2018 MLB off-season news & notes discussion thread

[robert terwilliger]

because you're an adult.

 

[Quid Pro Clowe]

Reminds me of my job. A few years back they got these portable computers and called them 'computers on wheels', or COW's for short. So inevitably the fat, lazy staff members who never put a fork down in their life got offended so the name was changed to WOW's (workstation on wheels).

 

[Hadoop]

Hearing Madison Bumgarner is not a fan of the 'opener' strategy that more MLB teams may apply in 2019. While he doesn't need it a lot of starters could use it and I personally love this strategy from an advanced analytics point of view.

 

[Cubs2024WSChamps]

Reminds me of my job. A few years back they got these portable computers and called them 'computers on wheels', or COW's for short. So inevitably the fat, lazy staff members who never put a fork down in their life got offended so the name was changed to WOW's (workstation on wheels).

This is gold.

What happens when the Warcraft players get offended....

 

[Cubs2024WSChamps]

Hearing Madison Bumgarner is not a fan of the 'opener' strategy that more MLB teams may apply in 2019. While he doesn't need it a lot of starters could use it and I personally love this strategy from an advanced analytics point of view.

Baseball is going to evolve into having a team of relief pitchers who only pitch three innings an outing, just wait for it.

Lester- 3 innings to start
Darvish comes in the next three
Then Hendricks pitches the final three

They have been playing baseball wrong the entire time.

 

[bleedblue1223]

Hearing Madison Bumgarner is not a fan of the 'opener' strategy that more MLB teams may apply in 2019. While he doesn't need it a lot of starters could use it and I personally love this strategy from an advanced analytics point of view.

I've never really dug into the strategy, what's the short reasoning for it?

 

[bleedblue1223]

Baseball is going to evolve into having a team of relief pitchers who only pitch three innings an outing, just wait for it.

Lester- 3 innings to start
Darvish comes in the next three
Then Hendricks pitches the final three

They have been playing baseball wrong the entire time.

Smaller clubs will do this at some point. Bad starters can sometimes make for great relievers, like Wade Davis or Andrew Miller. Have a group like that to pitch 3ish innings an appearance. Figuring out rest though would be tricky.

 

[Winger for Hire]

I never understood the push back from non players on The Opener and non traditional bullpen usage.

I understand completely from a starting pitcher's view. They want the ball as many times and as much as possible. Fans, should want any strategy that's going to help their team win.

 

[bleedblue1223]

I never understood the push back from non players on The Opener and non traditional bullpen usage.

I understand completely from a starting pitcher's view. They want the ball as many times and as much as possible. Fans, should want any strategy that's going to help their team win.

Fans are the most traditional fans in sports and that care the most about historical statistics. Fans are still split on shifts, and that doesn't have any direct impact on statistics. It's not even settled that openers provide a benefit in my view.

Like in NFL, the hip new thing was a running quarterback, a lot of "experts" and fans thought that would be the future, and look how that's turned out.

 

[Winger for Hire]

Yeah, it's nothing like running quarterbacks.

 

[bleedblue1223]

Yeah, it's nothing like running quarterbacks.

The point is, there hasn't been anywhere close to a big enough sample to prove if the strategy is more successful than traditional pitcher use. Is it a gimmick that doesn't really impact much like the pitcher batting 8th, or is it something that will be widely adopted and improve performance?

 

[robert terwilliger]

i think we'll see more teams do the opener business in lieu of spending money in free agency. instead of dropping big money on a starter, just spend a few million on some older arms and stack them.

sure, you can still develop the guy willing to go 6+. but on those other days when you're too cheap to pay for pitching, just use some guys you can shuttle up and down to triple a ad infinitum.

 

[Winger for Hire]

I don't see why is either has to be a gimmick or widely adopted. It's a way to build your team. It's like having a play set in football or system in hockey. A team that has slow skaters isn't going to play a speed based system; a team with a bad QB and 2 great RBs aren't going to air it out; a team with a shaky and shallow rotation is going to gravitate to a way to deploying them that's going to put them in position to get the most out of their personal.

If it's not widely adopted, it doesn't mean it's a gimmick or not viable. The inverse also holds true, if everyone adopts it, it doesn't mean it's the best way to go. Build your team and play to its strengths.

 

[robert terwilliger]

it's a business at the end of the day.

signing one pitcher for 20+ million or 4 pitchers for 4+ million each is the wave of the future.

 

[bleedblue1223]

I don't see why is either has to be a gimmick or widely adopted. It's a way to build your team. It's like having a play set in football or system in hockey. A team that has slow skaters isn't going to play a speed based system; a team with a bad QB and 2 great RBs aren't going to air it out; a team with a shaky and shallow rotation is going to gravitate to a way to deploying them that's going to put them in position to get the most out of their personal.

If it's not widely adopted, it doesn't mean it's a gimmick or not viable. The inverse also holds true, if everyone adopts it, it doesn't mean it's the best way to go. Build your team and play to its strengths.

But, systems in hockey or a 2-RB offense are in a sense widely adopted. I don't mean widely adopted in the sense that all teams use it, but in a sense that some teams use it all the time and it's not always isolated to the same exact teams. The shift is widely adopted, but isn't used by all teams or all the time. Systems and 2-RB styles are simply just play styles that have proven success records. The opener strategy isn't on that level yet. It's right now an idea that some have to try and great better matchups. Throw out a good reliever in the 1st, so your crappy starter doesn't have to start off against the top hitters. I don't buy that it has a big impact. A bigger impact to me would be shortening starters, so they don't go through the order as much because that's when starters run into most of their issues, when a batter is seeing them for the third time.

To me, it's similar to when Russell Wilson and Kaepernick and Newton and all those guys came in and everyone though it would change the game. It did until the other teams adjusted and now it's back to what it was.

It'll be interesting to see if a team that utilizes it can have real playoff success. Can a team not invest heavily in starting pitching and go for more of the relievers to carry a heavier load and win in the playoffs. That's what will push this strategy to more teams. Until then, it's a gimmick and an excuse to spend less money.

 

[robert terwilliger]

the opener is essentially allowing the starter to go deeper, he just comes in the game first.

opener gets 123
starter gets 456/789/123/456/789/123

essentially, you're allowing your starter to only see 123 twice and the second time possibly with someone backing him. asking him to get 18 outs that way instead of the straight up way is just skinning the cat a different way though since unless he's pitching a perfect game, he's not getting you through six innings without seeing the top of the order at least twice.

i think it's fine if you want to bullpen a game because a guy got hurt or had a family emergency. it gets kind of tiring looking at it as a strategy and having 13 man staffs and there never seeming to be enough pitchers.

 

[bleedblue1223]

the opener is essentially allowing the starter to go deeper, he just comes in the game first.

opener gets 123
starter gets 456/789/123/456/789/123

essentially, you're allowing your starter to only see 123 twice and the second time possibly with someone backing him. asking him to get 18 outs that way instead of the straight up way is just skinning the cat a different way though since unless he's pitching a perfect game, he's not getting you through six innings without seeing the top of the order at least twice.

i think it's fine if you want to bullpen a game because a guy got hurt or had a family emergency. it gets kind of tiring looking at it as a strategy and having 13 man staffs and there never seeming to be enough pitchers.

Yeah, so it's less about the 1st inning, but trying to limit the 3rd time exposure to the best hitters, I see now.

Aren't they talking about expanding the active roster? I think the players should be worried if rosters get expanded to much to the point where teams can hoard pitchers on the roster. As long as teams are somewhat limited, they'll still need starters, but if they can legitimately have 15 pitchers on the roster, then they can just bullpen more and more games.

 

[robert terwilliger]

that's all they're doing now.

take a look at some of these benches across the league. you have a backup catcher, an infielder who can play short and a fourth outfielder. maybe your platoon 1b/dh/lf. that leaves you with a 12 man staff. without the fourth outfielder, say you roll him up into your 1b/dh, that's a 13 man staff.

that's how you get guys coming in the game in the fourth inning.

i'm against changing the strategy of baseball when it limits the manager wrt tactics (ie the pitcher has to face a minimum number of hitters) but the parade of relief pitchers isn't becoming on baseball and only makes the game longer.

i don't know how you stop it either without drastic rule changes. i like guys being loogy or roogy but having a pen of 8 guys for a game in may just seems like overkill.

 

[bleedblue1223]

that's all they're doing now.

take a look at some of these benches across the league. you have a backup catcher, an infielder who can play short and a fourth outfielder. maybe your platoon 1b/dh/lf. that leaves you with a 12 man staff. without the fourth outfielder, say you roll him up into your 1b/dh, that's a 13 man staff.

that's how you get guys coming in the game in the fourth inning.

i'm against changing the strategy of baseball when it limits the manager wrt tactics (ie the pitcher has to face a minimum number of hitters) but the parade of relief pitchers isn't becoming on baseball and only makes the game longer.

i don't know how you stop it either without drastic rule changes. i like guys being loogy or roogy but having a pen of 8 guys for a game in may just seems like overkill.

Agreed. I hate the proposed rule where pitchers have to face 3 batters, but outside of forcing teams to only carry so many pitchers on the roster, I'm not sure there are any other solutions. Even if they can only carry so many pitchers, they can still just rotate guys in the minors, so then you'd have to have a rule that healthy players called up have to stay up for so many days/games, which wouldn't be a bad thing.

 

[Quid Pro Clowe]

I've never really dug into the strategy, what's the short reasoning for it?

Because teams usually put their best hitters 1-5. The strategy is send a good reliever out to go through those guys so that the starter (often a lower end one you don't trust as much) will face the top of the order 1 fewer time.

I probably should have read past your post to see it was already answered lol

 

[Quid Pro Clowe]

I never understood the push back from non players on The Opener and non traditional bullpen usage.

I understand completely from a starting pitcher's view. They want the ball as many ties and as much as possible. Fans, should want any strategy that's going to help their team win.

I was a fan of the concept with the A's; just not a fan of who they chose to use (Liam Hendriks)

 

[GIN ANTONIC]

it's a business at the end of the day.

signing one pitcher for 20+ million or 4 pitchers for 4+ million each is the wave of the future.

It's not just a money thing, although I agree that is part of it. It's a performance vs cash argument. If you sign a pitcher to a 20+ million a year contract you're expecting him to perform. If he goes out there and get rocked in the 1st or 2nd inning then you're kind of f***ed for the rest of the game if not the rest of the series because then you have to overuse your bullpen and it throws everything off.

If you go with a 4 pitcher carousel for a game and one of the pitchers stinks it up in their 1-2 innings you can easily yank them and move on the the next guy and spread out the workload. Hell, you can pull a guy when there's any sign of trouble if you want, rather than a starter who you don't really want to just 'burn' too early.

I love pitchers that can go 7+ innings and perform at a high level on a consistent basis but it is becoming more rare. There are the elite will always have suitors and will get what they get but why pay a guy 20 million to be your no. 3 who isn't getting the job done as well as a collection of guys for less money/term?

 

[robert terwilliger]

and that begets the chicken/egg thing of whether we're seeing the "horse" pitcher die a natural death or are modern rosters pulling the trigger.

i can get a bunch of max effort guys to go out and blow their arm out or i can try to develop someone to give me more innings. that just takes time.

maybe they can have another turn ahead the clock night and we can have a pitcher for every inning since that's where the game is headed.

 

[John Price]

People keep trying to sweep this disturbing issue under the rug, or misplace blame. The fact of the matter is teams need to start making offers because the system is heavily logjammed right now.

 

[bleedblue1223]

Using Verlander's logic, Machado should sign the White Sox offer, but in reality, he just doesn't really want to go there. If Tampa offers them Harper or Machado that type of money, do we really believe that they would sign there? This is why most fans don't care. Both are trying to get sympathy from fans, and most fans think both sides are overpaid.

No one wants to give 10 contracts anymore, players need to understand that. Especially not at premium yearly prices.