RP Strategy

[Field]

Interesting notion, but after thinking about it for a second, for some reason, I started to think about probablities and statistics. I think one of the problems with this strategy is that the more pitchers you use in a game, the more you put the team in risk of one of those pitchers having an "off-day". A Manager would have to use 2-4 pitchers most likely to compensate for a starter. Even if your starter has a much greater chance of an "off-day" compared to each reliever individually, this can still work against a team.

Simple Example:

Just to make it easy, let's say to compensate for the innings a starter will pitch, a Manager must use 3 relief pitchers. And say your starter has a 50% chance of a good performance (conversely a 50% chance of a bad performance), while each reliever has only a 75% chance of a good performance (25% chance of a bad one). The probability of all three relievers having a good performance would be:

(If I remember correcly from stat class, i think I do)

(the probability of relief pitcher A having a good performance)
X
(the probablitiy of relief pitcher B having a good performance)
X
(the probablity of relief pitcher C having a good performance)

Since they all have the same probability of a good performance you raise this to the thrid and get: (3/4)^3= .421875 or roughly 42%.


This shows that even though each individual relief pitcher has a (much) higher chance of a good performance(75%) compared to the starter(50%), cumulatively, the relief pitchers have a worse chance of all having a good performance; 42% compared to 50% .

Obviously this is a very simple example, with "everything else held equal", but I think it does illustrate some of the logic behind why this strategy isn't used in baseball.

I hope I got this close to right .

[hersch223]

I think that extra-innings would be a problem, expecially if you get into one of those 16 inning games in the second half of a double header.

[Havok1517]

I think that extra-innings would be a problem, expecially if you get into one of those 16 inning games in the second half of a double header.

Something that might be interesting is having team full of starters instead of relivers, sorta like the all-star game.

[buffalobillsrul2002]

I hate to burst your bubbles, but I don't think that either the all-starter or all-reliever strategy would work.

Problem with the all-starter strategy:
A. It would be super-expensive.
B. It would take extremely long for the starters to warm up. What if somebody gets into a jam quickly and you need a reliever. Fast.
C. I don't think most starters are fit to close. I think relievers usually have better "stuff" than closers, but they are just one-pitch only guys (maybe with a weak 2nd pitch).. A starter might have 4 or 5 pitches, but would hardly get to use all of them, decreasing his worth (because he would not be able to be as good of a reliever as he could be if he was a starter)...

Problems with all-reliever strategy:
A. Relievers wouldn't be durable enough to do it.... You are going to have what, 12 pitchers on the roster? Alright, now assume that each MLB team plays about 1500 innings per year. Your average RP would need to pitch about 125 innings per year. How many guys did this??? Hmm, nobody... Only one guy even got 100 IP, and that was Proctor. His arm basically fell off by the end of the year..
B. You woudl be REAL screwed in a doubleheader.. You'd use up all your pitchers on the first game, what do you do in the second??
C. Slugfests would not work at all. Your RP would need to place a premium on pitching lots of innings... if they struggled, you'd have to just let them blow up...

That being said, I think you could go with a rotation of 4 SP, maybe get away with 3 when you have lots of off-days, and have your bullpen do whole games on occasion... but the whole season...not gonna work over time.

[BigLebowski]

You would need to abuse your AAA system as well to do this. You could be calling up guys left and right to fill in as necessary, and then it would only work for a season or so. I'd love to see it tried for a month or so. Would be very interesting.

[PlayingWithFire]

So a Rockies pitching lineup of, say

Long-Tim Wakefield
Long-Byung Hyun Kim
Long-Jon Rauch
Long-Jason Davis
Mop up-Jeremy Affeldt
Lefty specialist-Kurt Birkins
Righty specialist-Chad Bradford
Middle Man-Joe Nelson
Middle Man-Jose Mesa
Middle Man-Kiko Calero
Setup Man-Justin Duchschrer
Closer-Brian Fuentes

Here is a 12 man pitching staff that should be cheap. Let me try this in a baseball simulator... It should be able to handle some innings.

[number9]

You got a baseball simulator that can handle unconventional strategies like this RP one? Would be interesting to see how effective this staff would be compared to the cost.

[PlayingWithFire]

You got a baseball simulator that can handle unconventional strategies like this RP one? Would be interesting to see how effective this staff would be compared to the cost.

and the short answer is no

[acsguitar]

You would need to abuse your AAA system as well to do this. You could be calling up guys left and right to fill in as necessary, and then it would only work for a season or so. I'd love to see it tried for a month or so. Would be very interesting.

Yea the rockies don't like calling people up

Our entire team in 2005 was callups

[buffalobillsrul2002]

Wait. What are the rules on calling guys down and up from AAA? Like, could you just call up/send down guys whenever somebody needs a day of rest?

For instance, you have Johan Santana start a game. He obviously isn't going to be pitching the next day. So why don't the Twins send him down and call up, say, Baker from AAA or somethign to pitch in the bullpen..... It seems like you could actually get an extra pitcher this way....

Basically, why doesn't a team send down their starters on their off-days and call up AAA relievers, then just call up the starter again when its his turn to start???