Prepping Young Starters with Relief Appearances

On Monday, September 5th, Labor Day, I sat in parking lot traffic in Baltimore, trying to make it into Camden Yards by the first pitch. This was a first in a long time. I wasn’t clogged in a traffic jam trying to leave the parking lot, I was trying to get in. As a Maryland native, Camden Yards has been the place where I’ve taken in the majority of my live baseball action and I could tell, as parking lot attendants waived me on to the next lot around the block, something was in the air. When I got to the stadium, there was more energy, more talk in the crowd about the actual team, and though the nose-bleed seats in left-field remained empty, there were more fans. Baltimore has always drawn an excellent, engaged fanbase to the stadium. But as you can imagine, the past few years have been a little quieter. On Monday the fans piled in to watch a pivotal matchup against the division rival Blue Jays and in the top of the eighth, the Orioles held the game at a one-run deficit.

O’s reliever Bryan Baker was throwing when this happened:

 

 

Some of the wind had come right out of the sails touring the inner harbor of Baltimore, but the game was not lost. Baker was approaching twenty pitches but was allowed to face the next batter and he struck out Matt Chapman. With two outs and the bases empty, Brandon Hyde brought in DL Hall, a highly touted, young left-handed prospect to get the final out in the inning. Hall, a lefty, was brought in to face Cavan Biggio, a lefty. The matchup was sound. But, the Blue Jays pinch-hit Whit Merrifield and the pitcher-friendly matchup was lost. Hall, however, successfully recorded the final out.

 

Thanks to Anthony Santander’s second home run of the game in the bottom of the frame, the game was within reach for the O’s, back to a one-run game:

WinProbabilityChart

Headed into the top of the ninth, the O’s needed to keep the Jays at bay. Very much needing a win, it seems it would have been advantageous to utilize one of Baltimore’s three rested relievers in Cionel Pérez, Dillon Tate, or Félix Bautista. But that did not happen. Instead, DL Hall was brought back out. A young, unproven arm. If you didn’t see the game, Hall got shredded. He gave up four hits, three runs, and a walk and the Orioles offense was unable to recover. This article is not an analysis of Brandon Hyde’s managerial decision-making. He has taken a team that had little to no expectations at the start of the season to a Wild Card contender in September. But, the decision to send Hall back out is questionable. What’s better, playing for a win when you need it, or giving somewhat high leverage experience to a young prospect?

The topic of the importance of leverage as it relates to future starting pitcher success is very likely unquantifiable. Some pitchers need it, others don’t. DL Hall’s ninth-inning appearance made me wonder, does high leverage relief help a young pitcher prepare to become a starter? Is it some kind of new trend in baseball? Are young pitchers who are projected to become starters being given relief opportunities for a reason?

This article is an attempt to simply look at what has been done in the past. For this analysis, I took all pitchers younger than 25 who threw in relief less than five times at some point in 2020. Obviously, that’s a lot of qualifiers and my sample is very small with 29 pitchers qualifying. This might be a skewed place to begin given there were no minor league games in 2020 and a lot of young players were being taxied back and forth, but it’s what we got. Of those 29 pitchers, only three of them came back to start games in 2021. I used the same process between the 2021 season and the 2022 season so far and found 16 pitchers under the age of 25 who appeared only in relief in 2021 and less than five times. Of those 16 pitchers, two of them came back in 2022 to make at least one start. To give you an example, Spencer Strider threw 2.1 innings of relief as a 22-year-old in 2021. In 2022, he has amassed 18 starts and 120.2 innings. All this querying and sub-querying has given me a grand total of five pitchers. Each of them appeared in a relief role as a young pitcher and then came back the following year to make at least one start. Here’s how they performed in the year following some relief experiences (Start Year):

Young Starters With Previous Relief Experience (2021-2022)
Name Team Relief Year Start Year W L G GS IP ERA xERA FIP
Nick Neidert MIA 20 21 1 2 8 7 35.2 4.54 5.99 5.81
Logan Allen CLE 20 21 2 7 14 11 50.1 6.26 6.47 6.05
Miguel Yajure PIT 20 21 0 2 4 3 15.0 8.40 8.73 8.50
Spencer Strider ATL 21 22 10 4 29 18 120.2 2.69 2.44 1.82
Rony Garcia DET 21 22 3 3 16 8 51.0 4.41 6.30 4.52

 

While all of the above pitchers threw in relief prior to having a season with multiple starts, how many of them had high leverage relief appearances in year one, according to our splits leaderboard? Rony Garcia. That’s all. So, what can we deduce from this exercise? Pretty much nothing. But, it’s interesting to see a pitcher like Spencer Strider who was given time to prep as a reliever, come back and have such a solid season (so far) as a starter.

Is this a trend? Are young starting pitchers getting more relief experience in the season leading up to their first start? Here’s a look at how many pitchers under the age of 26 who have had previous relief experience get starts the following year:

Young Starters with Relief Experience Line Chart

The 2022 season isn’t over yet, but it’s likely that young pitchers who pitched in relief in 2021 would have gotten a chance to start already. If relief experience before starts was a more advantageous strategy, I believe we would see the numbers in the graph increase. Our five subjects from 2021 and 2022 in the table above may not be the best young pitchers in the game right now, but they’re still developing. Wondering why I’m even writing about this on a fantasy baseball blog? Dynasty managers may be able to pay close attention to pitchers in relief in 2022 and consider their value as long-term options. Is it advantageous to appear in relief before a young pitcher begins starting games? Will DL Hall’s relief experience benefit him and the O’s in 2023? We’ll have to wait and see.





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HappyFunBallmember
1 year ago

I don’t know that it’s advantageous for the pitcher or not, but it sends a pretty clear signal that the organization thinks the kid is about as close to ready as he’s going to get.

The obvious downsides being 1) If he gets bombed, the org might decide he needs more seasoning than they thought, and 2) if he’s TOO good he might find himself falling into a closer’s role.

Last edited 1 year ago by HappyFunBall