A Closer Look at the Ways to Preserve Starting Pitchers
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 874 Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2024
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Eno, DVR and Britt discuss baseball's aim to preserve starting pitchers. How much of a problem is the current use of starting pitchers compared to the past? With injury rates on the rise, what rule changes and tweaks make sense? Will small changes to move the game slightly in the direction of previous era's pitcher usage cause other problems? Plus, they discuss Britt's recent story about a partnership between Perfect Game and Fanatics, and former big leaguer Travis Snider's efforts to improve youth sports.
Rundown
1:13 The Starting Pitcher 'Problem'
6:55 Big Changes in the Last 10 Years
11:15 Incentivizing Pitching Deeper Into Starts
16:39 The Difficult of Getting Everyone on Board with New Rules
20:00 DVR Blames the Reliance on Short Relievers
26:40 Reducing the Fifth Inning Exits When a Starter is Dealing
31:37 Why Don't Starters Try to 'Save' Velocity for Later Innings?
42:46 Britt's Story About the Concerning Perfect Game-Fanatics Partnership
48:52 Travis Snider's Efforts to Improve Youth Sports
Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris
Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper
Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghroli
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Rates and barrels. |
| 0:15.9 | It is Tuesday, May 14th, Derek Van Riberino-Seres, Richard Roli, all here with you on this episode. We'll discuss a big story on the Athletic. A series of stories, actually, from Ken Rosenthal and Jason Stark, looking at the starting pitcher and what Major League Baseball could do to try and save it. And maybe we'll even have a little side debate as to whether or not there's a starting pitcher or problem to the extent that people make it out to be. |
| 0:39.9 | A little hint to maybe where I stand on the issue. |
| 0:42.0 | But some other issues we'll talk about Britt wrote a great story looking at a partnership between perfect game and fanatics, which is very troubling at the youth level. |
| 0:49.7 | And some efforts on the part of former big leaguer Travis Snyder to make youth sports better. |
| 0:54.6 | So we'll dig into that a little bit later on in the show as well. If you're not in the Discord yet, get into the Discord. It's fun. Link is in the show description. Lots of people having a good time in there. We got team chats. We got non-baseball stuff too. You want to chat about beer, food? We got that too. plenty of baseball talk in there as well. |
| 0:52.9 | So let's start. |
| 0:53.6 | Let's start with the starting picture. You want to chat about beer, food, we got that too. Plenty of baseball talk in there as well. |
| 1:12.3 | So let's start. |
| 1:12.9 | Let's start with the starting pitcher problem as it is kind of referred to, right? |
| 1:18.7 | So a lot of good stuff on the site today, if you want to read all these stories in detail. |
| 1:22.8 | A lot of good commentary from Baxter and Justin Verlander. |
| 1:27.1 | When you pull back and you look at baseball today in 2024 and you compare it to |
| 1:32.6 | baseball of the past, which has like this perfect font and is amazing because it's the |
| 1:38.5 | past and the past is perfect and nothing bad ever happened in the past. |
| 1:43.0 | What is actually the problem with starting pitcher usage, right? |
| 1:49.0 | Think about what has changed over time. |
| 1:51.9 | It's the, oh, we've lost complete games and guys get pulled out in the fourth inning all |
| 1:57.0 | the time in the fifth inning. |
| 1:58.3 | These things are common. |
| 2:02.5 | We talk about them a lot in big moments especially. Blake Snell in the World Series, not getting to go through the lineup that |
| 2:06.7 | was a third time, right? In the 20-20 World Series? Man, the last few years have been harsh, but |
... |
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