Off Topic
Five Days Rest? Get Off My Lawn!
End 2064
To be transparent, when I traded 36-year-old Takashi Nakamura to Phoenix, I expected to bring José Guevara up fairly soon thereafter. I was still thinking we could compete, and I was worried that Nakamura might crash and burn, plus he was on the expensive side if he takes his option for next year. So it seemed like a good way to grab a decent corner outfielder in Sergio León, as well as a bullpen prospect (and you know what a bullpen prospect can do for me, right?).
The point here is that I did not intend to go to a four-man rotation (which I will always think is God’s Intended Way to Play the Game, but I digress).
But I went with the four-man that week because I was busy and it was easy.
It did fine, and I as I recall there was a well-placed off-day that following week, so I let it run. Next thing you know, I was looking at it and thinking to myself, “Self, let’s play it out a while.”
My concern is injuries, of course.
As another aside, I think the main issue with pitching—real life or not--is that the injury field is what it is. A team can limit a pitcher’s exposure to injury by keeping him from throwing when he’s fatigued, and they can limit his exposure to injury by keeping him off the mound. Otherwise he is what he is. And I think pitchers can go on four days rest—real or not--without any issue. Yes, I understand sticky stuff and extra spin rate. I get max effort. Still, we see this play out in the post season most every year, right? Pitchers can do just fine on four days rest. Just don’t throw them for 140 pitches an outing.
It is a hill I’ll die on. [grin]
Whatever.
Regardless, the rotation for the year consisted Paul Worboys (12-10, 2.74), Arturo Meza (9-11, 4.79), last year’s draftee phenom Paul Glass (13-16, 4.12), and second year lefty Nelson Williams (12-15, 4.34). They made between 37 starts (Glass), and 39 (Worboys and Meza). No one got hurt. Their combined ERA was 3.95, 5th best in the league. Perhaps it would have been better if I’d brought Guevara up earlier than mid-September when I did, but on the whole I was pretty happy with them.
And, yeah, it looks like Worboys is going to earn his first Nebraska trophy, which is cool, but I don’t think is due to the four-man. Maybe I’m wrong, of course, but if the argument is that our rotations ERA would have been improved by pitching on five days’ rest is put forward, then it would stand that Worboys' numbers were hurt by the extra starts rather than helped.
Shrug.
Bottom line is that when Guevara came up, he did fine.
I suspect we’ll start with him on the atoll, and barring injury we’ll be back to the five-man, at least to start things, though, again, my concern would be to limit exposure to injury simply through limiting starts. By my math, 39 starts is roughly 15% more than 34, which means each of those four starters increased their chances of injury by 15% over the year.
Looking deeper at it, one might ask if the four-man increases a pitcher’s PAP Score (Pitcher Abuse Points). The answer is, well, of course it can, but it does not have to. I note that PAP is an equation that comes from and is applied to real-life pitchers. Here are Bikini’s four pitchers and their PAP status:
Glass: 541 PAP (90.3 Pitches/Game)
Meza: 396 PAP (93.0 Pitches/Game)
Worboys: 8 PAP (86.6 Pitches/Game)
Williams: 0 PAP (83.1 Pitches/Game)
For reference Paul Glass is #80 on the list of most abused among qualified pitchers. Meza is #87.
Meza had 16 CAT 2 starts (100-109 pitches). Glass had 4. Worboys 1. Williams 0.
No one on the team threw 110+ pitches in any game.
Did that play a part in not getting injured? I'm sure it did. Did it prevent injury from occurring? I'm sure it did not. Basically, I think I rolled the dice and it worked out. As a result, I kept an extra outfielder on the roster--though as you can tell from my diatribes earlier, that didn't really work out.
Sigh again.
Anyway, that was fun.
Bottom line, the team’s rotation was pretty good this season. At least I certainly can’t complain about them.
And Next Year?
Interesting question. We have to decide whether to pick up Meza’s $8M option. I’d guess we will, but he’s getting older and the dev engine has whittled him down a little. He might well not be worth the $8M. We’ll cogitate on it.
That we have Jacky Lavergne in the wings is an interesting sidecar to that decision. His “2” stamina makes that difficult, but he’s been starting fine in the minors.
We’ll see what we concoct.
End 2064
To be transparent, when I traded 36-year-old Takashi Nakamura to Phoenix, I expected to bring José Guevara up fairly soon thereafter. I was still thinking we could compete, and I was worried that Nakamura might crash and burn, plus he was on the expensive side if he takes his option for next year. So it seemed like a good way to grab a decent corner outfielder in Sergio León, as well as a bullpen prospect (and you know what a bullpen prospect can do for me, right?).
The point here is that I did not intend to go to a four-man rotation (which I will always think is God’s Intended Way to Play the Game, but I digress).
But I went with the four-man that week because I was busy and it was easy.
It did fine, and I as I recall there was a well-placed off-day that following week, so I let it run. Next thing you know, I was looking at it and thinking to myself, “Self, let’s play it out a while.”
My concern is injuries, of course.
As another aside, I think the main issue with pitching—real life or not--is that the injury field is what it is. A team can limit a pitcher’s exposure to injury by keeping him from throwing when he’s fatigued, and they can limit his exposure to injury by keeping him off the mound. Otherwise he is what he is. And I think pitchers can go on four days rest—real or not--without any issue. Yes, I understand sticky stuff and extra spin rate. I get max effort. Still, we see this play out in the post season most every year, right? Pitchers can do just fine on four days rest. Just don’t throw them for 140 pitches an outing.
It is a hill I’ll die on. [grin]
Whatever.
Regardless, the rotation for the year consisted Paul Worboys (12-10, 2.74), Arturo Meza (9-11, 4.79), last year’s draftee phenom Paul Glass (13-16, 4.12), and second year lefty Nelson Williams (12-15, 4.34). They made between 37 starts (Glass), and 39 (Worboys and Meza). No one got hurt. Their combined ERA was 3.95, 5th best in the league. Perhaps it would have been better if I’d brought Guevara up earlier than mid-September when I did, but on the whole I was pretty happy with them.
And, yeah, it looks like Worboys is going to earn his first Nebraska trophy, which is cool, but I don’t think is due to the four-man. Maybe I’m wrong, of course, but if the argument is that our rotations ERA would have been improved by pitching on five days’ rest is put forward, then it would stand that Worboys' numbers were hurt by the extra starts rather than helped.
Shrug.
Bottom line is that when Guevara came up, he did fine.
I suspect we’ll start with him on the atoll, and barring injury we’ll be back to the five-man, at least to start things, though, again, my concern would be to limit exposure to injury simply through limiting starts. By my math, 39 starts is roughly 15% more than 34, which means each of those four starters increased their chances of injury by 15% over the year.
Looking deeper at it, one might ask if the four-man increases a pitcher’s PAP Score (Pitcher Abuse Points). The answer is, well, of course it can, but it does not have to. I note that PAP is an equation that comes from and is applied to real-life pitchers. Here are Bikini’s four pitchers and their PAP status:
Glass: 541 PAP (90.3 Pitches/Game)
Meza: 396 PAP (93.0 Pitches/Game)
Worboys: 8 PAP (86.6 Pitches/Game)
Williams: 0 PAP (83.1 Pitches/Game)
For reference Paul Glass is #80 on the list of most abused among qualified pitchers. Meza is #87.
Meza had 16 CAT 2 starts (100-109 pitches). Glass had 4. Worboys 1. Williams 0.
No one on the team threw 110+ pitches in any game.
Did that play a part in not getting injured? I'm sure it did. Did it prevent injury from occurring? I'm sure it did not. Basically, I think I rolled the dice and it worked out. As a result, I kept an extra outfielder on the roster--though as you can tell from my diatribes earlier, that didn't really work out.
Sigh again.
Anyway, that was fun.
Bottom line, the team’s rotation was pretty good this season. At least I certainly can’t complain about them.
And Next Year?
Interesting question. We have to decide whether to pick up Meza’s $8M option. I’d guess we will, but he’s getting older and the dev engine has whittled him down a little. He might well not be worth the $8M. We’ll cogitate on it.
That we have Jacky Lavergne in the wings is an interesting sidecar to that decision. His “2” stamina makes that difficult, but he’s been starting fine in the minors.
We’ll see what we concoct.
