[Bluehorseshoe]

Was watching the MLB Network and they believe a team will do this in 2014....


Replacing setup men with "openers"

By Bryan Grosnick @bgrosnick on Nov 26 2013, 12:33p 26
Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Relievers thrive in dedicated roles, do they? Pitchers suffer after they've been through the lineup a couple times, eh? And platoons are thriving? Fine. Let's get weird.
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One of the best sabermetric things that I've read recently was Mitchel Lichtman's recent posts at Baseball Prospectus on the "times through the order penalty" -- TTOP for short. The first can be found here and the second here. The biggest takeaway for me, from these articles, is that the TTOP is very real, and gives batters a substantial advantage by the time a pitcher is ready to go through the opposing batting order for a third time.

Here are a few quick takeaways from MGL:

"The first time through the order, pitchers pitch better than they do overall. This "first time" effect is magnified in the first inning, especially for the home pitcher
Starters get progressively worse as they face the lineup for the second, third, and fourth times. The fourth-time penalty gets masked in outdoor games, especially at night, and in the ninth and later innings.
A pitcher’s career "times through the order" patterns have almost no predictive value. We can assume that all starting pitchers have roughly the same "true talent" TTOP, regardless of what they have shown in the past."

Starting pitchers aren't as effective a couple of times through the order, bullpens are getting bigger, and outings are getting a little bit shorter. It's all part of the continuing shift in baseball away from the rotation, and toward the bullpen.

So let's stop burying the lede and get it out of the way: I think it couldn't hurt for teams to experiment with a new bullpen role. We've got closers ... I think there's a good reason at this point to add in the role of the "opener."

The opener's role would be the first pitcher to start a game, effectively replacing the starting pitcher for the first frame of a baseball game. After this reliever, ideally a strong setup guy and one of the best relievers on the team, eliminates the first three or four batters of the game, the team's "starter" comes in beginning in the second inning, and runs his normal course.

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/201...-luke-hochevar

[JohnGalt2341]

I actually like this. I suggested something similar to a buddy of mine who was a Baseball fanatic around 15 years ago and he laughed at me like I was a complete idiot. I hope at least one team tries it. I'm curious as to what the results will be.

[Bluehorseshoe]

I'm just not sure what the difference is by just bringing in someone later in the game.