Rockies move to 4-man rotation

[Tim]

I'm surprised nobody's talked about this. Any opinions?

[TruffleShuffle]

i don't know what to think. it's pretty weird, but i guess if there's ever a time to think outside the box, it's when your team is in the toilet and your pitching is a joke.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I swear I've been reading for like 15 years that the 4-man might be the wave of the future if just one team would try it first.

[imb]

they'll never sign a free agent pitcher again, but they never did anyway. if you were a pitcher and the rockies drafted you, would you sign with them? what happens if you spend 3 years in the minors doing the 4-man thing, a few seasons in colorado and then want to get the hell out? would another team sign someone that's spent 5 years throwing 75 pitches every 4 days with the intent of putting him in a 5-man rotation?

[javy knows my name]

I swear I've been reading for like 15 years that the 4-man might be the wave of the future if just one team would try it first.

 

Where? Why?

[Clem Fandango]

New market inefficiency!

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I swear I've been reading for like 15 years that the 4-man might be the wave of the future if just one team would try it first.

 

Where? Why?

 

Places like Baseball Prospectus and Hardball Times have done articles about it in the past. The idea is that some in the industry suspect that the extra day of rest doesn't really help much in terms of avoiding injuries or maintaining performance, but nobody wants their team to be the test subjects.

[bukie]

It didn't look like Alex White adjusted well. So they sent him down to work on additional training to get used to throwing 75 pitches every 4 days.

[Tracer Bullet]

I swear I've been reading for like 15 years that the 4-man might be the wave of the future if just one team would try it first.

 

Where? Why?

 

Places like Baseball Prospectus and Hardball Times have done articles about it in the past. The idea is that some in the industry suspect that the extra day of rest doesn't really help much in terms of avoiding injuries or maintaining performance, but nobody wants their team to be the test subjects.

 

I remember reading such articles a long time ago. I seem to recall Neyer discussing it, but may have been bp it tht. I don't recall a 75-pitch limit but maybe that's new or the rockies are crazy.

[MSG T]

I swear I've been reading for like 15 years that the 4-man might be the wave of the future if just one team would try it first.

 

Where? Why?

 

Places like Baseball Prospectus and Hardball Times have done articles about it in the past. The idea is that some in the industry suspect that the extra day of rest doesn't really help much in terms of avoiding injuries or maintaining performance, but nobody wants their team to be the test subjects.

 

I remember reading such articles a long time ago. I seem to recall Neyer discussing it, but may have been bp it tht. I don't recall a 75-pitch limit but maybe that's new or the rockies are crazy.

 

Wasn't part of the argument for the 4man rotation that pitchers don't really get 4 days rest. I seem to recall the articles talking about the pitchers resting the day after a start then throwing on the side the rest of their time off.

 

I'm not going to go all gaga if people agree or disagree with the premise, but I see absolutely no reason it can't work, in terms of pitcher performance and health, if teams do it correctly. They don't really need arbitrary pitch counts, they just need to pay attention to the pitchers and watch for signs of fatigue and make a change when those signs appear.

 

Although, no way in hell would I use a 4 man rotation if Dusty Baker was my manager. Of course, no way in hell would I hire Dusty in the first place.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Here's one from 2002 where a BP writer argues the five-man rotation may be doing more harm than good:

 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1596

 

It references something called "The Diamond Appraised" from 1989, which means I guess the 4-man rumblings go back even further:

 

"I expect the real reason baseball will eventually return to the four-man rotation will be the simplest of all: It helps win games. The five-man rotation is not on that evolutionary path; it's a digression, a dead-end alley. Just as baseball once believed that walking a lot of batters was better than throwing a home-run pitch, we are now chasing an illusion that our pitchers work better on four days' rest and that the five-man rotation significantly improves their future."

- Craig Wright, in The Diamond Appraised, 1989.