How come Rivera was never a SP?

[JGarrison]

He was a SP for one year, his rookie year and that is it. How come they never tried starting him another year? That would be interesting to see

[Yoda]

He was originally a starter. But with only a dominant fastball, he was better suited for the pen and look how well it worked out.

[bigh0rt]

Just being presumptuous here, but I assume his arm couldn't shoulder the workload of a 300+ inning season of work, or the throwing 100 pitches every 5 days schedule. A lot of pitchers have had this happen, including the likes of Jason Isringhausen, Octavio Dotel, among others. Pitching under 100 IP/season is a day at the beach compared to a SPs workload of innings.

[blankman]

Just being presumptuous here, but I assume his arm couldn't shoulder the workload of a 300+ inning season of work, or the throwing 100 pitches every 5 days schedule. A lot of pitchers have had this happen, including the likes of Jason Isringhausen, Octavio Dotel, among others. Pitching under 100 IP/season is a day at the beach compared to a SPs workload of innings.

Who pitches 300 innings now?

I assume you meant 200.

I've heard that its just as tough as being a starter because you pitch so much more often, but I don't know if thats true.

[Yoda]

Just being presumptuous here, but I assume his arm couldn't shoulder the workload of a 300+ inning season of work, or the throwing 100 pitches every 5 days schedule. A lot of pitchers have had this happen, including the likes of Jason Isringhausen, Octavio Dotel, among others. Pitching under 100 IP/season is a day at the beach compared to a SPs workload of innings.

Actually this had absolutely nothing to do with it.

[silverZ]

Probably because he lives and dies by his cutter. I don't think there are any SP that only throw one pitch 90% of the time.

[Nerfherders]

Rivera is a one-pitch pitcher. They dont usually do well as starters.

[davidmarver]

Probably because he lives and dies by his cutter. I don't think there are any SP that only throw one pitch 90% of the time.

Tim Wakefield .

[silverZ]

Knuckle balls dont count

[The Jury]

It's simple - he's not good enough to be a starter. A lot of pitcher flourish as relievers but in the big picture, they aren't as good as starting pitchers.