What to do with the rotation?

[BigRapidsJackass]

Rodrigo Lopez is done for the year (actually, done forever as a Rockie) and I'd be astounded if Hirsh comes back.

Add to that the fact that Jimenez has struggled mightily his last couple starts.

We're down to Cook and Francis and Fogg and pray for a hurricane to postpone 2 games in a row.

So where to go now?

I've got to admit that I liked the Harikkala + 3 other relievers "emergency start" on Sunday. The other options were to pick up someone else's cast-off (Joel Piniero/Sidney Ponson/Casey Fossum type -- in other words, someone who's been nothing short of awful for an extended time) or to bring up a sub-replacement level pitcher from the farm system (Mike Esposito/Kevin Walker type, since that's all we've got other than Morales right now, and they clearly don't want to throw Morales in the mix just yet).

Which brings me to an interesting point: can the Rockies patch together a pitching staff to make it to September 1? When rosters expand in September, you could potentially carry 15 or 16 pitchers (actually even more if you wanted to) and try to pull off the Harikkala+3 thing a couple nights a week. Dessens may be ready to be activated in a week or so, Fuentes should be back, and then you've got reasonably good relief candidates like Morillo, Morales, Josh Newman, and Steven Register available in the minors. Plus you can always go dumpster diving for another Herges type or two. Or they may even be able to make one of the trades they should've already made, like the D'backs acquisition of Joe Kennedy. You could very realistically use 6-8 pitchers a game in September, driving opposing managers nuts by constantly exploiting righty-lefty matchups and using your worst relievers against only the weakest part of the lineup. It would also have the advantage of allowing Jimenez to move into more of a relief role, where I think he could very possibly thrive.

It seems to me that clubs have never really taken advantage of the September roster flexibility the league provides them. Could that be the direction the Rockies go in? After all, good studies suggest that relievers carry an ERA advantage over starters of approximately .80 runs per game. A collection of slightly better than replacement level relievers should therefore be able to outperform a couple sub-replacement level starters (and other than David Wells, that's what's out there for the taking right now) by at least a run per game. I like it, and I'd like to see them go for it.

Now if they can only make it to September without losing contact with the other playoff hopefuls ...

[GerryInCS]

They had better find a fifth starter quick as they don't have one at this time. None of the starters in AAA are worth a damn. This means they will have to go to Tulsa or still someone off the trash heap. With Lopez and Hirsh done for the year the season is pretty much over. The only way the Rox have a chance is if they score 10+ runs/game when Ubaldo and the 5th starter pitch.

[Roxpert]

We have to hope that, A) Franklin Morales becomes a passable #5 starter when he's called up for Saturday's start, and B) Clint Hurdle is smart enough to skip either Jimenez or Morales in the rotation whenever we have a week with an off-day, to keep Francis/Cook/Fogg pitching on 4-days rest and getting the most starts possible. In other words, we can have a "4.X man rotation" for the rest of the season.......4-man for weeks with off-days, and 5-man for weeks without off-days.

We have seven weeks left in the season. For five of those weeks (including this one), we have an off-day. Unfortunately, one of those five weeks has a day-night doubleheader against the Dodgers, so that week won't count. Effectively, then, we have four of the next seven weeks where we DON'T have to use or worry about our 5th best starter. Any good manager would skip his 5th starter for those four weeks.

I doubt Clint is smart enough to do that, however.

[John Cocktoston]

Franklin Morales is worth a damn. In fact, I'd almost giddy waiting to see his call up this weekend.

The bottom line is that they need to be able to bank on Francis and Cook, then hope they get the good Josh Fogg more than the bad Josh Fogg over the next month and a half. Beyond that, you'll get some quality starts out of Ubaldo, but he'll blow up on you here and there too. Morales is the wild card- if he comes up and catches lightining in a bottle for a few starts, then you're really talking.

The other thing they have going for them is that a bullpen that is already pitching extremely well will get a big shot in the arm when Fuentes comes back. When rosters expand at the end of the month, maybe we can ride 3 starters and our bullpen into the postseason? With the kind of bats we have, stranger things have happened...

[HoyaRoxFan]

Is there some fundamental baseball reasoning that I don't understand to explain why, given the circumstances, Buchholz has been categorically ruled out as a starter for the remainder of the season? I know I've read that his mind grasps longman status better, but this seems silly to me. He's put up better than or at least equitable stats compared to Fogg, our #3 man (remember the good ol' days when we were arguing about whether or not he was good enough to be #5?), and yet he's out of the question.

What am I missing here?

[John Cocktoston]

I don't know that he's been ruled out at all, but he's a guy who's been shuffled around a bit and now he's having some success to the team is hesitant to move him again. That said, his becoming a starter again is something that I think must be looked at long and hard.

I guess the problem is that you move him into the rotation and you're appreciably weakening a real strength (bullpen) to marginally get better in an area of weakness (rotation).

In a zero sum sense, does that make you better? I guess that's what they're trying to sort through...

[Dante Bichette]

Why have we not allready gone to a 4 man rotation, especially with the off days?

I remember the good old days when pitchers threw every 4th day, and usually well over 100 pitches, and they never seemed to have arm problems. Now, pitchers don't throw enough, they rarely go much above 100 pitches, they are cottled, and arm problems are prevelant throughout baseball. Coincidence? I think not.

Roxpert, you are right about Hurdle and O'Dowd too for that matter. Now is the perfect time to go with 4 starters, at least until September, but I don't see either one as capable of the kind of forward thinking that is required to break with the current practice of 5 man rotations.

[John Cocktoston]

Going to a 4 man rotation in Spring Training to begin a season may be "forward thinking".

Going to a 4 man rotation in mid-August as you begin a stretch run is a little reckless, IMO.

[BigRapidsJackass]

Is there some fundamental baseball reasoning that I don't understand to explain why, given the circumstances, Buchholz has been categorically ruled out as a starter for the remainder of the season? I know I've read that his mind grasps longman status better, but this seems silly to me.

And to me, too. In fact, I can't understand why Buchholz wasn't the first option Clint looked to when both Lopez and Hirsh went down for the count. Yes, in a perfect world I'd agree that Buchholz is better suited to a relief role. But the Rockies' world right now ain't exactly perfect.

I understand passing over Buchholz on Sunday, since he'd pitched a long relief session just 3 days prior. But from now on are you telling me that you'd rather throw Tim Harikkala or some such guy out there every 5th day just because Buchholz in the longterm fits in better as a reliever? That's just nuts.

My theory: for whatever reason, Clint and Dan never really liked Buchholz. They're holding him back now as trade bait for the Steve Trachsel type Danno wants to acquire. And that would be a great deal for the O's -- you'd get a much younger/still cheap guy who isn't a downgrade vs. Trachsel in any sense of the word, and we'd get about 8 starts out of a guy Clint and Dan obviously have more confidence in. Kind of like Josh Fogg and Josh Fogg Jr. making up 2/5 of your rotation. Whatever. It's obvious Buchholz isn't in our future plans even if he should be, so you might as well get a marginal upgrade for him now.

EDIT: By "marginal upgrade," I don't mean that Trachsel is an upgrade over Buchholz. In fact, I'm quite sure Buchholz is better. I mean, "better than handing the ball to Franklin Morales right now," or "better than going to Mike Esposito." My preferred course of action would be to let Buchholz start, lean heavily on the bullpen (particularly when rosters expand), and skip over Jimenez whenever the schedule allows. But it's obvious that's not going to happen.

And Roxpert, this time I really think they'll skip over the "5th starter" whenever possible. I am not completely confident they'll do it, since the general lack of urgency managment is showing is kind of annoying. Hey, you're in a pennant race once a decade, maybe you could actually try to make the club better, even if it's only by a tiny bit? I've railed about Joe Kennedy going to our competitors. Here's another one: Mark Sweeney could be useful as a bat off the bench, acquired for what will almost certainly be "cash considerations." The question isn't, "Is Mark Sweeney really that great?" It's, "Who would you rather have come up in the bottom of the 9th, one out, runner at 3rd, we need a run to tie it -- Sweeney or Cory Sullivan?"

[HoyaRoxFan]

Originally Posted by BigRapidsJackass

My theory: for whatever reason, Clint and Dan never really liked Buchholz. They're holding him back now as trade bait for the Steve Trachsel type Danno wants to acquire.

Which in turn would explain why we've increasingly seen Matt Herges going 2 innings at a time - he's the new long man in the bullpen. No possibility he could ever be used as a spot starter and he's much older than Buchholz, but there it is. Don't get me wrong, I'm really happy for Herges, particularly with all the human interest comeback stories he's been getting in the local press and on the Rockies site, but I don't see how he helps this Rockies team in its prime (now and next year) more than Buchholz. That doesn't work for me. I hope you're wrong, Jackass, but I see it.

[BigRapidsJackass]

I think Buchholz has found his way into the Hurdle doghouse. I'm not sure what he did to deserve that fate. One thing I do know: Hurdle (and not just Hurdle; this may be a common human trait) tends to get very frustrated with players who have raw talent yet are unable to turn the corner and become big time "consistent" contributors. Hence the preference for Fogg (viewed as a scrappy "competitor" of limited natural ability) over Kim. I think the same thing applied to Chacon. The fact that he used to throw in the mid-90s and had a plus curve was held against him -- he had the "natural" ability, so there must be some kind of mental block preventing him from stepping up, right? The harsh truth is that a lot of guys like Buchholz and Chacon stall in their development despite having at least 2 plus pitches. You might add Jeremy Affeldt to that list, too. It's not for lack of trying or being "uncoachable." They just never develop consistent command of all their pitches, and so they remain useful guys who flip between the bullpen and the rotation, always good enough to keep a job but never good enough to hold one for long.

And Clint just hates these guys. Could it be that he sees a little of the young Clint Hurdle in them? Remember, Clint had all the natural ability in the world himself back in the day. He kind of squandered his prime years, then recognized the hard work it would take to stick around as a role player for a few more years ...

[Roxpert]

Originally Posted by John Cocktoston

Going to a 4 man rotation in Spring Training to begin a season may be "forward thinking".

Going to a 4 man rotation in mid-August as you begin a stretch run is a little reckless, IMO.

I don't buy that notion at all. 4-days rest is "FOUR DAYS REST". Who cares if it's April or August? In fact, at this time of the year, pitchers' arms are fully stretched out and they need 5-days rest less than they would in April.

Think of the math here. We are talking about 5 weeks with an off-day for the duration of the season. On second thought, the 5th week that has the DH could be handled by Buchholz, so let's count that week too. That means there are 5 games between now and the end of the season where Hurdle has two options:

1) He could choose to stay strictly with a 5-man rotation, and give those five starts to our weakest starter, say Ubaldo Jimenez.

2) He could choose to skip over this fringe starter, and give all 5 starts to the other four guys. One extra start for Morales (let's assume), Fogg, Cook, and (if done right) two extra starts for Francis.

For a team nominally in a pennant race, any good manager would choose the second option. In the second option we may get five games of a 4.15 ERA starter for 6.5 innings per game. That's 32.5 innings with with 15 earned runs allowed.

The first option gives us five games of perhaps a 6.50 ERA fringe starter for, say, an average of 5 innings per start. That is 25 innings of 18 earned runs allowed. Three more earned runs allowed than Option #2 in 7.5 fewer innings, which also taxes the bullpen more.

I dare say that the difference in these two strategies COULD (not "will") make the difference of one win in those five games. For a team in a scrum for the wild card, squeezing out one extra win could be the difference between making the playoffs and not making the playoffs.

To me, the choice is a simple one to make. Managers in contention have to pull out all the stops this time of year.

[John Cocktoston]

I think that 2+2=4

(Just testing a theory...)

[Roxpert]

Maybe the most brilliant post I've read all day.

[HoyaRoxFan]

I'd venture to guess we'd have as good a shot making the postseason with John and Roxpert in the back of our rotation as U-ball and Morales. At least we know all four of them can throw flames.

Need we be concerned by Franklin Morales' recent performances in AAA? I read that at the moment, he may be Ubaldo all over again. I'm not sure that helps us...