Pitcher Playing Time Changes: April 4, 2025

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April 4, 2025
Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

Welcome to the first Pitcher Playing Time Changes rundown of the regular season! As with position players, the methodology is a little different in the regular season.

For starting pitchers, instead of displaying raw games started projections like I did during Spring Training, I’m switching to percentage of a team’s remaining starts. When looking at this on a weekly basis, pitchers who are closer to coming back from injury will have their percentage go up, since they’re projected to miss less of the remaining season. Pitchers who were injured since the last update will, of course, have their percentage go down.

Relievers are going to be more streamlined, in that I’m not going to actually show projected innings pitched, because the way we project them internally always show as full-season innings, even if there’s only 50% of the season left. For example, a relief pitcher who started with 70 projected innings pitched and had his projections unchanged will still show as 70 innings pitched after 81 games. So, instead, I’ll just be showing percent change for notable relievers and we won’t be focusing on the actual innings they’re projected for when we’re only talking about a week of difference. That allows me to zero in on pitchers who’ve gotten injured or demoted.

Away we go:

SP % of Team GS Changes Since Opening Day
Name Team Old % of Team’s Remaining Starts New % of Team’s Remaining Starts PT Change Reason
Sean Manaea NYM 17% 14% -3% Setback with oblique injury
Austin Gomber COL 16% 13% -3% Was due back April 8, but pushed back
Yariel Rodríguez TOR 7% 4% -3% Passed over for SP spot with Scherzer out, pitching in shorter bullpen stints
DJ Herz WSN 8% 4% -4% UCL sprain, unclear if surgery on the way
Reynaldo López ATL 19% 11% -8% Arthroscopic shoulder surgery, moved to 60-day IL
Some injured pitchers, like Max Scherzer, actually don’t have significant PT changes because time missed due to injury/general aging was already baked into their initial projection!

 

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Projected RP IP Changes Since Opening Day
Name Team % Change in Projected RP IP Reason
Reid Detmers LAA 28% Has been used in shorter stints in bullpen, making it harder to stretch back out if needed
Ryan Borucki PIT 15% Pitching well in high leverage should earn him more IP
Michael Kopech LAD -11% Rehab from forearm inflammation has stalled a bit
Ian Hamilton NYY -17% On IL with virus
Jesus Tinoco MIA -19% On IL with strained back
Liam Hendriks BOS -21% On IL with elbow inflammation
Hans Crouse LAA -36% Unknown elbow injury in AAA
Albert Suarez BAL -37% On IL with shoulder inflammation





 

Jon Becker manages RosterResource's team payroll pages and assists with all other aspects of RosterResource, too. Follow him at your own peril on Twitter at @jonbecker_ and on BlueSky at @jon-becker.com.

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