13 pitchers on an American League team? Hot potato.

They've got THREE bench players?! And assuming one is a backup catcher, they've got TWO guys to use for pinch hitting, defensive replacements, platooning, pinch running, etc?

Egad. How dumb.

What is better, having 8 crappy relievers or having 7 crappy relievers?

Just throwing this out there, but since Wedge can't seem to manage a bullpen, wouldn't fewer options be better? Like give him 4 guys in the pen. Then he could focus on the important stuff like scratching his balls and spitting.

8 crappy relievers is a self-fulfilling prophecy. How do you get regular work for 8 guys? Sure it will happen some of the time. But if you get a couple good starts in a row, you'd have to take starter out after 6 or 7 innings who's rolling along just fine so that your cast of thousands bullpen can get some work.

Ya'know, if Cleveland can't find a use for him just send him back. No hard feelings....

So Harvey, is LaPorta better than Hart right now?

Why won't teams go back to using middle relievers for 2 IP? I understand not wanting to expose these guys to a lineup for a 2nd PA, but 2 IP will rarely do that. I've seen the Yankees pull Phil Hughes after 1 IP of <10 pitches several times recently, and he's a SP.

It seems like RP could give you 6 IP every 6 days in 3 appearances, rather than 4 IP in 4 appearances. Then a 6 man pen would be enough, if you had one long-man to give you 4 IP when the SP was knocked out early.

i don't get the 13 pitchers thingy neither

and i also don't get the - no reliever is allowed to pitch more than 1 inning - "rule" let alone the insisting on SO many - lefty/righty 1 matchup - before changing the pitchers. there just aren't THAT many guys with seriously dramatic platoon splits that that sort of thing is a good idea

Why won't teams go back to using middle relievers for 2 IP? I understand not wanting to expose these guys to a lineup for a 2nd PA, but 2 IP will rarely do that. I've seen the Yankees pull Phil Hughes after 1 IP of <10 pitches several times recently, and he's a SP.

Because then the national media starts whining that the manager is overworking his bullpen. Its what they're using to slam the Dodgers currently.

Its what they're using to slam <strike>the Dodgers</strike> Joe Torre <strike>currently</strike> for the past several years.

Better.

With current starter usage, teams need 500 relief IPs a year. Even in the good ol' days, no more than a handful of relievers could handle 100+ IP on a regular basis. So you need a minimum of 6 relievers and that's still about 85 IP per reliever slot. That's still a heavy load. With enough roster flexibility -- i.e. a lot of guys with options so you can keep flipping them back and forth to AAA -- and reasonable starter durability, you might be able to get by with a 6-man bullpen.

If you want to shorten the bullpen, you have to increase starter innings.

Frisco:

Corey is better defensively. But with Macha putting a clamp on stealing that nullifies the speed advantage.

Walt - in your scenario, how much do these guys pitch for the AAA team? Just enough to stay sharp? Reliever usage at AAA is controlled by the major league team I assume.

If you keep guys in for 9 batters whenever possible, they can get over 100 innings in 50 or so appearances and they shouldn't suffer more than if they pitch 75 innings/75 appearances. The number of appearances is an important factor too.
Let's say pitcher pitches 50 times, to 9 batters each time, and has 1.25 WHIP (ignore errors and HPB's). He faces 4.25 batters per inning, so for 450 batters, he can pitch 105 innings. Most good relievers should be able to do something like that.

If Ben Francisco is a center fielder, I'm a crescent wrench. He's a bad left fielder, for crying out loud.

Here's the other thing: Chris Gimenez is on the MLB roster. Okay, sure, he serves as a third catcher, but Garko can do that. Gimenez can play third base in a pinch, but so can every other infielder on the roster who's not named Ryan Garko.

It's not a question of choosing between Francisco and LaPorta, it's a question of choosing between LaPorta and Gimenez. I like Gimenez - think he's got a shot to be a 21st century Jeff Manto - but that's hardly a reason to keep The Door in Columbus.

If you keep guys in for 9 batters whenever possible, they can get over 100 innings in 50 or so appearances and they shouldn't suffer more than if they pitch 75 innings/75 appearances. The number of appearances is an important factor too.
Let's say pitcher pitches 50 times, to 9 batters each time, and has 1.25 WHIP (ignore errors and HPB's). He faces 4.25 batters per inning, so for 450 batters, he can pitch 105 innings. Most good relievers should be able to do something like that.

Except that virtually no reliever in MLB has ever been able to hold up under a regular workload of 100 IP. From 1960 to 1990, you have only 394 such seasons, less than half a one per team. There were a fair number who could do it 5-6 years but there's no way you can expect a typical reliever to handle that workload.

Now, there are only 237 seasons 1991-2008 with 75+ appearances which is also less than half a one per team ... so (1) yes that might be a similar load to 100 IP but (2) nobody's doing that regularly. But if you use 75 innings, you get 616 such seasons (at least 95% relief apperances) which is still not a lot but gets you to over 1 per team.

And look again at that number -- only 1 pitcher per team gets 75+ relief IP a year yet the typical team needs 500 relief IP spread among 7 bullpen spots. You'll note the math doesn't work out very well. It seems clear that teams are trying to use 3-4 guys to get through the high-leverage innings and pretty much just scrambling to fill up the rest.

You never know of course, maybe bullpen usage could shift dramatically without increasing starter usage. But I see no historical evidence that we can expect individual relievers to pitch substantially more innings in a season. However, a number of teams could use a Dale Murray type (100+ mostly low-leverage IP) and you'd think there are a bunch of replacement level starters who'd happily do that rather than start at AAA year after year. But that probably only buys you 25-30 innings a year. You need to do that with at least 2 bullpen slots before you can reduce the bullpen (under current starter usage).

Why can't Franklin Gutierrez play center? Oh, that's right, he's in Seattle now.

Those Indians sure have hamstrung themselves in recent years....

Why can't Franklin Gutierrez play center? Oh, that's right, he's in Seattle now.

Those Indians sure have hamstrung themselves in recent years....

Given they've stolen a starting OF (Choo) and two MIs (Cabrera, Valbuena) from Seattle over the past few years, it's only fair that CLE makes a show at returning the favor.

13 pitchers on an American League team? Hot potato.

I read over the weekend that the Twins are the only AL team with an 11 man pitching staff. Everyone else has at least twelve.
Thirteen is probably less unusual than eleven, although harder to work with for the team. I never really get worked up about whether the 25th man on the roster is a mostly redundant extra pitcher or mostly redundant extra infielder or mostly redundant extra catcher. It's just one guy who shouldn't get much use no matter the role, but when almost every team picks that guy as a pitcher, it seems like a big shift. I guess it's good that team realize that fresh arms are more effective than tired arms, but teams aren't that good at finding 11 potentially effective pitchers to start with, much less 12.


Except that virtually no reliever in MLB has ever been able to hold up under a regular workload of 100 IP. From 1960 to 1990, you have only 394 such seasons, less than half a one per team. There were a fair number who could do it 5-6 years but there's no way you can expect a typical reliever to handle that workload.

I have no idea about who can pitch 100 innings how often, but just because pitchers rarely do it doesn't necessarily mean that they can't do it. Or that some can't do it. Maybe if teams starting trying to develop relievers that could go more than an inning, they might be able to figure it out. The current group (and maybe this has always been true) is heavy on fireballers and two-pitch guys who aren't going to loose their edge if they pitch much more. If they have some well rounded guys in the pen, they might have a better chance. Not that 100 innings is some magical number that really needs to be achieved. But I'm really surprised that there aren't more 100 inning relievers. The baseball season is about 25 weeks long. That's two 2 inning appearances per week. It seems like many of today's relievers could handle that, if they were used that way.

But I'm really surprised that there aren't more 100 inning relievers.

Whenever I play OOTP or the like, I always end up with a couple guys who I use like you describe.

The problem in the Real World, though, is that if I run a top reliever out there for 100-110 innings, and he gets hurt, I as the manager am likely to be held culpable. Risk-aversion is (somewhat understandably) often the trump card that prevents things like this, or a 4 man rotation, or having no set closer, from happening.

My fantasy team hates you, Eric Wedge. Wedge couldn't be ####### up the season more effectively if he was trying to get fired.

I agree with most of what has already been posted, I'd rather see guys go more than an inning but if you are going to limit yourself to 1 inning or less for every reliever then I think a 13th pitcher probably makes sense in the AL. Realistically if you are any kind of competent AL team (I realize this may not apply to the Tribe) you aren't going to need to do a lot of in game PH/PR type stuff so you can get away with a couple of utility guys and a backup catcher.

The trick is to use those extra pitchers in some useful manner. This isn't Indians' specific but if you are going with a 13 man staff load up on LOOGYs and ROOGYs and just manage the living bejeezus out of the final 9-12 outs of a ballgame. Watching six guys gets the final ten outs wouldn't be pretty but I bet it would work pretty well.

Just having 8 relievers and then playing it conventionally is a waste of a roster spot though.

The problem in the Real World, though, is that if I run a top reliever out there for 100-110 innings, and he gets hurt, I as the manager am likely to be held culpable. Risk-aversion is (somewhat understandably) often the trump card that prevents things like this, or a 4 man rotation, or having no set closer, from happening.

That might be true, but it's also true if a manager runs a reliever out for one inning 3 days in a row, which happens often enough. I really can't imagine there being any indignation about that guy getting injured....I think most people think relievers should be able to handle that workload. I'd think pitching two innings twice a week would be easier on the arm than pitching for an inning (or less) in 3 or 4 games a week, as long as that guy doesn't end up warming up unnecessarily too often. The real problem is that since most teams have a fairly strict plan for 8th inning situations, that there aren't that many chances for a good enough pitcher to pitch 2 innings that regularly. And if he's that good, then he'd be saved for the 8th or 9th inning. The closer and setup man and loogy show has made it very hard to really manage the rest of the bullpen.