Prospectus Idol Entry

To me, this fits BP perfectly. I loved it.

A real winner!

This was Ken's strongest work yet. While I have loved his humor throughout, I am glad that Ken toned it down a bit here and produced a fascinating and well-researched article and a topic that has interested me for decades. Great job!

I have to disagree with the above. While this is very interesting (I think we've all joked about something similar with our friends) I just don't see it at possible.

First, I'm not sure you can apply some of the numbers the same way. While batters aren't getting consecutive ABs against the same pitcher, they probably are facing them a ton of times throughout the year still. This possible could counteract the trips through the order theory.

Second, I foresee an outcome like we see in expansion years. Rather than having the best 35 or so pitchers throw 200 IP, you are now asking lesser pitchers to take up more of the role. While these 'B" players will me more effective than usual, I doubt they would be as effective as the current pitchers who are considered number 1 or 2 starters.

Lastly, If pitchers are throwing four IP every 3 games that gives you 6 SOMA pitchers. 1 more than a rotation (again, the difference between a team's 1 and 6 SP is HUGE today, let alone to make them have equal shares of IP). That leaves us with about 4-6 RP for the other 1 IP and mop-up situations (I guess). Those 4 (go with the low end) pitchers either won't get enough action working 1 IP every fourth game and won't be stretched out if one of these SOMAs gets lit up in the first. I'm happy the RP aren't pitching back to back days (in theory), but I can't image a great way to utilize them in a 162 game season.

This was, in my opinion, the best article of this contest, and certainly up there with the best I've ever seen on BP. Obviously it only brushes the surface and poses far more questions than it answers, but it's a fascinating read, and it has fired up my brain in a way that has rarely been done (aside from the day I bought a BP book off the shelf, never having heard of them before). Really, really well done.

This is by far the best article I've read in the contest so far. Well researched writing with professional polish.

I think your charts don't provide the right information. We want to see the change in pitcher performance holding the pitcher constant. You have "time through order" changing, but the composition is also changing. Instead, tell us the change in performance for each pitcher who made it through twice relative to how he did the first time. Then the change in performance for each pitcher who made it through three times relative to how he did the second time. And so on. Right now, those numbers aren't really that meaningful.

It would be a tough sell for SOMA since their is a huge unknown in terms of injury pitching 3 IP every 3 days in pitchers and agents minds. However, a stepping stone (compromise) to this might be considered by teams who have 6 starters, and one starter has trouble getting past the 5th inning and the other has been consigned to the BP where he has been ineffective or there is concern about injury due to past arm problems, or the team is trying to limit IP.

The solution is to piggy back the 6th starter onto the 5th starters game (say Clay Buchholz follows Jon Smoltz). He would be told he will start the 6th inning and go through the 8th or 9th. He will be getting 3- 4 IP of work every 5 games, and more importantly, he would be working on his normal schedule (every 5 days) so his routine would be the same. This effectively gives your normal relievers 1 day off every 5 games unless one of the 2 starters bombs and can not go 4 IP, which may happen 30% of the time.

I have been trying to sell the 6 starters into 5 games idea which is similar to SOMA on SOSH for a couple of years to no avail, but perhaps if BP runs with it it might fly. It is actually used in the minors at lower levels where teams have a surplus of starters (wannabes) and they want to keep control of young pitchers innings (limit to 4-5 IP per start) on a starters schedule, so it's not really a new idea.

Also, great article BTW. I would have liked to have seen how the data worked for the elite pitchers, say 80-90 starts over 3 years, but I suppose the word limit restricts what can be presented.

Ken has thoroughly entertained me since his original article. It's hard to believe that someone who, almost tongue-in-cheek, comes up with metrics like TGF can then attack a topic so seriously. At times, his tone and humor did not quite mesh with mine, but each week I eagerly opened his article to see what journey he had in store for me this week. This article as well was a solid treatment on a topic that has not been covered much, with a strong serious and analytical tone. Meanwhile, you could almost feel the anguish from his Unfiltered segment pleading with baseball broadcast shows to favor us with more intelligence and respect than the "stereotyped" target audience of an average GoDaddy Super Bowl commercial.

Ken, I've loved the stuff you've written and the unique (and fun) insights you've taken me on and I look forward to seeing more from you in the future.

I thought this was really well done. On the one hand, I thought it ran a little long, but on the other I felt that I wanted references to more research done by others (like Keith Woolner's article from BBTN). Really, you can't do everything when it comes to such ambitious topics so Ken does a great job exploring the topic in the way he does.

One thing bugged me throughout: there is an assumption that pitchers would be just as fresh when showing up with less off-days. I felt that needed to be addressed in some way.

As an aside, most of Ken's articles explored serious topics in a funny way. His initial offering explored a funny topic (TGF) in a serious way. Up until now I felt TGF was his strongest piece. I hope that should Ken win, we will see more work done in that vein.

Very good work.

Wonderful article. For the first time in BP Idol, I'm actually going to cast a vote.

Intriguing.

Of course, anecdotally, there are quite a few starting pitchers who are shakiest in the first inning, then settle in for a while once they get through that. SOMA wouldn't work with such pitchers, and working around them would make the rotation a logistical nightmare.

Still... intriguing.

This is a great piece; I was only planning on voting for one article in the finale, but I think I have to vote for both this and Tim Kniker's article, since both are better than the average piece regularly scheduled on BP.

True, mixing full starters with tandem starters in the same rotation would be tricky. Trying to develop pitchers both ways would be tricky. And as you correctly point out, some (but definitely the minority of) starters actually pitch better later in their outings.

Right now we can only guess which players (in the majors or the minors) would thrive under SOMA since no one really does it. If teams adopted SOMA, and all pitchers were trained that way, we'd never know which ones actually would get stronger later in the game. That's the downside of any one-size-fits-all approach -- but trying to use both at the same time would be hard.

So if (and that's the big if) pitchers could adapt to the SOMA schedule, I would think adopting it for everyone would make sense -- because the number of pitchers whose numbers would improve is likely to outnumber those whose numbers would regress.

Brilliant, game-changing kind of stuff. It may take MLB 100 years to employ this kind of thinking, but it certainly gives a high school or college coach pause...I think there is a home for this kind of strategy.

Very creative and interesting. Something doesn't quite click with the theory.

I wonder if the benefit you'd get by not sending a pitcher out there for a 3rd time offsets the fact that you'd usually have to put in an inferior arm - middle reliever - to avoid doing it? Or maybe, you'd have to revamp your pitching staff and acquire a bunch of "super middle relievers" - maybe 4th starter quality pitchers all the way through the staff. There certainly would be no reason for a team on a budget to put resources into a stud #1 if you're pulling him in the 4th inning anyway.

Good read and good luck.

First of all, I LOVE this article. However, I’d like to make the following comment:

Devil’s advocate:
Wouldn’t this diminish the role of a rotation ‘stopper’ to a certain degree? If you have a Roy Halladay or a Dan Haren in your rotation with the 4 other slots filled with ‘LAIM-o’s’ (to borrow Christina’s term), does this sort of system diminish the ‘stopper’s’ ability to ensure a win for your ballclub? Sure, the ‘stopper’ can come out to pitch more frequently, but that player’s ability to directly impact the course of the entire game (such as Halladay’s penchant for CG 4-hitters) is diminished. What good is it to have 3 or 4 magnificent innings pitched by your ace to only have a lesser pitcher come out an blow it?

With all that said, I find this idea intriguing. However, I suspect it would work best with teams that fall into two categories:

1. Teams with tremendous depth that can pair two quality pitchers every day. (think of the Rays with pairings of Kazmir/Garza, Price/Shields, and Niemann/Sonnanstine).
2. Teams with mediocre pitching (or very young and inexperienced pitching) across the board (think of the Pirates with pairings of Duke/Karstens, Snell/Ohlendorf, Maholm/Morton).

I think that teams with ‘top-heavy’ rotations would be the ones to miss out the most, losing that potentially game-changing domination every 5th day. Let’s say that your ace starts 35 games and the team wins 80% of them (28 wins). The team would only have to win 45% of the remaining 127 games to reach 85 wins on the year. Losing that “stopper’s” impact every 5th day could be disastrous and I am not sure that 3 innings more often would offset it.

As you did state, a team would have to embrace this concept from the top all the way down to build the depth needed. I may just have to try this out in a baseball video game dynasty to see how well this translates….it should be fun.

Thanks for presenting this fascinating (and slightly controversial) topic.

Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't all the hand-wringing about "lower win totals" offset by the fact that (as Ken points out) the number of appearances goes up quite a bit... If you assume that the tandems take turns "starting" the games, then they should get roughly equal chances for wins (and close to today's totals), since the second starter (if the tandem is successful) would likely be in line for the win, if the first pitcher doesn't go long enough to qualify...

This is a subject I've thought about often, but figured would never get answered because nobody in MLB would challenge the system. An interesting analysis of the subject, but this article missed the "Ken-Ness" or that signature "Funck" that made his articles so much more enjoyable to read than the others in the competition.

I like the article as a breakdown of an interesting idea, but depending on how you like Ken's historical tangents, he brought himself back to the pack (either one way or the other) with this article, and I am disappointed.

Thumbs up anyway for a great article.

I wonder if this kind of system would benefit (or harm) pitchers once it got to the playoffs. I don't really have an answer to that and it would probably have to defer to someone like Marshall or Carroll to judge how this kind of system would affect recovery time in a short series.

When I started reading this, I didn't expect the author to get into issues of practicality and implementation. But he did, and it really made the piece work for me. It started out like just another SABR pipe dream, but by the end, it felt like I'd really seen that this might work, and if it ever could, how it would have to go about being implemented. Very nice.

Ken--I not only thought this was YOUR best article of the contest, but the best article OVERALL in the contest. Great job!
And thanks to the judges for allowing the writers to choose their own topic this week. For future contests, I would like to see the authors allowed more leeway in subject choices.

Given that pitchers who would normally be starters who can gets wins would object to this, and further given that there's a measureable improvement in outcomes with this approach, wouldn't it make sense not to use starting pitchers for this sort of experiment, but to build the entire staff out of swingmen and long-relievers?

These are guys who aren't used to getting a chance at a win, and now they will get that chance every sixth day (assuming they alternate which of them starts the game). The quality of pitching would be lower, but it would also be cheap. You'd be looking for Miguel Batista or Ryan Franklin rather than Felix Hernandez or Roy Halladay. Imagine the hitters and defense on the team if you didn't have to spend on pitching.

I read all 3 pieces and after Brian's piece wanted to vote for him then read Tim's piece and wanted to vote for him and then Ken's piece and wanted to vote for him so after deciding that the only thing I could decide, was that I couldn't decide, I voted for all 3 as all of them would be worthy winners

This is an interesting subject - by the contest's top writer, although, I actually started to lose interest after the first chart. Although, this article has inspired the most thoughts and analysis. That first chart, however, was great and says to me starting pitchers hold up remarkably well the first four times through the order. Although, the stats do go down somewhat, it is not so much that it is clear a reliever would do better. Pitchers have good days and bad ones. If a pitcher is having a good day, why risk sticking in a reliever who might not? Why not let your starters soak up those innings if they can? Relieving - despite requiring fewer innings - can provoke as much wear and tear on its practioners.

Obviously going through the order a 5th time is most detrimental. It may be more plausible and practical for teams to pitch a reliever the first time through the order - of opposite handedness to the real starting pitcher. The the starter would then pitch the rest of the game, if has a good day. He would have the advantage of facing the same sided batters or a reduced bench. He would likely not come close to having to face anyone 5 times.

This is a BP article from start to finish. Well written, well researched, well presented and well argued. Bravo!

Two things before I delve into a few questions:

I agree with almost everyone else, this is a great read; it truly gives us some insight into the world of "what-if". That being said, I wish there was more focus on how this might impact the game and less on the actual statistics behind it all.

What I mean is that I wish there was more of a discussion in regards to how managers would handle a pitcher that just didn't have their best stuff; how agents and pitchers would feel about not getting a chance to get the win; if the rules were changed so that a Win can be had at the beginning of a game, would there be an asterisk next to the stats?

As I said, this is a great article and one that will always keep us wondering. Perhaps one day we'll see this implemented (I think we've moved farther away from it rather than closer, as fewer teams have those Ramiro Mendozas who could pitch 3-4 innings every 2 days). Anyways, it's gotten my vote.

Interesting and thought-provoking. Ken's writing is confident and polished, albeit more understated than in previous columns. Some thought he needed to take it down a notch or two. I appreciate Ken's willingness to listen to feedback, perhaps more than the feedback itself.

We want the Funck. Gotta have more Funck. owww

Thanks. One thing I've been trying to improve on during the contest (based on feedback from both the judges and readers, which doesn't always agree) isn't so much "toning things down" in general, but rather pitching the tone to better match the content.

This topic is a fairly serious one which I also personally find very interesting, so I didn't want too much "flavor" in the writing to overwhelm or obscure the analysis -- the topic should hopefully be fascinating enough to hold the reader's interest. For other stuff, like in the blog post, a lighter or more irreverent tone seems more fitting -- so depending on the topic and goal, I'm trying to aim the tone appropriately.

Sometimes it's appropriate to wear a suit and tie -- but I would still always want my tie to be unique and interesting.

Re: SOMA Strat simulations. You can't simulate SOMA in Strat, anyway. A few starters are allowed to pitch every 4th day (the ones with asterisks - almost always the staff ace of some MLB team), the rest can go every 5th day, but none are allowed to pitch every 3rd day. If you start them any more frequently then they are allowed, they have hugely penalizing fatigue factors, regardless of how many innings they pitched in their last start.

I've been a Strat player for decades, and I've tried to consider a scenario where you pair up 8 starters into four pairs, one lefty and one righty, and alternate them starting every 4 days with the other guy relieving after 4 innings (alternating lefty and righty pitchers would help mitigate any platoons by the opposing manager, forcing him to replace players in the 5th inning if he wanted to take advantage of the new pitcher). Even then, they would all have to be asterisk starters, and to get 8 asterisk starters, you would have to trade every other decent player on your team.

I suppose you could try a pitching staff with 10 starters, 5 lefty and 5 righty, and then maybe throw in a closer and a LOOGY for a 12-man staff. The problem is getting 10 starters with decent numbers (almost impossible), and also the fact that starters in Strat are usually only allowed to relieve for one inning before their fatigue numbers start going kablooey. You would have to locate 10 starter/relievers with reasonable numbers - another near impossible task.

So, in Start anyway, SOMA is not workable. Players are assigned capabilities relative to what they ACTUALLY did last season, not relative to what they MIGHT be able to do.