Lance needs to go to the pen until he proves he can be healthy for a year. I think if he wants to have a long career, he needs to do that permanently. He's obviously has starter stuff but his elbow can't handle 90 plus pitches in one day. Let's give it under 40 pitches so he he doesn't wear out.
Yep, 30 pitches (1 inning) every 3 days is still ~60 innings over the course of the season, if they are dominant innings then that’s very valuable. That’s the best way to keep him healthy and prevent any injuries from hurting the team too much.
They should just use him as the first reliever every 3rd day for a while, until they know he is healthy. Long reliever with a 2 inning max assuming he still has his stuff.
Has anyone ever seen any kind of write up about which is less stressful on an arm, starting or relieving? I would think the most stressful would be a multi inning relief appearance but that is just a guess.
I wonder if that’s because of the actual difference in frequency/volume of usage or if it’s because SP are more likely to pitch thru injury. No big deal for a RP to tell the mgr he needs an extra day (or to take a 10 day IL trip). But a SP skipping a day or going on the IL wrecks the roster for a week minimum.
Let me rephrase that. Significantly less relief pitchers have Tommy John even though they tend to throw harder because they don't have to conserve their energy. https://community.fangraphs.com/velocity-and-the-likelihood-of-tommy-john-surgery/
I imagine it's all the above. Starting pitchers will pitch through pain like McCullers did. They also throw when they are tired hence their velocity dips. Relief pitchers don't have to put that stress on their arms. But as I mentioned, relief pitchers tend to throw harder.
So you want him to pitch 1 inning every 5-6 days? That's 30 innings in a season. Why not just tell him, he is pitching inning 7 every 3-4 days. Why start him unless we plan to make him a starter again this season.
You can’t really have a permanent member of your pitching staff devoted to only pitching 1 inning every 5 games. Using McCullers as an opener is fine but it really doesn’t address the issue of balancing his health and productivity. I think by far the best path is to have him as a carefully managed leverage RP. He pitches the 7th every 3 days and here’s why: It keeps him on a steady routine so he can predict when he’s going to pitch. It allows him to have an important, productive role on the team. It prevents a future injury from having serious impact on the rest of the roster.
What's this about "permanent member of your pitching staff"? If dude ever, ever pitches again he needs to be eased in. 1-2 scheduled innings every 5 days (gets to treat it like a start, preparation and such) seems like the absolute best way to do it.
