I don't know if tandem starts will be a thing but I think teams will most certainly look at converting starters to BP arms.

Guys like Musgrove, Peacock, Devo, Maeda, and Morrow were all starters that have transitioned well into the pen.

Rather than look outside for BP I think teams may start to look at their own starters they have down on the farm.

One of the other advantages of going the long reliever route rather than specialized. Is during a 3 game series its likely only once you see folks rather than seeing the same guys in the 7th, 8th and 9th every night.
I also like the idea of going opposite from the starter. So lets say your starter gets through six innings is a hard throwing lefty. You relieve him with a junk throwing righty for the last 3 innings.

I think you may see teams try it with their 3/4/5 pitchers in the playoffs. I don't think they'll do it in the regular season. It works when you have a lot of good, but not great, starters like the Astros had this year. It doesn't make sense to pull a great starter, and go to another who is a big drop off. I don't think it makes as much sense for someone like the Dodgers, who have a great bullpen (yes, they lost, but it was damn close). I think the key to take away from the series is to go with your strengths. Don't just do something because the paper says to do it. If a pitcher is pitching great, don't just pull him. If your closer is terrible, don't just put him in because it's the ninth.

That's how I feel. It will be an interesting thing to watch that's for sure

I believe this is how the Astros bring their pitchers along in A ball.

IMO, the Astros will be trying this out unless they plan on trading a bunch of pitching. They have now accumulated a ****ton of these type pitchers, and if they are all healthy its a logjam. Plus they have a #3 and #4 and #5 who arent workhorse types even in the best of times.

So what are you doing with this staff?

Justin Verlander
Dallas Keuchel
Lance McCullers
Charlie Morton
Brad Peacock
Colin McHugh
Joe Musgrove
Francis Martes

The obvious answers are #1 trade some and hope the rest dont get hurt and hope you get innings from the 3 or 4 you keep or #2 piggyback the 3-4-5 spots to get everybody innings.

Another benefit of that you have ready replacements for the normal missed starts due to injury.

Or do what the dodgers did last year and use the 10-day DL to get guys some rest during the season

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I've been to way to many games where the 8th inning guy strikes out the side only to have the closer blow the game. That's insane that so many coach that way. Bullpens should always be about riding the hot hand as long as you can. I'd rather see teams have 4 guys with 10 saves than one guy with 40 but is a 9th inning, clean based, 3 batter only closer.

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The problem is that you never see the moments where the 8th inning guy gets shelled, because the manager lifted him for the 9th inning guy. Just leaving a guy in because he faced weaker batters or had more favorable match-ups to face potentially tougher one makes little sense either.

I think you will see the save stats move around because I think teams will move more towards using their top-shelf closer in the 7th or 8th...depends on when the damage from the line up comes up to the plate.

It certainly makes sense for the game to evolve to the point of realizing that not all starters need to be guys who go 6 innings - lots of room for guys who only go 3-4 innings and call it a day and be happy with that start. Probably really tough to manage a bullpen like that throughout the season. It becomes easier in the postseason, but its still really tough.

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It certainly makes sense for the game to evolve to the point of realizing that not all starters need to be guys who go 6 innings - lots of room for guys who only go 3-4 innings and call it a day and be happy with that start. Probably really tough to manage a bullpen like that throughout the season. It becomes easier in the postseason, but its still really tough.

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The issue front offices are trying to solve is that OPS goes up the third time through the order (you can dig up a fangraphs article saying it jumps from .731 to .771 in 2015)

So, guys that have really good secondary/tertiary pitches might stay in to face the lineup a 3rd time and others might not.

I think it's just a matter of if we'll actually admit publicly that tandem starts is what we are doing next year.

We're gonna have at minimum 3 starters in our pen next year (guys who started 10-15 plus games this year or in the past for us). We're also gonna have at least 3 guys in the rotation who don't eat innings or have trouble getting through three rotations in the lineup. So your going to be seeing those guys in the pen relieving those guys in the middle innings frequently IMO.

I just read "Ahead of the Curve" by Brian Kenney. The book is about the development of sabermetrics. One of his main points is how pitchers are being misused and he thinks it's inevitable that starters will be pitching fewer innings per start, and that closers won't be saved for only the 9th inning any more. His theory is that the main reason these changes have not already been made is the importance placed on two statistics (which he argues are meaningless) which are wins and saves for pitchers.