How The Mets Are Perfect For the Rotation Revolution

 

Image Courtesy of Amazin' Avenue

   Most baseball fans know by now about the crazy reliever experiment the Rays conducted this past weekend. The idea of a team using a reliever to start the game has been long talked about by the sabermetric community. Seeing this idea become reality is a clearly a big win for them. This idea worked out nicely for the Rays, and they are being hailed as the forefront of a revolution. While this is true to an extent, I firmly believe there is one team that can do it even better. That team? The New York Mets.


   Surely the Rays are to credit for this idea of reliever usage, and if they are to continue this the whole season, they should get the credit for being the first to implement it in the Majors. However, they also started a reliever in Sergio Romo who had 1. never started a game in his career, and 2. is currently sporting a 4.34 ERA and 4.89 FIP on the season. Despite his nice slider and strikeout numbers, he walks too many batters and is far too prone to giving up homers to be a reliable pitcher for a full season.

   The Mets meanwhile, have plenty of candidates to take on what I'd like to call an "opener" role (the name was not my idea, but rather, from the fantastic book titled "The Only Rule is It Has To Work"). They can turn to relievers with recent starting experience such as Paul Sewald (who is quietly been very good), Robert Gsellman, and the hot Seth Lugo.

   The main argument that will likely be used against the idea of an opener is that a team should not "waste" a reliable reliever in a low leverage situation. This idea has credence, but there are some counterpoints I have to offer.

   The first of these arguments is a rather simple one. When a team constructs their lineup, they usually have their three or four best hitters hitting within the first four spots of the order. This is a basic idea that has spanned since the beginning of baseball, and it makes sense. The hitters at the top of the lineup always see the most plate appearances. That's why you'll never see Mike Trout for example hitting 8th. 

   Because of this idea of the opposing teams best hitters seeing more batting opportunities, it would only make sense to have one of your most effective pitchers begin the game facing them to limit the hitters opportunities to face weaker pitchers, right?

   To provide a good example, lets say the Mets are taking on the Braves. They will be trotting out some combination likely featuring Ozzie Albies, Freddie Freeman, Nick Markakis and Ronald Acuna in their first four spots in the order. Now, three of the four of these hitters are better against lefties (Markakis is virtually the same against lefties and righties).

   Since that's the case, the Mets can trot out Seth Lugo to come out and face these hitters, and perhaps even finish the second inning, if necessary. This would be great, as this would keep a more effective pitcher out there to start out the game.

   Now, this wouldn't apply for all the starters in the Mets rotation, as Jacob Degrom and Noah Syndergaard are total studs. Interestingly enough, the concept of openers is essentially just trotting out the teams most effective pitchers to stifle the top of the opposing teams lineup. The reason for that being interesting when it comes to Degrom and Syndergaard are the teams most effective pitchers on a per inning basis.

   The idea of an opener mainly applies to when pitchers like Steven Matz are slated to pitch. They can still come in to pitch in either the last part of the second inning or the third, and they can then proceed to pitch the next few innings as if they were starting the game.

   Here's a classic sabermetric argument in favor of openers: times through the order.

   As you can see, a pitchers effectiveness is typically far worse when going through the lineup a third time. It may not fully show it in the graph, but since 2011, a pitcher has a 3.92 FIP when going through the lineup for the first two times. In the third, it skyrockets to 4.46. In terms of WHIP? 1.29 the first two and 1.39 the third. K/BB is at 12.9 while the third is at 9.7. Essentially, a pitcher is 15% less effective across three peripheral categories when facing the order for a third time.

   Essentially, it is imperative for a pitcher who may not be as effective to not go through the order a third time. This can be accomplished quite easily with the opener going between one to two innings, as by the time the original starter goes through the order a third time, he will likely have pitched into the 6th or 7th inning (which is around the time high leverage situations occur, and a reliever would need to be brought in anyway). What this system does is that it maximizes the effectiveness of the entire pitching staff on a per inning basis.

   As we can see, this idea of openers is one that could greatly benefit more teams. However, this works perfectly for the Mets though, as I mentioned before. That is because they indeed have effective pitchers in their bullpen with recent starting experience.

   This means that because they have multiple pitchers who can pitch multiple innings, they can go two, maybe even three days in a row with an opener going the first two innings. This is a perfect way, essentially, to keep the effectiveness as a staff to be as close to what Degrom and Syndergaard give the team in between their starts.

   Now one argument that can also be used would be that the Mets used a good reliever, and will have one less effective reliever to use in a high leverage situation. To a degree, that is true, but the Mets do have effective relievers in their pen.

   They can use one of the starter/reliever hybrid pitchers I mentioned before to come in late in the game (and just don't use him as an opener the next game or make him unavailable the next game so he can open the following one). They can also turn to A.J. Ramos (who has been his typical Ramos self, but has actually been solid, as his 3.46 FIP is one run lower than his ERA, and has allowed a meager 82.6 MPH exit velo so far while striking out 26% of the batters he's faced).

   They of course have Jeurys Familia, who has returned to his dominant form so far. Perhaps the team can even go outside the box a bit, and call up Tim Peterson (who has been killing it in Triple A so far) so the team won't have to worry about using up all their effective relievers in opener roles.

   Essentially, the Mets have a lot of talent within their pitching staff, and there is a perfect opportunity for skipper Mickey Callaway to fully utilize this pitching talent. What I'm saying is, the Rays started this, and now its the Mets opportunity to perfect it.

All stats and info are current as of May 22, and are courtesy of Fangraphs, Baseball Savant and MLBFarm