Historical Look at Rookie Role Switching

by jtts on Jul 16, 2009 7:37 PM CDT

Every time I see someone complain that the Rangers are moving Derek Holland back to the bullpen or back to the rotation with exasperated "WHY WON'T THEY JUST PICK ROLE FOR HIM AND LEAVE HIM THERE!!!!!!!!!" frothing from their imaginary mouths, I think to myself, "self, why does it matter? Throwing a baseball is throwing a baseball."

So I decided to dive into some numbers and see what they said about pitchers in Holland's position.

For this little study I looked at all pitcher in their rookie year that made at least 10 starts (Holland only has 7, but its a safe bet that he gets to 10) and made at least 10 relief appearances. The database I was looking at didn't have the breakdown on whether or not the pitcher was shuttled back and forth from the bullpen to the rotation.

For the years 1990-2008, I found (only?) 20 pitchers that met that criteria. The results were not spectacular.

First	Last	GS	G	Debut Year
Darryl	Kile	22	37	1991
Bob	Scanlan	13	40	1991
John	Doherty	11	47	1992
Felipe	Lira	22	37	1995
Mike	Mimbs	19	35	1995
Sid	Roberson	13	26	1995
Julio	Santana	14	30	1997
Sidney	Ponson	20	31	1998
Joe	Mays	20	49	1999
Dan	Perkins	12	29	1999
Joe	Beimel	15	42	2001
Brian	Lawrence	15	27	2001
Jorge	Sosa	14	31	2002
Billy	Traber	18	33	2003
Matt	Roney	11	45	2003
D.J.	Houlton	19	35	2005
Robinson	Tejeda	13	26	2005
Zach	Miner	16	27	2006
Ricky	Nolasco	22	35	2006
Fernando	Nieve	11	40	2006

I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from this. Obviously we're not getting a bunch of superstars. Darryl Kile and Joe Maysare the only ones to make an AS roster. Going back further in time doesn't get a lot better. Going back to 1980 only adds Saberhagen and Wetteland.

I'm intrigued to see whether or not throwing a pitcher into the rotation or breaking him in via the bullpen is the better option. I'll look into it and get back to you with some more names.

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Comments

You may have simply picked the era

in baseball history when teams were the least likely to start off their young pitchers in bullpen roles. The results (and names) might seem more encouraging if you went further back. I’m not terribly worried about Holland, though I think they’ve just about reached the limit of the number of times he should be jerked back and forth.

G G G E-flat_______ F F F D__________....

by t ball on Jul 16, 2009 8:16 PM CDT reply actions

I thought that might be the case too, but was a little surprised.

In the history of baseball, here’s the list of cy young pitchers that made at least 10 starts and 10 relief appearances their rookie year:

Dennis Eckersley
Bob Welch
Bret Saberhagen
Catfish Hunter
Jim Perry
Don Drysdale
Vern Law

Looking at pure numbers by decade:
2000’s – 12
1990’s – 11
1980’s – 18
1970’s – 22
1960’s – 30
1950’s – 52
1940’s – 44

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:) - Obligatory smiley showing I don't mean whatever mean
spiritedness is likely contained in the preceding post

by jtts on Jul 16, 2009 8:37 PM CDT up reply actions

is that you, you old time greek hiding in the shadows?

I can't help it. I’m an asshole.
-brettgardner on Jul 7, 2009 10:55 PM EDT

by Jayslick on Jul 17, 2009 11:44 AM CDT up reply actions

Speaking to your first two paragraphs

this sentence seems key: “The database I was looking at didn’t have the breakdown on whether or not the pitcher was shuttled back and forth from the bullpen to the rotation.”

I’m one of those who is uneasy about shifting him back and forth every 2-3 weeks, and again, one central reason is that they seem to have shortcut the ramp back up to starting at least once, but I would have zero problem with breaking in a guy for part of a season in the pen then ramping him to the rotation for the rest of the year. A good number of these guys were surely broken in that way, but that would be the most informative piece of research on this topic.

by Brett Perryman on Jul 16, 2009 8:50 PM CDT reply actions

Because I wondered the same thing I checked out the game logs on BR.com. Its still not pretty.

Kile – Started in Pen, went to rotation fulltime in June. Career 133-119, 2165 IP, 104 ERA+

Scanlan – Started in Rotation in May, made 11 starts, moved to bullpen in June, stayed until Aug then back to bullpen rest of year. Career 20-34, 536 IP, 94 ERA+

Doherty – Started year in bullpen, moved to rotation in August where he stayed. Career 32-31, 521 IP, 91 ERA+

Lira – Started in bullpen, moved to rotation in June, back to bullpen in August, back to rotation in September. Career 26-46, 577 IP, 91 ERA+

Mimbs – Started in rotation, moved to bullpen late July, back to rotation mid september. Career 12-19, 264 IP, 84 ERA+

Roberson – Started end of may in rotation, looks to have gone down to farm in Mid July, back in bullpen in Mid August. Career 6-4, 84 IP, 86 ERA+. Only 1 year in majors?

Santana – Started year in bullpen, moved to rotation in May, back to bullpen in Jun, back to rotation in mid june, back to bullpen end of July. Career 17-31, 479 IP, 89 ERA+

Ponson – Started in bullpen, moved to rotation in June. Career 91-111, 1745 IP, 90 ERA+, 2 DWI

Mays – Started in bullpen, moved to rotation in late June. Career 48-70, 997 IP, 94 ERA+

Perkins – Started in bullpen, moved to rotation in May, sent to minors(?) in mid june, back to bullpen in July, made a couple starts in August, finished season in bullpen. Career 1-7, 86 IP, 77 ERA+ only 1 yea rin majors?

Beimel – Started year in bullpen, moved to rotation in June, back to bullpen in late August. Career 21-28, 497 IP, 104 ERA+

Lawrence – Started in bullpen, moved to rotation in June. Career 50-63, 963 IP, 93 ERA+

Sosa – Started in bullpen, moved to rotation in June. Career 40-49, 713 IP, 94 ERA+

Traber – Started in bullpen, moved to rotation in June. Career 12-14, 211 IP, 78 ERA+

Roney – started year in bullpen, moved to rotation in late june, back to bullpen in mid august. Career 1-10, 104 IP, 80 ERA+ 2 years in majors

Houlton – Started year in bullpen, moved to rotation in June. Career 6-11, 157 IP, 84 ERA+

Tejeda – Started in bullpen in May, moved to rotation in June, 5 relief appearances over the rest of the year. Career 16-19, 321 IP, 93 ERA+

Miner – Started in Rotation in June, moved to bullpen in late august. Career 23-16, 314 IP, 104 ERA+

Nolasco – Started in bullpen, moved to rotation in mid May. Career 33-28, 464 IP, 96 ERA+ Was 15-8 with 212 IP, and 121 ERA+ last year.

Nieve – Made 3 relief appearances in april before going to rotation, back to bullpen in mid June. Career 6-7, 142 IP, 104 ERA+

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:) - Obligatory smiley showing I don't mean whatever mean
spiritedness is likely contained in the preceding post

by jtts on Jul 17, 2009 12:20 AM CDT reply actions

Still

I can’t see any reason we should think this is causation instead of merely correlation. I have no reason to believe that Derek Holland will turn out good or bad based on your hard work. I’m just not sure we can really draw any conclusions from this.

G G G E-flat_______ F F F D__________....

by t ball on Jul 17, 2009 7:11 AM CDT up reply actions

Oh, I'm not saying we should draw hard conclusions from this

Like I said, I went into this thinking it was a big bunch of nothing moving back and forth. I just wish I could find one example in the last twenty years of a pitcher that did this that it worked out for. If I had a choice between one role for him (preferably starting a full year) and switching back and forth, I’d feel better about the guy’s odds for success as a full-time starter from the get-go.

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:) - Obligatory smiley showing I don't mean whatever mean
spiritedness is likely contained in the preceding post

by jtts on Jul 17, 2009 12:27 PM CDT up reply actions

I think what it does say

it that there have not been a lot of potential TORP guys that were yo-yo’d between the bullpen and rotation.

Elvis Andrus - 2009 AL Rookie of the Year
Mitch Moreland - 2009 Rangers Minor League POY

by RangerMad on Jul 17, 2009 2:02 PM CDT up reply actions

I started looking at this, also, and found

as a general rule, managers did not jerk their pitchers back and forth in their rookie season. But that doesn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already suspect.

by diamond_dave on Jul 20, 2009 11:13 AM CDT reply actions