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Starter V. Reliever - Historical Look at Rookie Pitchers

Is it better for a pitcher to start in the bullpen or should we throw him to the wolves and let him figure things out in the rotation?

 

I examined the 20 pitchers that have received at least 1 first place vote for Cy Young since 1990.  I wanted to know whether or not highly successful pitchers broke into the majors as starters or were eased in via the bullpen.

Star-divide

14 pitchers made at least 20 starts their rookie year and later received first place votes for Cy Young

Query1

Starters
nameFirst nameLast GS G Relief Appearances
Rookie Year
Tim Lincecum 24 24 0 2007
Dontrelle Willis 27 27 0 2003
Brandon Webb 28 29 1 2003
C.C. Sabathia 33 33 0 2001
Roy Oswalt 20 28 8 2001
Mark Mulder 27 27 0 2000
Freddy Garcia 33 33 0 1999
Andy Pettitte 26 31 5 1995
Esteban Loaiza 31 32 1 1995
Darryl Kile 22 37 15 1991
Doug Drabek 21 27 6 1986
Bill Swift 21 23 2 1985
Roger Clemens 20 21 1 1984
Dennis Eckersley 24 34 10 1975

 

However, only 6 pitchers were broken in via the bullpen for a large part of the season (20 relief appearances).

Query1

Relievers
nameFirst nameLast GS G Relief Appearances Rookie Year
Johan Santana 5 30 25 2000
Trevor Hoffman* 0 39 39 1993
Trevor Hoffman* 0 28 28 1993
Bobby Thigpen 0 20 20 1986
Jose Rijo 5 24 19 1984
Jimmy Key 0 63 63 1984
Bob Welch 13 23 10 1978

Hoffman appeared on the list twice because he pitched for San Diego and Florida his rookie year.

 

There were quite a few more pitchers that didn't fit either criteria (less than 20 games pitched their rookie year).  In fact, 20 pitchers made less than 10 appearances.  Of those, almost all of them were starting as soon as they came in.  Jason Schmidt and Robb Nen were the only ones to break in via the bullpen in a partial first season.

Query1

Partial First Season
nameFirst nameLast GS G Relief Appearances
Rookie Year
Josh Beckett 4 4 0 2001
Eric Gagne 5 5 0 1999
Roy Halladay 2 2 0 1998
Jason Schmidt 2 9 7 1995
Robb Nen 3 9 6 1993
Pedro Martinez 1 2 1 1992
Pat Hentgen 1 3 2 1991
Kevin Tapani* 0 3 3 1989
Kevin Tapani* 5 5 0 1989
Kevin Appier 5 6 1 1989
Randy Johnson 4 4 0 1988
Ramon Martinez 6 9 3 1988
Curt Schilling 4 4 0 1988
Jose Mesa 5 6 1 1987
Tom Glavine 9 9 0 1987
Jack McDowell 4 4 0 1987
Greg Maddux 5 6 1 1986
Kevin Brown 1 1 0 1986
Randy Myers 0 1 1 1985
Dave Stewart 0 1 1 1978
Jack Morris 6 7 1 1977

*Tapani pitched for the Mets and Twins his rookie year.

 

What does all this mean?  I dunno.  It sure looks like the very best of the best pitchers didn't need to be eased into the majors via the bullpen.  What other generalizations do you see?

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Isn't the whole bullpen thing

Kind of an old school thing some old school manager used to do it like the cardinals or somebody

maybe u should have went back more than 20 years

Nobody punished like Earl and No one was nastier than Ryan

by Garcia34 on Jul 17, 2009 12:15 AM CDT reply actions   0 recs

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