Rockies use four-man Rotation

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,3...2122121,00.html

 

There once was a pitching rotation that went Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.

 

The Rockies have come up with their own version that could lead critics to chime: Kennedy, Estes, Jennings and Elarton, and are the Rockies insane?

 

Troubled by poor starting pitching since they started playing baseball in altitude 12 years ago, and more recently by a rotation that this season ranks a distant last in the majors, the Rockies are hoping less is more.

 

The No. 5 starter spot has been eliminated. The Rockies are going with a four-man rotation from now until, if all goes well, season's end.

 

 

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"People are going to think we are crazy, but in this park, sometimes you have to go against the rules," said Jason Jennings, who joins Joe Kennedy, Shawn Estes and Scott Elarton as the Rockies' rotation. "You have to mix it up and try something different. We're all for it."

 

The Rockies' rotation just finished April with an 8.20 ERA, which was more than two runs worse than the Kansas City Royals' starters, who rank 29th with a 6.11 ERA. Almost as disturbing is that Rockies starters are averaging a mere 5 1/3 innings per game.

 

Why should Rockies manager Clint Hurdle wait five days for 5 1/3 innings, when he should be able to get five innings every fourth day?

 

"There's up and there's down to it, and the biggest thing about it is the unknown," Hurdle said. "We're not afraid of the unknown."

 

To help protect against arm fatigue, an 85-to-90-pitch limit will be placed on the starters, and Jeff Fassero becomes the extra eighth guy in the bullpen. Kennedy, who will be the first to start on three days' rest Wednesday in Montreal, needed only 74 pitches to record seven innings in his win April 25 against the Houston Astros. But there will be other times when 90 pitches won't get the starter through the fifth.

 

"I think it's a great idea," said Leo Mazzone, the Atlanta Braves' acclaimed pitching coach. "I think their pitch count might be a little too low. I think you can go 100, 110 pitches. But I think it's smart to go with a four-man rotation. How many teams have a fifth starter?"

 

The No. 5 spot has come up three times for the Rockies this year. The results of those starts pitched by Denny Stark and Fassero: 0-3, 17.47 ERA. The Rockies aren't the only team continuously trying to find a fifth dependable starter. The Yankees have a $184 million payroll, yet they have inserted Jorge DePaula and Alex Gram into the fifth spot.

 

Arizona's No. 5 starter, Casey Daigle, is 0-1 with an 8.55 ERA. The two-time AL Central champion Minnesota Twins used April off days to skip their No. 5 spot for all but two starts.

 

"But the thing is," Houston manager Jimy Williams said, "the fifth starter saves the other four. He keeps the other four fresh and healthy."

 

Started with 1969 Mets

 

Historians cannot pinpoint exactly when baseball evolved from four-man rotations to five. The Tom Seaver-led New York Mets staffs in the late 1960s are often acclaimed as five-man pioneers, but the New York Yankees' Casey Stengel and Cleveland's Al Lopez often lined up fifth starters in the mid-1950s.

 

Still, it's believed the 1969 Mets were responsible for igniting the five-man trend. That year, the Chicago Cubs used a four-man rotation led by Fergie Jenkins (43 starts), Bill Hands (41 starts) and Kenny Holtzman (39 starts), while the Mets added a fifth starter, in part to give work to a talented second-year pitcher named Nolan Ryan.

 

Although the Cubs led by 9 1/2 games Aug. 13, the fresher-armed Mets finished 38-11 to win the division. The success of the '69 Mets and failure of the '69 Cubs marked a big push toward the five-man rotations. By the mid-1970s, even the Los Angeles Dodgers' Walter Alston began using five-man rotations, although Baltimore's Earl Weaver held out until 1983.

 

Since then, many teams - including the Jim Leyland-managed Rockies in 1999 - have used a four-man rotation for a month or so. But the last time a team committed to a four-man rotation for a full season appears to be the 1984 Toronto Blue Jays, who were managed by Bobby Cox. That was the last team to have four pitchers - Doyle Alexander, Dave Stieb, Luis Leal and Jim Clancy - each make at least 35 starts.

 

"We used those guys on three days' rest quite a bit," said Cox, who has since become the successful manager of the Atlanta Braves. "But we mixed in a fifth starter every once in a while."

 

World Series star Josh Beckett, who shut out the Yankees on three days' rest in the clinching Game 6 last year, gave a cautious endorsement to the four-man rotation.

 

"I think you could do it," the Marlins starter said this week while at Coors Field. "A lot of players are looking for longevity, though, and I'm not sure that's the best way. But the way they're watching the pitch counts nowadays? You could probably do it and put that extra guy in the bullpen."

 

By asking their starters to pitch on less rest in exchange for a smaller workload and an eighth man in the pen, the Rockies hope they're on to something.

 

Radical? Nah.

 

Rockies general manager Dan O'Dowd said the move to a four-man rotation was not a knee-jerk reaction to a woeful month of starting pitching.

 

"As everybody knows, this franchise has always had trouble maintaining a consistent pitching staff in our environment here," O'Dowd said. "This is something we've had internal discussions about for almost three years. We've tried to think of some radical ideas about what we can do here, but I don't think this is radical at all."

 

O'Dowd said Marcel Lachemann, a Rockies consultant and former pitching coach, helped influence the decision to use a four-man rotation. Lachemann said he got the idea while talking altitude pitching with Bob McClure, who is in his third season as the Triple-A Colorado Springs pitching coach.

 

"Obviously, we have a different situation in Colorado," Lachemann said. "There are so many variables to pitching here that nobody else has to deal with. We've heard pitchers, mostly opposing pitchers, say how it takes longer for their bodies to recover from pitching here. Now, that sounds like pitching on three days' rest is the last thing you'd want to do. But I think if you limit the number of pitches, you can condition four guys to make another five or six starts or whatever it is.

 

"We'll see. Obviously after 12 years in Denver, all the other scenarios we've tried haven't worked too well from a pitching standpoint."

 

Nice to see teams try some innovation. I hope it works, although I wouldn't pin my hopes on Shawn Estes.

[razazteca 0]

Will Shawn Chacon be the closer all season or will he move to the 5th starter sometime soon?

[treble 0]

There was talk about the Blue Jays doing this last year, but then they realized there was no one worth having go every 4 days except Halladay, so they just pitched him on 3 days rest a bunch of times.

[Guest OctoberBlood]

That's not gonna help at all.

[Styles 0]

The combination of April off day's and already 4 rainouts, has led the O's to rotate out a starter to keep the others on schedule, so we've been sort of going with 4 starters, but on 5 days rest. Won't last past mid May.

[Brush with Greatness 0]

So when Chin-Hui Tsao is healthy are they going to call him up and use him as the fifth or what?

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

I would assume they might replace one of the other four. The four-man rotation is more to keep a fifth starter out than give more time to the other four.

[The Tino Standard 0]

They can probably have a fifth guy be a spot starter for road games, so it wouldn't really be a true four-man rotation. If they go with a true four-man, their pitchers will be torched by August.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Not necessarily. Pitchers used to do it all the time, with little ill effects. Today's modern athlete is more conditioned, but specialization of the game, along with gun-shyness on the part of management, has brought us the 5-man rotation. The Rockies will limit guys to 85-90 pitches an outing, and I think they will do fine.

[JangoFett4Hire 0]

What happend to Denny Neagle?

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Major arm surgery. He's not expected back this season.

[Dr. Tom 0]

... even the Los Angeles Dodgers' Walter Alston began using five-man rotations, although Baltimore's Earl Weaver held out until 1983.

 

Earl Weaver didn't manage the Orioles in 1983.

 

Anyway, I don't see how the Rockies would do any worse with four starters instead of five. I'd like to see more teams try four-man rotations, actually, since most fifth starters are bums, and it gives a team with a good 1-2 punch ~14 more starts from those two guys.

[Vern Gagne 0]

Too bad they don't have four Joe Kennedy's.

 

Speaking of Kennedy. He's always had great stuff, why did Tampa get rid of him?

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

He went 3-12 with a 6.13 ERA last season and the Rays soured on him.

[smh810 0]

Too bad they don't have four Joe Kennedy's.

 

Speaking of Kennedy. He's always had great stuff, why did Tampa get rid of him?

 

Joe Kennedy was always a talented guy but was a HUGE partier down here and had a bad attitude which caused him to fall out of favor with Piniella. He needed the change of scenery to get re-focused.