Tater Talk (2054.04): Spuds Have Been Using “Openers” All Year: A Breakdown

[woods]

In early spring, Spuds’ management was trying to sort out their strategy for the upcoming year. They were coming off a 96-loss season, had made some changes to the roster, but still weren’t exactly sure what they had, or whether they had any shot at contention.

Looking at the team, they observed a few things. First, they had a ridiculously strong and deep bullpen, and this was even after trading away one of their best relievers, Josh Dougherty, earlier in the off-season. In contrast to this, however, was their relatively weak rotation, and the lack of a true “ace” among their starting corps. The Spuds needed to find a way to leverage their bullpen strength to give them an edge in more games.

The answer was clear: Openers. By definition, the “Opener” strategy means starting the game with a pitcher whose job is to get through about an inning, then handing the ball over to a “Follower,” who pitches the bulk of the game, often throwing five innings or more. This is distinctly different from a “bullpen game,” because the Follower role still allows a starter-type to pitch the length of a standard outing.

In the BBA, the strategy had fallen out of favor, mainly because of the limited upside of burning a quality reliever in the first inning of a game whose outcome is yet to be determined. The Spuds, however, had a surplus of quality relievers, and had no problem using a closer-type in the first inning, since they had plenty of other options to finish the game.

The strategy would also allow the Spuds to “protect” their weaker starting pitchers by limiting the amount of times they faced the heart of opponents’ batting orders, and by giving them a handedness advantage in the cases of opponents who might set their lineups based on the Opener’s pitching side instead of the Follower’s.

After a brief trial in Spring Training with good results, the Spuds officially rolled out the Openers strategy for the 2054 season. With most of the season now in the books, we can break down some of the key metrics to see if it really gave the Spuds an advantage.

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The numbers

The first and most important number to look at is bullpen innings. The Spuds wanted their relievers to pitch more, and the numbers show they succeeded, though the numbers are a bit misleading. The Spuds lead the BBA in “reliever innings” by a lot, but that’s because Followers technically count towards reliever innings.

2054 Relief Innings

Team	Innings
Boise Spuds	654.1
(next closest team) Brooklyn	571.1

What the Spuds actually wanted to do is give more innings to the guys whose listed position is “relief pitcher,” so if you filter the total innings by only those pitchers, the Spuds still have more than all but seven BBA teams.

2054 RP Innings

Team	Innings
Brooklyn Robins	571.1
Hawaii Tropics	569
Phoenix Talons	557.1
Jacksonville Hurricanes	542.1
Madison Wolves	540.1
Yellow Springs Nine	527
Des Moines Kernels	522.1
Boise Spuds	520.1

(That's an interesting list of contenders and non-contenders which would be a lot of fun to analyze in more depth, but we won’t do that here, because this article is about the Spuds.)

There are a couple more metrics we can look at, specifically comparing Opener games to non-Opener games, to see if the strategy actually gave the Spuds an advantage:

Boise W-L Record

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In “Opener” games	19-18 (.514)
In non-“Opener” games	58-54 (.518)

Boise Runs Allowed

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In “Opener” games	5.4/game
In non-“Opener” games	4.6/game

This makes it appear as if the Spuds were more successful when they didn’t employ the Opener strategy, but that may be attributed to the fact that they typically tabbed their worst starters for the “Follower” role, while letting their best ones pitch without the extra help. I don’t know about you, but if you had told me in April that the Spuds would be over .500 in a handful of games pitched by Hsuang-tsung Xú and Gavrilovich Mastinsky, I would be ecstatic.

So did the Openers help? It’s hard to say. But I like to think the Opener strategy gave us a better chance in those games than we otherwise would have had.

That’s also backed up by this number:

"Opener" Games

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Where the Opener pitched a scoreless outing	24/37 (65%)
Where the Opener allowed > 1 run	13/37 (35%)

That’s pretty good. An argument people like to use against Openers is that so often, the Opener will give up a few runs in his limited outing, leaving the Follower with a deficit before they even enter the game. But nearly two-thirds of the time, the Spuds’ Openers handed the ball to the Followers with a clean slate, their job done and the toughest part of the opponents’ lineup dealt with. That’s obviously a huge boon when it comes to maximizing the team’s chances for winning.

But of course, there are going to be times when the whole strategy backfires.

Number of times the Follower pitched the GAME OF HIS FUCKING LIFE and lost, thanks to a sloppy first inning by an Opener

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1

Like with anything, the plan doesn’t always work, and pitchers are going to give up runs sometimes. On August 3, rookie Logan Hill threw 8.2 scoreless innings against the Blazers. It was, without a doubt, the best game of his BBA career. It also just so happened that the achievement coincided with Opener Ommar bin Ayyub allowing a solo home run in the second inning before Hill came in, and the Spuds’ offense being unable to score more than a single run of their own. The game went into extra innings, and the Spuds eventually lost on another Blazers solo shot in the 14th.

People will knock the Opener strategy when seeing a game like this, and get caught up in the emotional aspect of Hill having a potential win taken away from him in the game of his life. But who’s to say what would’ve happened without the Opener? Maybe Hill gets knocked around by the top of the Blazers lineup in the first, and never has a chance to go 8+ innings.

Anyway, the point is, Openers are in Boise to stay. And as the Spuds gear up for a potential postseason run, they’ll look forward to seeing how opponents will adjust to the strategy. Will they start stacking their batting orders differently when they face us? Guess we’ll see in October.

[CTBrewCrew]

Nice summary.

[Dington]

I love utilizing openers. Used this strategy a bit when we weren’t a contender, but now that the pitching staff is stacked it’s hard to justify. Though, had I used openers I might have had more success. Idk. Either way it’s fun.

[neugey]

Good write-up. I don't mind too much the idea of openers/followers in principle. For me though it's difficult to execute in OOTP because I like to utilize Daily Lineups.

[Jwalk100]

Great job!

I like seeing the different strategies teams employ.

[woods]

Good write-up. I don't mind too much the idea of openers/followers in principle. For me though it's difficult to execute in OOTP because I like to utilize Daily Lineups.

Yeah, this was a problem for me as well, Openers and Daily Lineups absolutely don't work with each other. Hopefully this is something they fix in 24.

[Jess64]

Nice write-up. Gave me something to think about for sure

[Trebro]

why doesn't opener and daily lineup work?

[woods]

why doesn't opener and daily lineup work?

Because Daily Lineups doesn't listen to Opener/Follower rules. The pitcher you insert into your daily lineups will be treated as a SP no matter what. So, even if you put a reliever in to start the game, the game will push him for 4-5 innings if it can, and also it won't bring in your designated Follower afterwards.

The best way I've found to use Openers effectively is to let your manager decide the day-to-day lineups, and tag certain starters as "Followers" and certain relievers as "Openers" in Player Strategy settings.