2 Pitchers, 1 Game

by aNdrOss on Aug 11, 2008 4:14 PM EDT Comment 21 comments

Admittedly, this idea has little to or nothing to do with the Cardinal's current situation. And there is absolutely no way the Cardinals would pursue this option, especially not with Albert at first. However, it is an intriguing idea nonetheless...

Let's assume a hypothetical team which features a below average offensive first baseman (say Todd Helton this year) and also a couple of starters (hypothetically Micah Owings and Dontrelle Willis) who are mediocre on the pitching side but outstanding on the hitting side while also being of different handedness.

My idea is this: the team would run 4 ordinary starters for the first 4 spots, but in the 5th spot they would run a tandem of Owings and Willis. One would pitch, the other would play 1st. Whenever a righty came up to bat, Owings would pitch to him, and whenever a lefty came up, Willis would pitch to him. Switch hitters could be put on their weaker side or flip-flopped to confuse them.

Has this idea been suggested at other places? Is it a good idea? I'd like to see what the community thinks.

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I've actually never heard of this

I’m heavily, heavily intrigued. This isn’t against the rules, I don’t think.

You’d have to have two pitchers who could also play first base, which would be a time crunch in terms of practice. But I imagine such a tandem of pitchers could get pretty good results if they were adept at getting their same-handed hitters out.

by mojowo11 on Aug 11, 2008 5:04 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I don't think it would be against the rules in the NL

Cardinal fan in the heart of Braves country
DFA Adam Kennedy and Randy Flores!
"Just because nobody understands you doesn't make you an artist."

by Mr Redbird on Aug 11, 2008 5:36 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

the big issue there is...

You have two pitchers batting in the line up.

by Evilfrog on Aug 11, 2008 5:09 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

well, that of course is why...

...he used Micah Owings as an example.

If you were going to do this, I think you’d have to make them do more batting practice to make sure they could maintain their small sample size numbers.

In 112 career at bats though, Owings has an .895 OPS. That’s pretty darn good. In 2007, he had an OPS over 1.000 in 60 at bats.

It’s an intriguing idea, and I think it’d be a fun one for an independent league to do. My guess though is that if someone like Micah Owings were more subjected to advance scouting on his batting stroke and the pressure of being in a lineup with two pitchers in it, his numbers would be much closer to his numbers THIS year (.736 OPS in 52 at bats), or perhaps even lower. I may be wrong, but I doubt major league clubs put a lot of time into scouting the batting abilities of the opposing starters.

by mtalken on Aug 11, 2008 5:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

If you did this, you would get both pitchers to take more batting practice

Since neither pitcher would be responsible for retiring hitters of the opposite handedness (except the occasional switch hitter, which could still be put on his weaker side), there could possibly be less need for pitching practice and both guys could take more batting practice and fielding practice to refine their natural offensive talent. And, even if they couldn’t put up better than a .700 OPS each, what kind of production are other NL teams going to get out of their 8 and 9 holes?

by aNdrOss on Aug 11, 2008 8:57 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Two problems I see with this

1. Is warm-up pitches, presumably only one pitcher would get them to start the inning. I’m not sure if the other would get them when a position switch was made or not. If not then you are throwing a cold pitcher which is a bad idea. If they do get warm-up pitches during each position switch then it would make for one hell of a long boring game. Regardless, this would severely alter the routine of any pitcher.

2. The other issue is that your opponent can counter with a lefty or righty dominated lineup (or they may just have this naturally). Of course not all teams could do this effectively, but when done it would make your team effectively an extra roster spot short. This is compounded by the fact that you are already one roster spot short because you are carrying 6 starting pitchers.

by MotherTruckinSteve on Aug 11, 2008 5:30 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Good arguments

you’d be hard pressed to get the pitchers to agree on it, too. How would the official scorer choose the winner, since neither would presumably pitch five innings before swapping to first? That crap’s important to pitchers and their agents.

by liam on Aug 11, 2008 7:53 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Uh...

1. I hadn’t thought about that. I kind of assumed the pitchers would both be able to throw their 8 warm-up pitches before they entered the game as a pitcher. If that didn’t happen, then that probably throws the whole idea to the crapshoot.

2. Not really. Essentially you then have, against a heavy righthanded lineup, for example, Micah Owings throwing the first say 5 innings, with Willis coming on in relief and pitching the next 2. You still get 7 innings out of the 2 roster spots, leaving only 2 to the rest of the bullpen. Plus, the negative aspect of having an additional starter would be at least partially negated by having 2 extra pinch-hitters/first basemen to use in the late innings. It might make a Tony LaRussa 13 man pitching staff a little more palatable.

by aNdrOss on Aug 11, 2008 8:54 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think Whitey did this in an extra inning game.

There were two pitchers in the games, one in either left or right field. Everytime the batter switched from left to right, the other pitcher would come in and the other would go to the opposite outfield corner. It seems to me that the pitcher got to warmup each time but that game was a long time ago and my memory is a little foggy. I think it may have been against the Braves but I don’t remember the year.

by cardsfanincolo on Aug 12, 2008 12:33 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

2pitchers1cup

Sorry.

by Andyfantastic on Aug 11, 2008 6:26 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

cromit.

by liam on Aug 11, 2008 7:53 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

This would probably help Owings, who is said to have only two decent pitches, because he would only have to deal with the lineup so many times.

by hazel on Aug 11, 2008 7:11 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

intriguing idea..

sounds like something tony would love to supplement his batting pitcher 8th (side note: joe morgan constantly giving tony shit about the idea really irked me last night). the concept is a very interesting idea to say the least. but as others have said before me, i would say the ability of owings being such a good hitter is probably the lack of time spent preparing for him at the plate.

however, if you find the right tandem to work this out, it could work. imagine having the combo of cc sabathia and carlos zambrano at the plate and matching up against batters. that’s not filthy, that’s nasty! those two have a much longer track record of sucess at plate and pitching than owings and dontrelle.

still, i give you props. quite a proposition.

by stlsportsfan06 on Aug 11, 2008 8:20 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

re: side note

Nothing Joe says anymore irks me because it’s completely obvious that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about unless he’s referencing something that some other great baseball mind said. Like when he referenced Sparky Anderson’s use of infielders with a runner on third and less than two outs rushing in with the pitch—he pioneered that defense and Joe was a part of it, but Joe never would have thought it up himself, he’d be too damn worried about consistently fielding his position on a consistently consistent basis.

"I just wish that the late Harry Caray were still around so I could hear him mispronounce 'Kosuke Fukudome' every fukun' night" -- Dennis Miller

by fourstick on Aug 11, 2008 11:57 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Did any of you hear

during the game the stat given that Pujols has had 78 AB’s with men in scoring positon but the 4th spot has had 128. It was something close to that. If my memory serves. When I heard Jon Miller say that I said, ” That’s it the pitcher should bat 9th and Pujols 4th and end this experiment.”

by nybirdfan on Aug 12, 2008 8:09 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

That's is probably due to

albert being on base nearly 50% of the time in front of the 4th hitter.

by cbsnyder on Aug 12, 2008 8:32 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

True

He also said at bats, not plate appearances, meaning that the statistic does not take into account all the times that Pujols has walked with men on base.

It’s not an experiment; Pujols bats third because he is the best all-around hitter on the team (not to mention in major league baseball writ large). Doing so means more plate appearances, hitting in the first inning guaranteed, and some power behind him to drive in runs since he is on base nearly half the time. Debate the merits of the pitcher hitting 8th if you wish (there are certainly arguments both ways), but Pujols must hit #3 in this lineup.

by Huck Finn on Aug 12, 2008 9:10 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

In my example,

Willis has held lefties to a .555 OPS over his career, and Owings has allowed a .703 OPS to righties.

Admittedly, during much of Willis’ career he was a distinctly above average pitcher, and for my example, I want a average to below average pitcher, so let’s arbitrarily add 100 points to his OPS allowed.

I’m not entirely sure, but that doesn’t sound to bad to me.

by aNdrOss on Aug 11, 2008 9:04 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I bet this could be done

come to think of it, but you’d need to develop the pitchers like that. Plenty of minor leaguers don’t make it solely because they can’t get their opposite handed batters out. I suppose you could just ignore that and work only on pitching to platoon and batting. There aren’t that many good switch hitters out there.

It doesn’t strike me as a very good use of roster space, though, and it’s hard to believe the cost of not having a first baseman’s offense in the game would be outweighed by the platoon advantage.

by liam on Aug 11, 2008 9:14 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Flaw

The major flaw to this idea is the fact that only the STARTING pitcher can return to pitch after he has stopped pitching. So your second man could only pitch once before not being able to return to the mound.

by BethelRedbird on Aug 12, 2008 2:44 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Even Bigger Flaw

Owings and Willis suck at pitching. So, using 2 shitty pitchers is about the same as using a mediocre 5th starter. I guess you get a little bit of publicity or something to go along with the idea, but that novelty will wear off after a few games of the Owings/Willis tandem getting shelled.

by lopey986 on Aug 12, 2008 5:26 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs