Should the Orioles go to a six-man rotation?

by srock

Could the Orioles attempt a six man rotation in 2012?

Should they?

Things to consider:

Orioles have a good number of starting pitchers.
Do not have any top tier starting pitchers.
Do not have any innings eaters. (Guthrie kinda sorta)
Do have two pitchers accustomed to a 6 man rotation (Chen and Wada)

Look at this data:

There are 10 starting pitchers. Only 1 (Guthrie) has ever thrown 200 IP in a season. I may have missed if someone threw 200 combined MiL and ML, but still, only 1 has thrown 200+ in the ML.

The two Japanese pitchers top out in the mid 180 IP several times in there careers. They are accustomed to throwing in a 6 man rotation.

Is it wise to attempt to use these 10 pitchers in a 5 man rotation for 162 game season? They (not Chen or Wada) have been in such a system before with poor results. Chen and Wada have succeed in a 6 man rotation throwing 180 innings.Why repeat what has not worked.

Using 6 of these 10 as starters, keeps 4 available in the bullpen or Norfolk to fill in. So there is plenty of depth (not even considering O'Day and Eveland who are really last ditch depth).

Here is a comparison. The Rays had a top notch pitching staff in 2011. All but 14 games were started by there top 5 SP's. That is amazing! Here is how the IP broke down:

Shields: 249
Price: 224
Hellickson: 189
Davis: 184
Niemann: 135
TOTAL: 981
AVG: 196

There is simply no way reasonable way the Orioles can hope to get such production out of 5 SP's in the group above. It would take an unprecedented improvement as a group.

I propose trying something different. Use 6 starting pitchers with the hope of getting 1000 innings this way:

SP 1: 200
SP2: 190
SP3: 180
SP4: 150
SP5: 145
SP6: 135

Obviously hoping to get 162 starts out of 6 pitchers is unlikely as well, but this is a more realistic goal then getting 1000 out of 5.

Talk about here

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