Bumped from Nov 05 pub date …

Job Sharing, Dept.

John McGrath, following USSM, recommends Jamie Moyer for home-only starts in 2006.

All your starts in Safeco? Sound good? Yeah, to you and me both, amigo.

D-O-V feeds this fun idea into the mainframe ….. and immediately it hits, in the first RAM chip … a GOTO command from the New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (p. 873):

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Ted Lyons in 1942 was 41 years old. He made 20 starts that year, all of them on Sunday, completed all 20 games, finished 14-6 and led the American League in ERA, at 2.10.

For many years I was puzzled by why the “Sunday Pitcher” trick, which worked so well in the 1940s with Lyons and other pitchers, is never used anymore.

There are in baseball many aging pitchers who will pitch well for one or two starts, but can’t handle the strain of regular work. If you took one of those old pitchers—David Cone or Bret Saberhagen, let’s say—and worked him once a week, doesn’t it make sense to think that you could get something out of him that way?

…….

I finally realized why the practice had died out.

In 1942, all teams played double-headers on Sundays, almost every Sunday. Thus, to have a Sunday pitcher stabilized the starting rotation, which would otherwise have been under pressure to adjust to the double-headers.

When teams stopped playing Sunday double-headers, to have a Sunday pitcher would have exactly the opposite effect: it would de-stabilize the starting rotation, since the extra pitcher would have to be wedged in where someone else would normally stop.

This is not to say that the idea of getting something out of older pitchers by using them on longer rest is not still a good idea; I suspect that it would still work. It’s just that different times demand different strategies.
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It could still work, ya youbetcha.

IF AND ONLY IF:

1) You had a pitcher who was fabulous on Sundays (or at home, or whatever)
2) You had some way to keep the rotation stable … to not hurt the other SP's (much)

There's no way it would be worth fouling up all the other pitchers, unless the Sunday pitcher were realllllllllly good. You're not going to mess up 10 other staff pitchers for a pitcher who is only "kinda good," right?

D-O-V Logi-Tron Parameters

1. It would be tremendous fun to see this tactic tried. As a fan, I'd love to see it.

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2. Jamie Moyer deserves to see his time in Seattle extended, if possible.

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3. I do NOT believe that Jamie Moyer IS fabulous in Safeco, and neither does he. I think 2005's 10-0 record (or whatever) was a short sample. I think previous years had normal splits, that it was just one of those things, and so does Moyer think that.

I think, rather, that Moyer in 2006 would be fair-to-good in Safeco, with the park hiding his weaknesses — like a lot of pitchers would be fair-to-good in Safeco, with the park hiding their weaknesses.

But see comment #8.  Safeco has, in fact, been morphing Jamie's bad starts into decent ones, and he seems to know how to "damage control" with the park and defense at his backside - Dr. D

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4. As a home pitcher, Moyer would NOT be pitching on Sundays, once every seven days; he would have one start that was 4 days' rest, and then another start on 14 days' rest (when the road SP started twice on a road trip).

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5. I don't see a profitable way to "stabilize the rotation" coaster car after you send it careening through the loop-dee-loops for Moyer.

The only way to "stabilize" the rotation would be to have some other pitcher take all the road starts — long homestand freezeouts and all. Job share?

Who does that? Clint Nageotte? Does that help Nagoette, to go 14 days between starts every time Moyer double-starts a homestand — and then to pitch only on the road in 2006? You can't use any young pitcher to job share the road starts.

That leaves you with veteran AAA pitchers to job-share. Would Jeff Harris' road results, or Aaron Sele's, or Damian Moss' — would they seriously be any better than Moyer himself would be on the road?

If the guy is really your #12 pitcher, worse than 11 other Mariner pitchers, then isn't Jamie Moyer still about as good as that guy, even when Jamie's on the road?

Even considering the fact that they're going to go 14 days between starts, every long homestand?
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If you sprinkle the starts around between Mateo and Harris and a third guy … the staff is destabilized again — partly because the reliever can never go more than about 4 IP. And does this combo with Moyer give you a good #5 pitcher? Better than Jesse Foppert?

If you consistently try a "totem pole SP" approach — Mateo three innings, then Sherrill three innings, all year … do the ERA's justify Moyer's privileged job-share slot?

This would cost you Mateo and Sherrill out of the bullpen at least three consecutive days for each road #5SP start. You would need good pitchers to do the "totem pole" start, and those pitchers would hardly pitch on the road (out of the bullpen) at all.

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6. Rather than a Moyer/Mateo-Harris combo … how does that idea compare to if we just got on with it, on Nageotte and Foppert and Soriano and Livingston? Wouldn't that be more about the club and less about a single player?

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D-O-V Readout
This idea could work out all right IF AND ONLY IF you were talking about getting a fabulous performance out of your Sunday starter. If you're only going to get a decent performance, or only a fairly good one, it's ten times more trouble than it's worth.

You can't justify the concept by showing it might save you eight runs, or something. You can't just reduce this to a VORP discussion, and claim Moyer/Mateo might be a tick better than Jesse Foppert. This is tons of trouble for the other pitchers. It has a destabilizing effect on the whole staff.

The concept stands or falls with — Jamie Moyer running a 2.75-3.00 ERA, at home all year, and giving you 50% of a Top-10 pitcher.

I don't think Moyer would do that. I just think he'd have a fairly good year because of Safeco. But then, so will Jeff Harris have a fairly good year — in his Safeco starts.

It's a fun idea, creative, and has a lot of logic behind it, and it could work if you had a Pedro Martinez type to use it with. But I'm afraid that Moyer, at 43, isn't good enough to be the one to bring the practice back.

Sorry,
Dr Detecto