Five Starters Or Four?

Is it possible that we have not even considered the most viable solution to the Braves most significant deficiency in 2007? My proposal, while radical and seemingly backward, deserves some serious consideration and is grounded in cool, hard fact.

Before I go on to the specifics, I should let you all know that I'm currently plowing through Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game Is Wrong by "the Baseball Prospectus Team of Experts" and it's been an enthralling, eye-opening experience. Now, while I will soon write up a review of the book as a whole, I am compelled to share some tidbits of knowledge from the chapter within that book whose title I've borrowed for this post.

There is no discernible detriment to employing a four-man rotation as opposed to the more commonly used five-man variety. Three days provides sufficient rest and pitch counts, not number of starts, is the most significant factor when considering injuries and fatigue. Needless to say, the benefits of this recently forgotten strategy are obvious: your best pitchers get more starts, an additional roster spot is opened up, etc. Is this, however, a plausible alternative for the Braves now and what would the likely outcome of such a move be?

If you take Smoltz, Hudson, James and Carlyle as Atlanta's top four starters, that leaves Davies, Redman, Reyes, Lerew and Cormier as the "5th starter" for the team thus far this year. Not surprisingly, that slot has been the proverbial revolving door and it has cost the Braves in the win column. While I am relatively new to the world of new baseball statistics, I feel as though I understand VORP (Value Over Replacement Level) well enough and it appears to be an extremely useful, relatively easy to find, stat. Using it as our guide, we can determine that Atlanta has lost 42 runs, or approximately four games in the standings, due to the 32 starts that they afforded those pitchers. Every other Braves starter has contributed at least one win in their own right. That is, coincidentally, according to those experts at Baseball Prospectus. Interestingly enough, those stats also expose the largely hidden impact of another significant team flaw that I will explore in another post.

Anyway, this means that the Braves record would be four games better had they simply had the average AAA/FA pitcher starting for them every fifth game AND they would have been even better than that had they dared to employ a four-man rotation with their most consistent performers. It would have been nice to have acquired another stable starter to add to the mix before the deadline, but that time has come and gone; it is now time to take a different approach. Virgil is recognized as having stated that "fortune favors the bold" and I feel as though this change is the sort of step that would in fact be as beneficial as it is brave.

Many have indicated that the Tex trade made MLB a "Brave New World", this could be the final move towards making that rhetoric a reality. This is the ultimate measure of improvement from within; costing us nothing and perhaps giving us everything in return. Personally, I'd be relieved to know that our fifth starter would be none other than one of the preceding four instead of yet another re-tread, busted prospect or rushed youngster. If they keep the pitch counts low (use of the extra roster spot on a reliever will help endure that) there's no reason to fear the change. It's time to put these statistical theorems to the test, especially since they can be the difference between being an also-ran and champion of the baseball world!