Cyclone to Continue
(Robins look to continue redefinition of pitching roles)
It all started in the middle of last season. Someone pointed out that in an online baseball simulation league called "Major League Baseball" there was a team called the Tampa Bay Rays that were using a unique pitching system that didn't identify pitchers as starters or relievers. The Brooklyn Robins were quick to point out that they had been doing this for years in what is famously known as the pitching platoon.
The pitching platoon is a system in which, rather then relying on two or three stud starters, the Robins would stock pile anywhere from 10-15 flawed starters who would all excel in one unique area, while being deficient in another. Then it would be up to the manager to play the matchups game depending on what the oppositions strengths were. The system had varying degrees of success. Most notably the 2032 version of the Robins who finished .500 and just narrowly missed the playoffs with one of the worst staffs you could put together.
Upon further inspection of what this ficticious Tampa Bay Rays team was doing though, it turns out the philosophies are completely different. The Rays idea is that when facing a team that has all righties or lefties at the top of the lineup, they will start thier ROOGY or LOOGY. The strategy is two fold. One one hand it ensures tht your specialist faces the top 2-3 batters of the opposing team. Sure, it's only the first innings, but all innings should be just as important as the others. The other caveat to this structure is that your actual starting pitcher will now start the game in the second inning with the leadoff hitter being somewhere in the neighborhood of the #4-6 hitter. In this day of age where teams limit how many times through the order a pitcher is allowed to go, having the pitcher start at say the #5 hitter, allows him to go around the lineup .5 more times. Because the bottom of the lineup is less likely to rough up a tired pitcher.
With this new knowledge Brooklyn tried to figure out if or how it could be applied to them to help them gain an advantage. I don't think they wanted to completely abandon the pitching platoon. What they really wanted is to make a hybrid of the Rays system and theirs. So they began to tinker. It's really crazy to think that this tinkering started smack dab in the middle of a playoff push and continued all the way up to the Cartwright Cup. There were lessons learned, both good and bad.
So with a playoff loss in which the Robins started Ingo Bennaars (10/5/5 Talents), a AAA pitcher who is not even on the 40 man roster, all 6 games. Will this strategy continue? The Answer is yes.
Brooklyn has been re-scouting their entire pitching staff to see how their strengths and weakness' can been utilized under this new system dubbed "The Cyclone". They have also been trying to figure out ways to make it work over the course of a 162 game season. The playoffs were one thing with days off every 3rd or 4th day, but can this system be used during a 15-20 day period with no days off? Certainly not with a one man rotation.
The revelation is that this system could absolutely benefit this team. We know that Brooklyn has been stockpiling young starters for a while. They will add Grellan Profit (10/5/7 Talents) to a staff that already includes Francisco Ruiz (10/7/6 Talents), Manuel Romano (10/7/7 Talents), Manuel Andres (10/7/5 Talents), Ken Bates (10/6/7 Talents), Juan Jose Fuentes (9/7/6 Talents), Jorge Perez (8/7/9 Talents), Luis Salinas (10/6/6 Talents), and veteran Juan Hernandez (8/4/9 Talents). They also have some solid RP with moderately high stamina in Ryosei Akiyama (10/5/7 Talents), Bernard Keller (10/5/7 Talents), and Oginga Coujoe (8/7/7 Talents).
Rather then trying to decide which starters should start and which will pitch out of the pen, the team will use an all hands on deck approach. Every pitcher will be available for every game. Unlike the playoffs where strict pitch counts were used and every pitcher did pitch in every game. The adjusted system will use pitch counts determined by each pitchers stamina and ability.
The goal is this. There are 1,458 innings in a season. Rather then trying to get 5 guys to cover 1,000 and 7-8 guys covering the remaining 458, Brooklyn is asking each guy to give roughly 112 innings. Some will obviously get more then others though. Gone are the 50-60 inning under utilized pitchers. Gone are the 200+ pitchers who end up getting hurt late in the season. This system also eliminates the game where a starter just doesn't have it and the manager pushes him to pitch to save the pen. There is also said to be a couple of other benefits to the system. But we can't give away all our secrets.
