Earlier today, Chris F made a post about the starting pitchers, which essentially said that while what they’ve done is great, they’re not going deep enough into games. It’s an important point and one which it’s hard to imagine anyone dissenting. Still, it got me wondering how the Mets stack up against the rest of MLB in this regard. It’s not exactly a fair comparison, since teams have played between 8-11 games so far this season. With that caveat, the Mets rank fourth in the majors with 50.1 IP from their starters.
The Padres lead with 58.1 IP from their starters while the Braves are second with 53.2 IP. But both of those teams have played 11 games while the Mets have only played 10. The Mariners, who’ve also played 10 games, are third with 52.1 IP.
Eyeballing the chart from B-R, it appears if we did it on an IP/G basis that the Mets would still be fourth. They would leapfrog the Braves but both of those teams would have the Giants move ahead of them, as San Fransisco’s starters have logged 48.2 innings in nine games.
Fourth isn’t a bad place to be. It just goes to show how the shortened Spring Training, along with most teams’ conservative approach to starters, has impacted things here in 2022.
With warmer weather on the way – we hope – the expectation is that the innings contributed by the starters should go up. And it will be interesting to see if Buck Showalter still aggressively hunts situations to use Joely Rodriguez and Chasen Shreve, which might keep the starters’ innings lower than we’d otherwise hope.
Expect 6 innings once we get going, and applaud when they can go further. When a guy is dealing, it is just stupid to remove him on the early side… wait for him to tire…
If the avg games played is 10 per team, that’s 300 starts so far.
Of those 300, only 27 games (9%) has featured a pitcher that got to a pitch count 91+, with Eovaldi the only one who has passed the century mark (101 pitches).
I think the effect of short SP affecting the pen is best illustrated by what happened to the 2018 Mets.
That year in April the starters had a 4.11 ERA averaging 5.5 IP/start and the relievers 3.39 ERA which allowed them to get out to a strong 15-11 start.
In May the starters had a 3.94 ERA but the bullpen fell to a 5.33 ERA which led to a dismal 10-18 record, so one could easily conclude it was the relievers fault and nothing to do with the starters, but closer inspection shows that the starters were not pulling their weight and only managed a meager 4.96 IP/start which led to the overuse of the pen which crashed and burned it.
The bullpen also never recovered after that posting a 5.32 ERA over the final 4 months even as the starters load were finally allowed to increase to about 5.9 IP/start so the damage has already been done.
So yes it’s very concerning for me to see that Buck’s strategy is to purposely try to get multiple innings out of traditionally one inning guys right out of the gate, because we’ve seen first hand that robbing Peter (the bullpen) to save Paul (the starters) has burned in front of our very eyes recently.
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It seems that pitchers have injuries to their arms and shoulders all the time. For some reason, teams limit a pitch count to prevent this and do it with a “one fits all” mentality. Yet, pitchers still are getting injured. Therefore limiting pitch counts doesn’t support this theory. Maybe it’s something different.
Nothing frustrated me more than to see a starting pitcher pulled when he is cruising and throwing easy . He should be pulled when his pitches are not breaking properly or his velocity is diminishing or not locating his pitches. That is what the pitching coach, manager and catcher should determine not a pitch count.
Clearly the entire league has an extremely cautious approach to use of starting pitching, so far. How much of this is due to short spring, bad weather, injuries, 3rd time through the order, and how it compares to past seasons we’ll see a little further down the road.
For sure, the performance of the starters impacts the performance of the pen. Frankly, it is very difficult to manage a pen…guys need to be fresh but not stale, starters are erratic, game situations are unpredictable, clean inning insertions not always easy to manage, etc.
I don’t think Buck ever was a master of pen use, and his career is punctuated by a playoff flop with a Cy Young worthy closer held out…which ended up holding him out for the next season. I do think Buck is a quick study, and he’ll adjust (as much as his inner baseball self allows), but as we have seen all throughout the history of baseball, it is easier to manage when you have better players. For all their new found wealth, the Met pen is still thin, and marginal guys will be exposed sooner or later. The Mets have a bunch of starters with “pitch count” concerns, and unless they can extend, or unless Eppler deepens that pen, we’ll be questioning Buck frequently. Scherzer is a rare bird, but I’m hoping his leg is healed, he can extend, others will watch closely how he does it, and they’ll average another 2 outs or so from the starters as the weather warms up.
2018 was the exact circumstance I was referring to in my comment. My feeling is the ship sank shortly after the 11-1 start, which was dominated by short starts, a fabulous starter ERA and overuse of the pen, which doomed them by the end of April. After the 11-1 start, they went 6-8 to finish April, and well, utterly doom 2018.
My comment, although talking about starters, was more focused on early bullpen over use and the long term consequences. As ever, I remain skeptical that celebrating starter ERA is something worth worrying about when 4 of 9 innings are being covered by relievers.
The Mets are presently in great shape, but its early, and the starters have not shown economical pitch usage. That concerns me much more than ERA.
Front line starters like Scherzer need to get 21+ outs
Mid rotation starters need to get 19+ outs
Back of rotation starters need to get 17+ outs
While not a huge fan of Showalter’s early bullpen moves, one thing that I think will separate him from other managers in the recent past is that he seems cognizant of the fact that relievers shouldn’t pitch 3X in 4 days. If we can get away from the idea that one day off automatically refreshes a reliever, regardless of how much he’s pitched recently – that will definitely be a move in the right direction and hopefully result in a bullpen that isn’t blown out after a month. Here’s the usage so far:
Diaz – 7th, 12th, 13th, 17th
Lugo – 7th, 8th, 11th, 13th, 16th
Smith – 8th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 17th
Shreve – 10th, 12th, 15th, 17th
Ottavino – 7th, 9th, 13th, 16th
Rodriguez – 9, 11, 13, 16
May – 7, 11, 16
SRF – 8, 13, 15
Williams – 10, 17
Not once has Showalter used a reliever 3X in four days. Sure, it’s easier to not use guys 3X in 4 days with the extra relievers the club is carrying now. Hopefully the SP go deeper after they’ve had four turns thru the rotation to build up stamina.
Here are the times relievers pitched 3X in 4 days in April 2018:
Familia – 7th, 9th, 10th and 13th, 15th, 16th
Blevins – 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th and 13th, 15th, 16th
Rhame – 7th, 8th, 10th
Ramos – 1st, 3rd, 4th and 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th and 13, 15, 16 and 18, 20 and 21
Robles – 4th, 5th, 7th and 7th, 9th, 10th and 14th, 15th and 16th
That’s 12X a reliever pitched 3X in 4 days. And there were a bunch of 3X in 5 days, too.
Leverage and rest is a much better way to run a bullpen than chasing the platoon advantage.
Terrific reporting, Brian. Makes it very clear: that 2018 model is unsustainable.
So far so good with Buck. No question Luis Rojas would have pulled Max (if he had the balls) after the first hit, adding four more outs to the pen’s load… unsustainable!