ESPN's Kurkjian: Respect the knuckleballer

[torontoaces04]

http://espn.go.com/blog/spring-training/post/_/id/696/respect-the-knuckleballer

The question is being asked far too often for a pitcher who last season had as many quality starts (27) as the Rockies. And yet you hear it, with skepticism, wherever you go: How well will R.A. Dickey do this season? It is asked in part because he is 38 years old...

They are not considered reliable, not from one start to another, and the fear is they might lose the touch for the pitch for good at any time. Hough was the best, most durable pitcher the Rangers had for most of the 1980s.

It took Niekro six tries to get to Cooperstown even though he won 318 games, the 11th most since 1900. He won his 300th game on the final day of the 1985 season, throwing only one knuckleball in an 8-0 shutout of the Blue Jays. Had he retired after that game, he would have had an ERA of 3.23. But the lasting impression of Phil Niekro for some is him pitching poorly at age 48, looking like an old man throwing a trick pitch as his ERA grew to 3.35. The more accurate impression is Niekro at age 34 in 1975 for Atlanta, winning 20 games, posting a 2.38 ERA in 302 innings -- a pitcher no one could really hit.

It's not too long, and a good read.

[Shimso]

"a pitcher who last season had as many quality starts (27) as the Rockies"


That is a pretty staggering stat to me...its interesting to see that NYM led the league last year with 101 and Miami had 91, while Toronto had 75. Given the transactions that happened over the last few months, you'd have to think the Jays could maybe hit 100.

[Schad]

"a pitcher who last season had as many quality starts (27) as the Rockies"


That is a pretty staggering stat to me...its interesting to see that NYM led the league last year with 101 and Miami had 91, while Toronto had 75. Given the transactions that happened over the last few months, you'd have to think the Jays could maybe hit 100.

The Rockies were doing some funky things with their pitching staff, akin to what we do at the low minors level, which was a contributor; hard to pick up a quality start if you're getting pulled on 75 pitches. As was the fact that they were awful, leading them to do some funky things with their pitching staff.

[satyr9]

"a pitcher who last season had as many quality starts (27) as the Rockies"


That is a pretty staggering stat to me...its interesting to see that NYM led the league last year with 101 and Miami had 91, while Toronto had 75. Given the transactions that happened over the last few months, you'd have to think the Jays could maybe hit 100.

The Rockies were doing some funky things with their pitching staff, akin to what we do at the low minors level, which was a contributor; hard to pick up a quality start if you're getting pulled on 75 pitches. As was the fact that they were awful, leading them to do some funky things with their pitching staff.

Yeah, it should be noted the Rockies were way off everyone else because of their gimmicks. 29th in QS was the Twins at 62, so the way it's written is a bit disingenuous IMO, they were pseudo-intentionally avoiding QS's.

[distracted]

The Rockies were doing some funky things with their pitching staff, akin to what we do at the low minors level, which was a contributor; hard to pick up a quality start if you're getting pulled on 75 pitches. As was the fact that they were awful, leading them to do some funky things with their pitching staff.

That was a great article, and I like the theory, but I wonder if there's a better implementation.

The problem seems to be that guys who are relievers can't even get twice through the line-up, you need a guy who can hack it as a starter to do that.

But what if a team used a blended approach? Guys are defined as a) single starters or b) paired starters. The paired starters can't be guys who would only be relievers otherwise, but still would buy into the system and not get pissed.

For the Blue Jays, it would look something like this:
Dickey
Morrow
Buehrle
Johnson
Romero/Happ

With Romero and Happ each pitching 4 innings. Most teams don't even have 4 quality starters, so you go with 3 quality and do the paired pitching with borderline starters (not relievers). Last year CV would have been a candidate for it.

The problem is that you have to use a roster spot for it, but can we afford one less reliever if every fifth game they're going to get a ton of rest?

When an injury comes, you change the paired guys to traditional pitchers, and maybe limit them to 5 or 6 innings so they don't get hurt from the change in pitch count.

The Blue Jays really are a terrible example though of how to implement it, just given our pitching staff (if he rebounds, it's a waste not to use Romero as his own starter). Down the line though I could see an advantage of doing it with two young guys (like maybe Hutchison and Drabek in 2014) as they come up so you can win games while they mature as pitchers.