A creative plan to fix the Red Sox rotation’s problems
This solution may be just what the doctor ordered to revitalize the Red Sox rotation without a trade.
COMMENTARY
Breaking news: Starting pitching has been an issue for the Boston Red Sox. Just kidding, you already knew that. We’ve talked about it plenty: The Red Sox have a good front three in their rotation in David Price, Steven Wright and Rick Porcello, but beyond that it’s dicey at best. Reinforcements may come toward the end of the month, but what to do between now and then? Might as well get nuts.
The first thing they should do is promote Aaron Wilkerson. Is he a 27-year-old who came into pro ball at 24? Yes, yes he is. He’s also posted a 2.44 ERA this season in Triple-A, a 2.63 ERA as a pro, and a 2.54 ERA since he reached High-A ball last year. He also has struck out 3.8 batters for every one he has walked in that timespan, covering two seasons. He has been consistently good and consistently efficient, and it’s hard to see how he could do any worse than Clay Buchholz, whose 5.91 ERA is currently second-worst in the majors. He could and should get an opportunity to become the fourth starter. But for that fifth starter’s role, a more radical suggestion would be to split up the starting pitcher’s duties.
One of the concepts discussed in the seminal sabermetric book The Book by Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman and Andrew Dolphin is the “times through the order penalty.” Basically, it states that as a game goes on, the hitter has a progressively greater advantage over the starting pitcher. The key number is the third time through the order, which generally occurs around the fifth or sixth inning. This isn’t always true, especially when dealing with small samples of data, but it is true in the aggregate, and given the overall quality of the bottom of the current Red Sox rotation, leads us to what could be an interesting experiment.
Let’s assume logic plays out and Wilkerson eventually gets a shot, and for the time being, let’s say he’s good enough in the role. Maybe not 2.44 ERA good, but good enough to hold down a spot. The plan for the fifth turn in the rotation would then work like this. You would line up three pitchers to work the first seven-eight innings of the game, and then rely on the one-inning relievers for the rest. Here’s one man’s plan for how to line up the pitching staff:
Normal Starting Pitchers (4): Price, Wright, Porcello, Wilkerson
Normal Relief Pitchers (5): Craig Kimbrel, Junichi Tazawa, Koji Uehara, Robbie Ross Jr., Tommy Layne
Fifth Starters (3): Heath Hembree, Matt Barnes, Joe Kelly
Other pitchers could wind up taking the fifth starter spots. Sean O’Sullivan or Eduardo Rodriguez could go there, or Brandon Workman when he’s ready, or even Buchholz (though, personally, I think the Red Sox should just designate Buchholz for assignment and let us all get on with our lives). The point is, the team has the pitchers who can do this. Barnes has already worked two or more innings five times this season, and as someone who came up as a starter, he’s plenty familiar with a heavier workload than he is currently receiving in the bullpen. Hembree has already pitched three or more innings four times this year, and two or two and a third innings an additional three times. And we all know Kelly, Rodriguez, Buchholz and O’Sullivan can handle a three-inning stint. If you didn’t want to roll with Wilkerson, you could even send Layne down and add another of these spots to put this plan in action across two rotation spots.
I know what you’re thinking. This is going to lead to an already taxed bullpen being more taxed. I don’t see it that way. Here’s a table of how many pitchers the Red Sox have used per game this season:
As you can see, in 58 percent of the team’s games this season, manager John Farrell has summoned either three or four pitchers per game. The average is 3.8 pitchers per game. They might not all throw a lot of pitches per game, but that is less relevant than the fact that they got loose, warmed up in the bullpen and entered the game. Going to this new system for the final rotation spot wouldn’t change any of that, it would simply change the distribution of innings per pitcher.
One aspect of this plan I find very appealing is that it gets Hembree more innings. Among relievers who have tossed 30 or more innings this season, Hembree’s 2.04 ERA ranks 14th-best in the majors. He’s becoming not just one of the best relievers on the team, but in all of baseball. Leaning on him for more innings seems like a good idea. He wouldn’t work out as a starter because he’s always been a reliever as a pro and you can’t just ramp up a guy from three to six innings midseason like that, but with this plan you could get more out of him.
As games progress, starting pitchers falter more, giving the advantage to the hitter. By moving away from the conventional starting pitcher setup for the final spot in the rotation, the Red Sox can combat the times through the order penalty by simply not letting a pitcher face an opposing lineup three times. While David Price, Steven Wright and Rick Porcello have on average recorded more than 19 outs in their starts this year, the team’s other starting pitchers have recorded fewer than 15. It’s time to stop asking them to try to make it through five-six innings and seek an alternative solution. If the team trades for a frontline starter, great! If not, they should ask three men to do the job of one. It might seem like an odd idea, but anything is better than the current status quo.
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