The Padres Are the Perfect Team to Start Using a Radical New(-ish) Baseball Strategy That Could Change The Game Forever

Hey A.J.- are you listening? There's an idea out there for how you can best utilize all of those starting pitching prospects you've been hoarding over the last three years. It might just change the game forever.

Well, we'll see about forever.

One thing is clear though: teams are now longer bound to the long-held conventional wisdom that has dictated how the game is played.

Nowhere is this more evident that in how teams are managing their pitching staffs. The Tampa Bay Rays were at the forefront of the "opener" revolution, which involved starting games with a relief pitcher. The "opener" would simply pitch the first inning, and then hand the ball off to the actual starting pitcher.

The logic behind this?

Well, in equal parts due to fatigue and batters familiarizing themselves with the pitcher after multiple at-bats against them, pitchers appear to be markedly less effective after they pitch through an opposing team's lineup three times.

The idea behind the opener attempts to undercut the effect of batter familiarity against starting pitchers, and minimize the value of the team's best three hitters that hit at the top of a lineup.

From The Ringer's Zach Kram:

"Teams pitch relievers, in general, because they want livelier, fresher, and often more effective—at least in short bursts—arms to combat a team’s toughest hitters in high-leverage situations. But the most challenging inning for any staff isn’t the ninth, or the eighth, or the middle innings when a starter approaches his pitch count limit. It’s the first inning, when teams hit better than any other because it’s the only frame in which a lineup’s top hitters are guaranteed to bat. Batters have hit 10 percent better than league average in the first this season, which is the best mark in any inning.

This pattern follows the history of the league, which has always seen inflated run totals in the first. Offense is also higher in the middle innings when starting pitchers tire and the third-time-through-the-order penalty takes effect. The second inning, conversely, sees the worst offensive production of any frame until the ninth because the second inning usually features the middle-to-bottom of a batting order—and that’s when, with this new strategy, the opener would cede the mound to the would-have-been starter, who would then be able to ease into his appearance rather than begin with the most difficult opposition."

Teams around the league have followed the Rays lead and begun to implement the opener- the A's even chose to start relief pitcher Liam Hendricks in the AL Wildcard Playoff game last October.

As I said earlier, conventional wisdom about how the game is played is beginning to change, and this naturally begs the question: what's next?

In a 2009 article for Bill James Online, baseball writer Dave Fleming suggested an idea that probably seemed radical at the time, but now seems incredibly prescient: using a 3-3-3 rotation, or in his words: "having three pitchers pitch three innings each, every third day."

In effect, this would kill the starting pitcher and starting rotation, or at least the traditional conceptualization of what people think they're supposed to be: a group of five guys who pitch every fifth day, each of whom can potentially go out and pitch at least six innings and throw up to, or over, 100 pitches.

And that brings me to the point of the clickbait-y article title: could the Padres kill the five-man pitching rotation?

The pieces are in place- the Padres have an excess of starting pitchers already at the Major League level, a handful of prospects set to make their debut this 2019, and a glutton of young, elite minor league talent that are several years away.

Fleming suggests that a 3-3-3 rotation could look like this:

"Instead of asking starting pitchers to pitch to 25-33 hitters every fifth or sixth day, have them throw to 8-14 hitters every third day.

For an eleven-man staff, this would require some juggling. I would suggest regrouping the pitchers as follows: take the nine best pitchers and put them into three 3-pitcher sub-rotations. These sub-rotations would be scheduled to pitch every third game, and would take turns rotating within the group as to who starts, who pitches in the middle, and who closes.

During the games, allow each pitcher of the sub-rotation one turn through the batting order. The pitcher can then pitch to the batting order a second time, so long as a) there is a platoon advantage (for instance: of the first four batters in the lineup, three are left-handed, and your pitcher is left-handed), and b) the pitcher’s pitch count is under 75. Obviously, one would be more likely to give good pitchers more additional batters than mediocre pitchers. But keep the good pitchers on a tight pitch-count.

 The first nine pitchers would be one these rotating sub-rotations. The last two pitchers would be reserved for special occasions: when the game went into extra innings, or when the score was particularly one-sided score. These guys are the ‘scapegoat’ pitchers."

How would this look like if the Padres were to implement something like this on Opening Day next year? If the team were to carry 13 pitchers, maybe it'd look something like this:

• Squad A: Lucchessi-Nix-Quantril
• Squad B: Paddack-Erlin-Diaz
• Squad C: Allen-Lauer-Strahm
• Firemen: Castillo, Stock, Stammen, Yates

This, of course, is how I set it up, so I doubt I'm constructing this rotation in the most optimal way, but my logic for constructing the "pitching squads" were as follows:

• The first pitchers in each group are generally considered among the better starting pitchers in the Padres organization. They'd be the first three starters in a normal rotation. If they're dealing, we wouldn't mind keeping them in the game after the third inning, so long as their pitch count is under 75.
• The second pitchers in each group are guys who'd be the fourth or fifth starters in a normal rotation. These pitchers have the talent to pitch in a starting rotation, but might struggle for whatever reason with command, velocity, left handed hitters, ect. These guys function mostly just to eat innings in the middle of the game.
• The third pitchers in each group are guys who have some of the best "pure" stuff in the system. Strahm and Diaz have been tabbed to work as multi-inning relievers in the past, with the former being very effective in that role. Quantril, a former first round pick with an electric fastball, appears to be a good candidate for this role as well.
• The "firemen" are basically the four best relievers currently in the Padres bullpen. These guys can more or less be utilized whenever they are needed- to get the team out of a jam, to exploit a favorable matchup, in case of injury, ect. 

So yeah, this would serve to be a pretty radical departure from how teams use their starting pitchers. However, contrary to how I thought I had found a unique strategy the Padres hadn't thought of yet and that I was assured a future job in the front office: I actually don't think I'm alone in this idea though. Baseball Prospectus, perhaps the most influential baseball analytics website, suggested that the Padres might be an ideal candidate to employ such a profoundly different pitching rotation, but this was in early 2017- prior to the emergence of the team's dominant farm system.

*googles "weird Padres rotation ideas"*

Wait, I'm definitely not alone in thinking this way. Some guy named Andy Green mentioned this possibility in a UT article prior to the 2017 season: 

“In a day and age where you have so many clubs match up extensively with who you put on the mound to start, if you have seven or eight starters and have a lefty-righty combo, it makes sense to create a competitive advantage through some of those things,” Green said. “...You can clearly flip the script on that, and it makes sense. We’ve explored about every idea internally that’s possible.”

Uh oh, folks- things could get interesting very, very soon.