Role Playing

I must delve deeper into the situation that I've tried to describe earlier about the Royals baseball team. If you’re not into baseball, you don’t want to read what follows. Trust me.

I have serious questions about the way the KC pitching staff is being managed. (FYI, I am not a stat nut. I lean toward the old intuitive seat of your pants style.)

Watching the Royals pitching debacle, I am convinced that Buddy Bell (love him or hate him) can’t do what he wants to do with this staff. He’s stated that he wants to define roles but it seems obvious to me that he simply doesn’t have the talent to position his guys in traditional roles. In other words, I don’t think he can point to any guy on the Royals staff and identify a clear cut starter or closer in the traditional mode at this point.

The entire weight of this disastrous approach is sitting quietly in the closer’s bullpen. This ugly truth may have been revealed when Burgos and Cisco began their self-destruct act a couple of weeks ago, forcing Buddy into a rather random swap of some of the role players (Burgos to the middle, Dessens to the end, etc.).

Interesting that I get the impression that the middle relievers have done a fairly stable job in KC. I don’t know about that impression, the stats may not prove it, it may just be the work of one or two guys, the Surprising Dessens Effect or something. But it seems to me, of the traditional roles, the middle guys do seem to be holding on the best.

Meanwhile, the so-called “starters” performance remains spotty, nobody consistently performing like what you would expect of “starters”, constantly pressuring a bullpen that is very shaky to begin with.

What better place to start this complaint other than with the starters? What is expected of a starter, anyway? The quality start (QS) statistic comes to mind.

For review, read the exceptional piece on QS by David W. Smith here: http://www.diamond-mind.com/articles/qstart.htm

Now I am searching for Royals’ current QS percentage but can’t find it … assuming the worst. Assuming other than a couple of good starts by Elarton, and those were losses, we have little to talk about. (I thought I heard on radio the other day that the KC starter’s QS percentage was roughly equal to Berroa’s walks-to-at bats ratio. Eeeyew!)

Another random look at the stats (my own misperceptions hinted above) shows it has been 7 years since any MLB pitcher finished more than 9 complete games (Randy Johnson, AZ, 12 in 1999). The complete game trend has steadily declined to its lowest point ever, with no more than 5-7 complete games being expected from any one pitcher during the season across MLB. The “Ace” of KC’s staff, Elarton, has thrown 4 complete games in 7 years of MLB experience. There are many reasons for this trend, none of which are important to me right now.

The point is, I’m getting the impression here that the KC staff is (A) not able to present a rotation that regularly produces a large traditionally-defined QS percentage (something like 55-65 percent of the starts, holding through the first 6 innings) and (B), with regard to MLB trends and the talent level of this team in particular, we shouldn’t really expect KC starters to finish a game or even get close to that regularly.

Where does that leave us? With an unorthodox KC pitching staff trying to play traditional roles, with Buddy trying to force the square pegs into a round hole, that’s what we have here.

To fix this, I think that Buddy needs to consider something radical. As others have noted, a radical departure for a traditionalist like Buddy Bell may be impossible. He doesn’t seem like an innovator to me.

But I’m going to toss this out anyway.

Looking for a possible answer to this problem, I find myself wandering towards some extreme resolutions, many of which just won’t fly in a modern game where everyone is watching and waiting for the manager to look stupid. I know that.

This situation reminds me a lot of the preconceived concepts that the US Air Force held about itself prior to 1991. Before the first Gulf War, the USAF assigned aircraft to distinct functions, much like starting and closing pitchers. Fighters were considered “tactical” tools and bombers were considered tools only for “strategic” employment. As the war ensued, it quickly became apparent that those old rules didn’t apply any longer. Bombers (even B-52’s) were regularly used in “tactical” environments and fighters were pushed into different roles. Thus, the USAF had to rethink its position and eventually retired those old distinctions. The good news here is that the results of that dramatic change in perspective have been very effective, in my opinion.

Back to baseball, adding it all up, I have settled with a compromise, a policy that incorporates my more radical ideas for change into what I hope is a somewhat more digestible concept. That said, I know this is still a radical policy for the strategic/tactical use of KC’s pitching staff. The gurus on ESPN may shake their big heads and laugh and ridicule but it’s something which I think Bob McClure and Buddy should seriously consider. This team needs to do something different.

What are they going to do, lose more games if they change? Not likely.

First, we must forget what we know and what we’ve been taught about starting pitchers. KC should stop struggling to get deep into the 6th or 7th with these guys, it just ain’t happening. Don’t even worry about the starter getting a Win, a complete game or any other traditional nonsense that gooses up a starter’s ego (and salary). In KC, right now, those expectations are unrealistic. Forget the pitch count, forget it all. The goal should be a Team Win. The goal of a KC starter, the definition of a KC style QS, should be simply to finish the first 3 innings (not the first 6) with something far less than 3.5 ERA. The KC starters should be unleashed to attack, to pitch hard strikes while holding nothing back, using everything they have, almost to the extent of a traditional closer. It’s a complete reversal of the traditional thinking on pitching roles that have been developing over the last 30 years or so. The goal should be to set up the strength of this team, and that is the middle relief. Maybe guys like Burgos should be starting?

Second, the middle relief should also not be bound by generally accepted thoughts concerning their traditional role. In other words, the middle guys, the ones who come in innings 4-6, should play more of the traditional “starter” roles. This pool of relievers should contain the vast majority of this staff. They should look to go as far into the game as they possibly can, monitoring pitch counts and all that stuff to keep them fresh for rotation. Most importantly, and probably the most radical thought here, Buddy should not be pulling out the middlers for a traditional set-up guy in the 8^th as everyone expects him to do. If Gobble, for example, starts the 5^th and is cruising in the 7^th, then let him pitch on. (I think anyone who has watched this team over the last 40 days will know what I’m talking about here. Playing to set up non-existent closers in KC is just foolish.)

Finally, to the so-called closers. I don’t care who KC designates as a closer, that really doesn’t mean anything to anyone who watches this team regularly any more, but I want to see them get off of their asses. It freaks me out to watch our starter or reliever struggling to get through the 4th and then the camera pans the bullpen to see those loafers sitting there picking their noses. The reason for that is Buddy is still playing the role game. That’s over, pal! Take the guys that Buddy doesn’t trust or want to go 3 to 4 innings and use them as “spot” closers, rotating them in and out with abandon when things start going down hill at any point in the game as they most often do in KC. Don’t leave them in the bullpen, waiting for the bottom of the 9th, we don’t have any Eckersly’s out there. Use them as soon as you need them. If they screw up immediately, then bring in another and keep that door revolving until the bleeding stops. If they start off good and settle in then fall back to the middle reliever concept and use them up until they expire.

That’s my idea, anyway. I’m just trying to do what I can to help.

Cheers,

Mb