Do you think a very good 5th starter is even worth it? I've always tried to build a great staff 1-5 but lately I've been thinking it's not all THAT important. I mean with off days you can skip the 5th starter occasionally. And especially in the playoffs your 5th start might not even pitch an inning. I know depth is good for injuries and such, but 5 good starters kind of seems like overkill to me now.

It depends on stamina/durability obviously, but on mediocre or rebuilding teams, I'll have more depth-types to see what clicks for the season.

I'd rather spend money on the things that will win me a WS once I get close though. On my Buffalo/Burlington team, I barely care who pitches those regular season innings

Depth is good because injuries are always a factor. It's just a matter of what you prioritize.

How confidant are you in making the playoffs?

I'm always of the mentality, make the playoffs and then when you get there anything can happen. So for 20 starts of the year is an extra run or run and a half in 9 innings going to make the difference for you making the playoffs? If yes, then you should have a good 5th starter.

I usually have 5 guys that are very good and then 2 more in the pen that could take over fairly easily. I figure you can never have too much pitching.

My "5th starter" is usually the youngest guy. The prospect or ex-prospect who can still develop a bit and is too good for AAA. I don't want to short his innings, which would happen if I brought him up and left him in the pen. So unless he gets blown up horribly, I take the bad with the good.

Posted by kartchy on 1/24/2018 11:16:00 PM (view original):
Do you think a very good 5th starter is even worth it? I've always tried to build a great staff 1-5 but lately I've been thinking it's not all THAT important. I mean with off days you can skip the 5th starter occasionally. And especially in the playoffs your 5th start might not even pitch an inning. I know depth is good for injuries and such, but 5 good starters kind of seems like overkill to me now.

Do you think a very good 5th starter is even worth it?

Nope, and realizing this is discovering an important secret that is going to raise your win % by as much as 10% per season

I mean with off days you can skip the 5th starter occasionally.

Yep, especially in the first 30 games until service-time roster call-ups. There's a few long stretches in the middle (one around game 60, and one around game 125) where you need the 5th "spot starter" a bunch of times in a row, but rolling with 4 gives you a massive advantage

And especially in the playoffs your 5th start might not even pitch an inning.

Yep. Extra off days means this strategy becomes even more drastic. I've even had series where my fourth starter didn't even pitch an inning.

I know depth is good for injuries

just have your spot starter slide into the 4th spot for 45 games (11-12 starts) if you need to put a guy on the 60-day DL. When your good guy comes back he'll be even better. Short-term you might lose a few extra games in those 11-12 starts (you'll barely even notice), but the long-term return is so much higher-- Ubaldo Flores is a great example of exchanging three DL trips for four Cy Young awards and a WS ring


If you do an innings analysis in this scenario you'll realize that your best 4 starters and 3 relievers end up combining for a huge % of your overall innings. For example, at the moment on my Texas Toast team, after 69 games the breakdown is as follows:

619.1 total innings pitched
Sherm Washington 112.1
Paco Trevino 108.2
Bum Sweeney 98.2
Jesus Miro 91.1
Mike Prinz 56.0
Fernando Colon 44.0
Seth Hodges 24.1
I don't even have a true "spot starter" here, I just use a tandem beginning with Pablo Reyes 39.0
Those first 7 players alone add up to 535.1, so 535.33 / 619.33 = 86.4%
when you add in Pablo Reyes you get 574.33 / 619.33 = 92.7% !

the remaining 7.3% are entirely inconsequential and the remaining 2-4 pitcher roster spots can be minimum salary players / AAAA guys / rule 5 guys who can mopup or whatever in the rare event you are losing big or winning big or for some reason if everyone good is tired. This allows you to concentrate your salary into fewer people, so that allows your roster to be more top-heavy which is what wins in the playoffs

That's why it's incredibly frustrating to watch stupid real-life teams like the Mariners restricting a guy like Felix Hernandez to 30-33 starts every single season for his entire career, because even if they're not consistently running 4-man they should at least let Felix skip over somebody on off-days so that's he's always throwing every 5 calendar days. This would be the difference between 33 starts and 36-38 starts, and would win them more games in the long run. Want to know why you haven't made the playoffs in 15 years? This stuff matters. They don't have to go into full Paco Trevino mode where you're targeting 39 or 40 starts per season for 250-260 IP per season, they should at least be getting him 230-240 instead of 200-210. "YEAH BUT MAYBE FELIX HAS LOW DUR!" is an argument the actual Mariners might try to make, even though from 2006 to 2015 he barely ever missed a start. Let him influence more games and actually have a few bullpen guys who don't suck

Felix is done at age 31, so I don't know that the argument of "hey should have pitched even more" works there... In terms of this game though, yes, skip 5th starter starts as much as possible.