Tom House

[sharksrog]

Tom House probably knows about as much about pitchers as anyone. He has said that he thinks teams will eventually have a dozen pitchers who will throw no more than 45 pitches a game no more than three times a week. That fits with my belief that pitchers should throw no more than every other day unless truly necessary and that their limit barring absolute emergency should be pitching no more than two days in a row.

What I like about what House said is that teams could then limit their rosters to a dozen pitchers as opposed to the normal 13 now. That would open up an additional position spot on the roster.

A dozen pitchers would permit the use of three pitchers every third day, plus perhaps say a top right-handed and left-handed reliever and a long man to fill in if one of the normal three pitchers bombed or if the game went to extra innings.

I suspect a little tweaking might be necessary, but pitchers are both better and likely less prone to injury when they pitch in shorter bursts. I realize there is sometimes resistance to changing how pitchers are used, but in reality, their usage has been shortening ever since the game began and pitchers pitched every two or three days and were expected to complete what they started.

A pitcher has pitched over 600 innings 13 times -- none since 1890. Forty-nine more have pitched between 500 and 600 innings -- again, none since 1890. An additional 143 have pitched between 400 and 500 frames, none since 1903. Another 163 threw between 350 and 400 frames, none since 1922. I think we can all see where this is going. This past season no one exceeded the 213 1/3 by former Giant prospect Zack Wheeler. Anyone want to guess what full season no pitcher will make it to 200 innings?

Just as many of us baby boomers decry why pitchers can't pitch more, the pitchers of our youths were viewed as wimps by baseball fans from 50 years earlier.

In 2000, the average speed of a fastball was 89 mph. By 2017 it had reached 92.8. That's nearly a quarter mile a year increase. Generally speaking, the harder pitchers throw, the less their arms can take. Right now I'm reading the book "K: The history of baseball in 10 pitches." Like most of the books I've read on pitching, it's pretty good.

It's conceivable the trend will turn around at some point, but the entire history of baseball has been one of pitchers throwing fewer and fewer innings over time.

Back in the earliest days of baseball, barring an emergency, there almost was no such thing as a reliever. Then came relievers, who were mostly failed starters. Then long relievers and firemen. And now openers, closers and set up men, with the occasional bullpen game.

[reedonly]

Oct 27, 2021 17:15:48 GMT -5 sharksrog said:

Tom House probably knows about as much about pitchers as anyone. He has said that he thinks teams will eventually have a dozen pitchers who will throw no more than 45 pitches a game no more than three times a week. That fits with my belief that pitchers should throw no more than every other day unless truly necessary and that their limit barring absolute emergency should be pitching no more than two days in a row.

What I like about what House said is that teams could then limit their rosters to a dozen pitchers as opposed to the normal 13 now. That would open up an additional position spot on the roster.

A dozen pitchers would permit the use of three pitchers every third day, plus perhaps say a top right-handed and left-handed reliever and a long man to fill in if one of the normal three pitchers bombed or if the game went to extra innings.

I suspect a little tweaking might be necessary, but pitchers are both better and likely less prone to injury when they pitch in shorter bursts. I realize there is sometimes resistance to changing how pitchers are used, but in reality, their usage has been shortening ever since the game began and pitchers pitched every two or three days and were expected to complete what they started.

A pitcher has pitched over 600 innings 13 times -- none since 1890. Forty-nine more have pitched between 500 and 600 innings -- again, none since 1890. An additional 143 have pitched between 400 and 500 frames, none since 1903. Another 163 threw between 350 and 400 frames, none since 1922. I think we can all see where this is going. This past season no one exceeded the 213 1/3 by former Giant prospect Zack Wheeler. Anyone want to guess what full season no pitcher will make it to 200 innings?

Just as many of us baby boomers decry why pitchers can't pitch more, the pitchers of our youths were viewed as wimps by baseball fans from 50 years earlier.

In 2000, the average speed of a fastball was 89 mph. By 2017 it had reached 92.8. That's nearly a quarter mile a year increase. Generally speaking, the harder pitchers throw, the less their arms can take. Right now I'm reading the book "K: The history of baseball in 10 pitches." Like most of the books I've read on pitching, it's pretty good.

It's conceivable the trend will turn around at some point, but the entire history of baseball has been one of pitchers throwing fewer and fewer innings over time.

Back in the earliest days of baseball, barring an emergency, there almost was no such thing as a reliever. Then came relievers, who were mostly failed starters. Then long relievers and firemen. And now openers, closers and set up men, with the occasional bullpen game.

I get what House is getting at based solely on numbers but I'm not sure if it is sustainable if one or two of the staff melts down.  45 pitch limits are 2 , maybe 3 innings.  I see there you might have 3 inning guys and 1 inning guys. Also, we are not counting how many pitches are used in warmups.  A dozen pitchers with *four* pitchers going every third day may not be enough and if you double switch or pinch hit for these pitchers, you wll need more bench players.  Just on numbers alone, a style like that seems to push the limits.  The majority of the middle relievers go one inning so the team would need more three inning guys and I"m not sure if you would use a middle relief guy in a three inning role.  Then the strategy against a team like this would be to grind, work the pitch counts up.  this may even necessitate a sort of taxi squad on the AAA level so a team using this strategy need pitchers with options.   I see what House is saying but I think teams switching to a grinding style of offense could render it ineffective rather quickly especially if teams run out of rested pitchers or succumb to the temptation of breaking the every third day rule or the 45 pitch limit  Furthermore, what if there are postponements and doubleheaders?   Extra inning games?  The staff would have less of the traditional starters and closers and 12 guys like Yesmeiro Petit.  If its such a great idea, let the "clever" teams like Tampa Bay try it first.  I don't think the Giants need to be the pioneers in this case.

[sharksrog]

Some very good points, Reed. I like that House is trying to be creative, but as you pointed out, there are wrinkles that need to be worked out. As I was posting, I was kind of thinking of something of a hybrid system. There are still pitchers, such as Webb and probably Gausman of the Giants, who might still be best used as traditional starters. I agree with you that the value of pitchers with options would be increased. That's a strategy the Giants have used quite a bit recently with pitchers and position players.

Where I think the Giants have been innovators is in putting together a staff that can evaluate which players it has a chance to improve and a marvelous coaching staff to help the players make the necessary improvements.

As an aside, the "clever" teams like Tampa Bay are usually clever out of necessity. The Giants have enough money to spend that while it is rarely wrong to be innovative, they don't have to gamble as much as the Rays or A's.

Here's a question for those who believe that Dave Roberts' should have quit when the opener idea came from above and (perhaps, we don't really know for sure) forced on him. First of all, he should definitely complete his contract unless the Dodgers reached a mutual agreement for him to leave. But the question is, why didn't Dave think of using the opener himself? It was a brilliant strategy, and even though Gabe Kapler was likely as well equipped as any manager to react but not overreact, IMO he overreacted, which allowed the game to come down to Flores vs. Scherzer, which might have been the worst possible matchup for the Giants, especially when a missed call sealed the deal. At least if Tommy LaStella had been at the plate, the game wouldn't have been settled on a missed call by the first base umpire.

[sharksrog]

I think the biggest challenge with pitchers now is keeping their arms healthy. Pitchers continue to test the limits of the body, particularly the arm itself.

[reedonly]

Oct 28, 2021 14:34:46 GMT -5 sharksrog said:

Some very good points, Reed. I like that House is trying to be creative, but as you pointed out, there are wrinkles that need to be worked out. As I was posting, I was kind of thinking of something of a hybrid system. There are still pitchers, such as Webb and probably Gausman of the Giants, who might still be best used as traditional starters. I agree with you that the value of pitchers with options would be increased. That's a strategy the Giants have used quite a bit recently with pitchers and position players.

Where I think the Giants have been innovators is in putting together a staff that can evaluate which players it has a chance to improve and a marvelous coaching staff to help the players make the necessary improvements.

As an aside, the "clever" teams like Tampa Bay are usually clever out of necessity. The Giants have enough money to spend that while it is rarely wrong to be innovative, they don't have to gamble as much as the Rays or A's.

Here's a question for those who believe that Dave Roberts' should have quit when the opener idea came from above and (perhaps, we don't really know for sure) forced on him. First of all, he should definitely complete his contract unless the Dodgers reached a mutual agreement for him to leave. But the question is, why didn't Dave think of using the opener himself? It was a brilliant strategy, and even though Gabe Kapler was likely as well equipped as any manager to react but not overreact, IMO he overreacted, which allowed the game to come down to Flores vs. Scherzer, which might have been the worst possible matchup for the Giants, especially when a missed call sealed the deal. At least if Tommy LaStella had been at the plate, the game wouldn't have been settled on a missed call by the first base umpire.

dave Roberts is one of the most upstanding men in the game today but he's too much of an old baseball guy to come up with it on his own.  Also, the counter move was not solely on Kapler but also on Zaidi, GM, and analytics team.  I still don't think the Dodgers brain trust had the foresight to set up Scherzer vs. Flores. Krukow says we are not in the clubhouse and we should be careful about criticizing because we don't know who's available, who has the best matchup, and so forth.  Scherzer probably would never choose to opt out of closing that game but he and Robert admitted that it rendered him ineffective for the NLCS.  We've discussed the Scherzer closing scenario a lot already and I am not going to obsess over it.

As far as the House strategy, the way it could be implemented would be to break down the 12 man staff into three groups, A, B, C. However, the manager cannot get too matchup crazy because that would require the use of 5 or more pitchers which would screw up the resting rules.  Also, the opponent can counter it with an opener offense based on who he feels will be pitching against them (example if Group A is better vs right handed, they can flip the lineup at strategic moments).  Its one thing to set up a pithing schedule but a smart opponent will take advantage.  My baseball knowledge is limited but I can see a lot of ways to counter the House pitching staff. As such, I would let some other organization try it first.  

[sharksrog]

The counter move was on the organization, but probably most directly on Kapler. They didn't ask me, but I told Matt what I would have done. The only change I might have made is that while I said I would go only with Crawford from the left-hand side and would bat him in the first three hitters (likely third), after I looked at how poorly Slater hit against righties, I would probably have gone with Yastrzemski and also batted him in the top three.

I doubt the Dodgers saw the final out coming down to Flores vs. Scherzer. There was only a little more than a one in nine chance even if the Giants were limited to Flores and Scherzer were in the game. But it took me just a few second to believe that the risk on the Giants' part was to overreact. We have discussed how the opener isn't always the best tactic. But this seemed an excellent time for it, and to me the immediate danger to the Giants was to overreact.

Did I think the final out would come down to Flores vs. Scherzer? Absolutely not. I didn't even know if Scherzer would pitch. In retrospect, perhaps the Dodgers would have been better served in the long term to have their two openers go three innings instead of two -- or at least get into the third inning. Perhaps they should have known that it was unwise to use Scherzer.

But they changed the game from primarily a Urias/Treinen/Jansen (and possibly Scherzer) game into a Knebel/Graterol/Urias/Treinen/Graterol and then Scherzer game. By using Knebel and Graterol to start the game rather than to come in in its middle, the Dodgers were successful in partially flipping the Giants' lineup so that the final part of the game came down to many righty-righy matchups. IMO the Giants basically wasted LaStella by having him lead off the game. Perhaps had he batted a second time it would have been worth it, but, man, I would have loved to see Tommy available to hit against one of the right-handers at the end.

I don't think I had ever written to Matt before a game suggesting a tactic for the Giants. But as soon as I saw the Dodgers were using the opener, I felt they were throwing out bait the Giants should for the most part at least refuse. And, no, I had no idea the game would come down to Flores vs. Scherzer. I didn't even know that Flores had been hitless against Scherzer. I simply knew that there was a decent chance it would be to the Giants' benefit to have one or more left-handed pinch hitters available against the Dodgers' excellent right-handed pitching that was likely to close out the game.

[reedonly]

Oct 28, 2021 17:57:56 GMT -5 sharksrog said:

The counter move was on the organization, but probably most directly on Kapler. They didn't ask me, but I told Matt what I would have done. The only change I might have made is that while I said I would go only with Crawford from the left-hand side and would bat him in the first three hitters (likely third), after I looked at how poorly Slater hit against righties, I would probably have gone with Yastrzemski and also batted him in the top three.

I doubt the Dodgers saw the final out coming down to Flores vs. Scherzer. There was only a little more than a one in nine chance even if the Giants were limited to Flores and Scherzer were in the game. But it took me just a few second to believe that the risk on the Giants' part was to overreact. We have discussed how the opener isn't always the best tactic. But this seemed an excellent time for it, and to me the immediate danger to the Giants was to overreact.

Did I think the final out would come down to Flores vs. Scherzer? Absolutely not. I didn't even know if Scherzer would pitch. In retrospect, perhaps the Dodgers would have been better served in the long term to have their two openers go three innings instead of two -- or at least get into the third inning. Perhaps they should have known that it was unwise to use Scherzer.

But they changed the game from primarily a Urias/Treinen/Jansen (and possibly Scherzer) game into a Knebel/Graterol/Urias/Treinen/Graterol and then Scherzer game. By using Knebel and Graterol to start the game rather than to come in in its middle, the Dodgers were successful in partially flipping the Giants' lineup so that the final part of the game came down to many righty-righy matchups. IMO the Giants basically wasted LaStella by having him lead off the game. Perhaps had he batted a second time it would have been worth it, but, man, I would have loved to see Tommy available to hit against one of the right-handers at the end.

I don't think I had ever written to Matt before a game suggesting a tactic for the Giants. But as soon as I saw the Dodgers were using the opener, I felt they were throwing out bait the Giants should for the most part at least refuse. And, no, I had no idea the game would come down to Flores vs. Scherzer. I didn't even know that Flores had been hitless against Scherzer. I simply knew that there was a decent chance it would be to the Giants' benefit to have one or more left-handed pinch hitters available against the Dodgers' excellent right-handed pitching that was likely to close out the game.

Crawford and Wade Jr batted in the 9th against Scherzer so its not like the Giants didn't use lefties.  I felt the game was lost on the at bats by Crawford and Wade Jr as much as the Flores at bat.  You seem to assign more importance to the Dodgers setting up a Scherzer-Flores matchup but Crawford and Wade Jr were equally, if not more important.  

[sharksrog]

The Crawford and Wade at bats were absolutely as important as Flores'. Since they came with fewer outs, probably even more so, since the potential to still tie or win the game was even higher when they batted. But part of a manager's job is to get the best batters to the plate in the ninth inning of a one-run game. And over the season, Kapler did a fine job of that. Wade in particular was effect in that role, and ironically, so were pinch hitters FOR Wade when the opponents inserted a lefty. I personally thought Kapler did an even better job of putting players in places to succeed than his predecessor, who is considered one of the best at doing so.

But while he still had Wade and Dickerson available, Kapler lost the ability to insert La Stella into the late innings when before the game he inserted him into the starting lineup.

What were the arguments for inserting La Stella into the starting lineup?

. La Stella was inserted into the leadoff position, where batting against the right-handed Knebel, he might have jump-started the Giants' offense right away, possibly even rendering the late innings far less important.

. Perhaps La Stella had enjoyed previous success against Knebel of Knebel's type of pitcher.

. Perhaps La Stella's Achilles was in good enough shape that he would be a better early-game fielder than Donovan Solano.

And the arguments for leaving Solano in the lineup?

. La Stella is a good hitter against right-handers, so it would have been a blessing to have him available on the bench in the late innings against Treiner, Jansen and possibly Scherzer.

. While La Stella is a better hitter against righties than Solano, his OPS against righties this season was only 29 points higher than Solano's. In fact, Donovan is good enough at reaching base against righties that his OBP against right-handers was 31 points higher than Tommy's.

. Donovan isn't the best glove in the Giants' dugout, but with La Stella's Achilles injury, he might have provided better defense.

. Certainly an injury was unlikely, and it was only one game, but it's never a disadvantage to have more players on the bench -- especially a left-handed hitter in a game facing a bullpen dominated by excellent late-inning righty relievers.


The reason I focused on Flores' at bat and not those of Crawford and Wade is that the Giants didn't have better options than Crawford or Wade. But they should have had a better option than Flores.

It surprises me a little that as good as Kapler was this season at arranging lineups, he may have missed on this one. And it shocks me that we haven't read anything about it elsewhere.

One possible argument against pinch hitting La Stella for Flores was that the Dodgers could have countered with a lefty reliever to face La Stella, and Tommy wasn't good against southpaws. And the only other position player on the bench was Curt Casali, who was even worse (and would have been saved to pinch hit for the pitcher if necessary). But if the southpaw didn't retire La Stella, he would have had to face Evan Longoria, who hits southpaws quite well.

To me, managing is more about motivating players than anything. In today's game it's also about getting players to buy into analytics where they will help the player, although the coaches seem likely to be in a better position to impact this facet than the manager. It is of course also about strategy and tactics, and I believe Kapler excelled in those this season.

But in game 5, I believe he overreacted to the Dodgers' use of the opener, and I believe that is the very thing the Dodgers were hoping for when they decided to use the tactic.

Boly is right that it doesn't make sense to use an opener all the time. It may not even make sense the majority of the time. But it's another tool in the manager's tool bag, and managers like Boly who would simply ignore it would be giving up a possible advantage. One that might even be used successfully in a deciding game in the playoffs.

In fact, since managers can use relievers longer and more frequently in the postseason due to the extra days off, the opener is probably more likely to be a viable strategy in the postseason than during the regular season. Then again, perhaps not. The opener usually is more important with so-so starting pitchers than with aces, and the quality of starting pitching in the playoffs is better because of the importance of the games and the added days off.

Even with three key players out, the Dodgers were a team loaded with talent. The Giants needed any advantage they could gain, yet it was the Dodgers who gained the advantage when they used an opener in what was arguably the biggest game in Giants/Dodgers history. The advantage wasn't a huge one, and it was one that might not even have come into play. But that the game came down to Flores vs. Scherzer shows why every little piece of strategy and tactics can become important.