Monday, March 25, 2013
Tandem Starters
Pizza proposes that the whole starting group becomes tandem starters.
Under his proposal, you have six starters paired in groups of three. That would mean they'd each pitch 54 games, and they'd each throw 50 pitches. That's 2700 per pitcher. Basically, the 100 pitches per game times 162 games would be spread over six pitchers instead of five.
A top starter (Verlander, Felix, Kershaw) would presently average over 100 pitches per start and some 33 starts each. In his last 4 years, Verlander has averaged 3850 pitches per year, Felix 3600. Trivia: Kershaw ?has thrown 3469 pitches in each of the last two years. Exact same number!
Anyway, Pizza proposal could work, but obviously, it can't be tested with a team that has an ace starting pitcher. You can't test a theory if you already are one of the best pitchers in the league, on the idea that it MIGHT help the whole team for you to pitch less often overall.
So, we'd need a team where there's no obvious ace starting pitcher, a team that likely has pitchers who would throw 90-100 per game, and start 29-32. A team that where the top starter would likely get to 3000 pitches in a normal usage pattern, and therefore could go for 2700 pitchers in a tandem-rotation.
And pitchers have (sort of) pitched like this in the past. I looked for pitchers with at least 50 games and at least 140 IP, and at most 5 starts. John Hiller in 1974 threw 150 IP in 59 relief games. Willie Hernandez in his 1984 MVP season. Mike Marshall (of course) did it three times. There was Bob Stanley twice, Bill Campbell twice, Clay Carroll three times. And the last time it happened was with rookie Mark Eichorn (who I'd have awarded the ERA title).
I think it's worthy of a tryout, and naturally, you'd have to try this out in the lower-levels first.
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