In Japanese baseball a six-man rotation is the norm. You’d think a major league team would consider the idea. Teams occasionally go with a four-man rotation, a three men during the playoffs. Why not six?
Well, here’s an original article published on Baseball Think Factory Making a case for the Mets going to such a rotation. Initially I thought this was bunk, mostly because I haven’t bought into the Mets five-man rotation — rounded out by John Maine, the resurgent Oliver Perez and the (idea of an) ageless El Duque. But the writer Leander Schaerlaeckens makes a good argument here and the comments section got pretty heated as well.
3 responses so far ↓
1 salva // Feb 25, 2008 at 1:48 am
I’m a Braves fan, with two pitchers in his 40’s, I think rather in a ‘5.5′ rotation… that is, skip a turn in the rotation, form time to time, so Glavine and Smotlz, and maybe Hampton would start 4 times in 5 (or 9 in 10) rotation turns, giving at least 2 stars for the ‘emergency’ starter and without put other pitchers to throw on short rest!
2 JP // Feb 25, 2008 at 1:58 am
That’s an interesting idea. I’m also a Braves fan. Smoltz is usually ok, but Glavine really wore down last year with the Mets. Hampton…well, is Hampton. We’ll be lucky if we get 10 starts from him.
One argument I’ve heard against this…or, at least one reason it doesn’t happen, is that pitchers would be less likely to reach the 20 win plateau. I think that’s ridiculous.
3 Simon Currie // Feb 25, 2008 at 12:50 pm
One argument against would be the optimum use of your ace, so a 5.5 man rotation where your top 2-3 pitchers are starting on regular rest with other lesser pitchers having longer rest would seem to make sense. Then again, the original article tackles this issue, but isn’t really conclusive whether Santana on 5 days rest would cost the team 1.75 wins or 5 wins. The latter would be unacceptable.
The Fighters tried to implement the 5 man rotation in NPB when Hillman first made his appearance in Japan, but it didn’t work. Partially because of the ingrained 6 man rotation in NPB, and also because Japanese labour law shapes the NPB schedule so that it’s usually a very regular 6 games played, then 1 day off, repeat. So, the 6 man rotation is actually only pitching once a week (still seems like a great waste of resources when you have an undisputed ace like Kawakami, then again Japanese pitchers tend to go longer into games and throw more complete games, so the overall number of IP at the end of the year for top NPB and MLB pitchers seem to be pretty similar at 200+).
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