Seattle Sports Insider

SP to RP conversions

Gospel of Luke, dept.

Posted by

2/15/14

This from BJOL:

Bill, Luke Hochevar is extremely effective this year (1.70 ERA) after a few years of being a #5 starter. Is there some way to guess which "bad" starters will be great relievers. Is it only which starter has a great fastball and weak 2nd and 3rd pitches?

Asked by: Steve9753

Answered: 9/12/2013

I don't think it is that easy, no. It's an issue that we wrestle with quite often. It is generally true:

1) That almost all pitchers are more effective (per inning) in relief than they are as starters, and

2) That SOME pitchers--probably 30%--are very dramatically more effective as relievers than as starters.

You go into every winter looking for more relievers, looking for relievers who will have a good year next year, and there are always a field of failed starting pitchers who are candidates for those positions. We thus spend a good amount of time discussing this exact issue you raise: can this pitcher be effective in the bullpen?

If there was an easy way to tell, I think we'd have found it by now.

....

In 2014, the Mariners have a fascinating candidate for SP-to-RP conversion. Brandon Maurer. We discussed it last year; here are a few links.

In Brandon Maurer and Luke Hochevar, we lined up all of the similarities between the two pitchers. You'd have an easier time finding something they DON'T do the same.

Hochevar, of course, spent 5 miserable years in the Royals' rotation, and in year #5, guess what his ERA was? 5.73. Of course, they moved him to the pen last year, and he gave them 70 glorious innings at a 1+ ERA, complete with 10+ strikeouts, 2+ walks and all the trimmings.

Did you realize that Jon Papelbon and Mariano Rivera were SP-to-RP conversions? As were Goose Gossage, Lee Smith, Billy Wagner, John Franco, Rollie Fingers, KRod, Joe Nathan, and ...

No, it's not an absolute rule. But I'd imagine most present-day closers had been starters at some point. If you had a great reliever en embryo someplace, Brandon Maurer could easily be what he looked like. :- )

...

Here is a point-counterpoint on Maurer to the pen. Essentially the objection is, you're wasting a Chris Tillman if you exile him to the Tom Wilhelmsen gulag.

I dunno.

...

And here is an article penned by G-Moneyball, arguing to keep Maurer in the rotation. Perhaps Gordon would see it differently nowadays, with Taijuan and K-Pax having parachuted in ahead of him. I dunno.

McClendon referred to Maurer as a potential "swing man," meaning that if Maurer were in the 'pen they would spot start him -- keeping a finger in the page of the SP book, as it were.

For me it's one of Arizona's most intriguing storylines. In the 'pen, Maurer will probably sustain 96-98 MPH, with three different offspeeds he can throw for strikes ... as a big guy, drop-and-drive, he might give you 90 innings of that type of pitching.

Let's hope,

Dr D

Blog:

Sabermetrics

Comments

"Swing" away!

If Maurer is a swing man, then I love Mac for that decision, already! I just think that 80-90 innings of MLB ball is WAY more valuable to his development than 160 innings of AAA ball. Give him a few spot starts and then just tell Zunino to put 1 finger down a lot of the time, 2 fingers down part of the time, 3 fingers down a few times.....and there you go. I was a fan of keeping Maurer up out of ST last year. No harm, no foul. He's got a lively arm and he's over the wide-eyed hump now. He's a big reason I have no qualms about moving E-Ram.

Pros n cons of bullpenning Maurer

Pro: there's no way the Ms are going with 3 rookie-ish starters after spending 240 million on a hitter and trying to make some sort of splash in the AL West. Maurer is not a darling, was not a high draft pick, has no cache. Leaving him as a starter in AAA removes a good arm from the pen without building any real trade value for him as a starter - what's the point?
Con: Number of starters available in AAA right now if Taijuan's shoulder stiffness becomes a "return after the All-Star Break" scenario: one (E-Ram). If being in the playoff race in August and September is now a thing, we might want to make sure we have decent replacements available should something happen to one of our 5 starters. Unless you wanna run Beavan or Noesi back out there...
Pro: He's exactly the sort of player and arm you throw at the bullpen, since he's a righty who throws 95+ mph and might take a while to get the hang of his 4-pitch arsenal as a starter. Drop a pitch or two as a reliever and you wind up with JJ Putz, who was a very mediocre starter in the minors before his bullpen switch (and learning Eddie's pitch).
Con: Basically every good pitcher is gonna be better as a bullpenner. They're also less valuable than they would be if they could start. Every pitcher can be made into a reliever - I'd prefer to make a starter fail at that first, then adjust him to relieving if he has good stuff but can't.
Pro: Capps is out of the way, so we do have a bullpen opening. And we've got to have a strong pen this year to lock down some of these wins.
Con: Hultzen is down for '14, and maybe forever. Pike is probably the next man up and he's a year or two away. E-Ram and Maurer are your only starting bridges to the low-minors budding stars like Diaz. And I do remember some guy name Piniero being the unheralded, useful pitcher that helped us out when Anderson lost his career and Meche shredded his shoulder. Might want to have that guy laying around getting starter reps.
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I guess with Maurer I'm looking over the next 2-3 years instead of just at '14. I like the idea of him as a swing starter, but does he? Can he do that? A video game just plays a pitcher as much as I want on whatever random schedule and we'll assume that if I miss Pitcher Abuse Points then said pitcher will perform at his peak. Hard to do that in real life.
I'm not sure that having him as a swing or long man gets the most out of him. Having your cake and eating it too, in that he doesn't really convert to a back-of-the-pen option, but isn't starting or using his full repertoire very often either. Maybe that's good, maybe not. There are more reasons to have him in the pen now, but I don't know if those are compelling.
Brandon Maurer has very useful skills. We need to figure out whether he is a wrench or a hammer. You CAN pound nails with a wrench, but using a hammer to twist bolts is a losing proposition. If we do not view Maurer as a long-term starter, then by all means Papelbon him. I just have visions of relegating Fister to a swing role and never knowing just how good he could have been.
Maurer has talent. Bullpenning him is the easy solution, and maybe even the right one. Andrew Bailey, Andrew Miller, Pap, Hochevar, Gagne... lots of really talented guys have converted over to the pen either through need or running out of options and patience.
But Maurer shouldn't have been in the bigs last year. He had one good season at AA and an abundance of pitching gifts. We can put a cap on him and shove him in the pen, and if we want him as a decent contributor this year for the big club this year from April on then we'll probably have to.
If we do it, I hope he crushes the role, that's all.
~G