Bright Ideas

The White Sox spent last weekend in Tampa, facing off against a Rays’ team that basically has abandoned traditional notions of a starting staff.  Twice, Tampa starters lasted less than two innings for no other reason than that’s what their manager wanted.  In the third instance, the starter went four innings.  The Sox won all three games, each time by a run.

Not to boast, but I did this twenty years ago in Strat-o-Matic baseball (if you have to ask, shame on you).  It worked pretty well, if only because paper cards representing pitchers won’t wear out as quickly as real pitchers.  I more or less went with the same three or four pitchers in a seven-game series.  In contrast, the Rays seem to be using as many of their thirteen pitchers as they can over the course of a season.

Does it work?  Well, they’re one game over .500, and sixteen games better than the Sox.  On the other hand, the third-worst team in baseball swept them at home.  If nothing else, what it shows is that pitchers can go more than two innings in relief.  Somewhere, Lindy McDaniel and Bob Stanley are smiling.