or two might even become decent pitchers.

Generating Value Through Easy Saves

Currently, nearly ever Major League team has a designated closer, who gets about 80-90% of the save opportunities. The best rationale for this scenario is that on a team with many good relief pitchers, it is handy to know that the ninth inning is taken care of, so that the manager has room to get favorable situational matchups in the earlier innings, without having to worry about holding onto a lefty or righty specialist for late in the game. Still, in cases where the closer is not the best relief pitcher on the staff, this arrangement is not fair, given that closers command higher salaries than comparable setup men.

Many commentators and fans have made the argument that a team's best relief pitcher should be used at the most strategically important situation, such as in the seventh inning with the bases loaded and the opposing team's star up to bat. That is probably a good idea, although I prefer this idea developed in Moneyball: Michael Lewis explained how the Oakland Athletics purposely used their most effective reliever, Chad Bradford, as a setup man, so that he would not earn any saves, thereby keeping his monetary value down. That, I think, is very clever.

Provided they aren't going with a nine-man rotation, I'd like to see a team play around with these ideas:

Excite fans through Rookie of the Year hype by giving the easy, two- or three-run save opportunities to a promising rookie (who, not coincidentally, is far from free agency, but can become more valuable for trade purposes through this conceit). If there isn't a likely rookie, give these saves to a veteran, inflate his value and then trade him.
Occasionally bring the closer into the seventh inning bases loaded scenario for practice dealing with high tension situations.
Bring the closer into games when speedsters are on first, to give the closer practice holding good base stealers on base. It seems like many closers have trouble with this in the playoffs, so maybe a little more exposure to such situations during the season would pay dividends.
I suspect that many teams designate a closer largely to avoid the "closer by committee" situation that fans and the media love to hate. If you plan to have multiple closers, give the positions flashy titles that fans and the media will embrace, like a) The Curtailer, b) Southpaw Doom (a pitcher used when several lefties lead off the ninth), and c) Wusshammer.

Instead of complaints about a team's "closer by committee," talk radio will be filled with Bigdawg Dave from Concord calling in to whine, "I can't believe Felipe went with The Curtailer to start out the ninth because if you look at the numbers, Helton is only hitting .148 against Wusshammers this year."

More Things I'd Like to See Implemented

Get rid of metal bats in college and instead use bats made out of recycled plastic (the type used for fake wooden decking). I know there's a chemist out there who could make this work. There'd be fewer 35-7 games, pitchers wouldn't have to fear for their lives, and the "thwomp" of the plastic bat would be preferable to the current "ping."
Outlaw the pencil-thin bat handles that break easily and require players to use the old-fashioned thick-handled bats. Home runs would go down, but probably not below the 1980s levels.
I'd like to see an in-depth study on how catchers influence pitching statistics. I'm sure one has been done already, I just haven't seen it.
Standardize the stadium radar guns so that when a pitcher's velocity increases by three MPH from one start to the next, fans know that it is legitimate and not due to a park's "fast gun."
Toe and shin guards for everyone. Also facemasks for pitchers and batters. The chemist who comes up with the plastic bats no doubt can create a relatively comfortable see-through faceguard.
Eric Chavez: get rid of your high leg kick. Apart from verve and style, a batter's high leg kick doesn't have much use. Barry Bonds, Ted Williams and Babe Ruth did not have high leg kicks (although Sadarahu Oh did). Imagine a golfer or tennis player with one—I guess that would basically be Happy Gilmore.

Steroids Don't Just Make Your Gourd Big

The sudden drop in the productivity of a number of star players makes "Guess the Steroid User" a time-consuming parlor game. The list of underperformers includes at least a dozen recent 30-hr sluggers: Jim Thome, Carlos Beltran, Todd Helton, Aubrey Huff, Adrian Beltre, Bret Boone, Jason Giambi, Mike Lowell, Mike Piazza, Steve Finley, Lance Berkman, Sammy Sosa, and, of course, Barry Bonds.

Not counting Bonds, who hasn't played this season, this group of All-Stars is on pace to collectively average a mere 13 home runs apiece. Sosa and Finley are tops among this group, but are only on pace to hit 20. A similar crash has happened to many of the elite pitchers, which certainly doesn't prove anything, but makes speculation entertaining.

I recommend reading Ron Shandler's article from February on the benefits of steroids. I found the list of players' body weights and their corresponding home run rates particularly interesting. On a parallel topic, Michael Lewis writes about power hitting in his New York Times article, Absolutely, Power Corrupts.

Jeff can be reached at jeff@babblog.com.