Six Armed Monstah
With Schilling and Wakefield back on board for 2008, there has been talk that the Sox might go with a six pitcher rotation.
I am torn by the prospect of this.
On one hand, it helps the too-old/too-young problem that the Sox are facing; Schilling and Wake are both likely to spend some time on the DL, and Lester and Buchholz only pitched a combined 85.2 innings this year. A six day rest will keep arms fresher longer.
On the other hand, it will be hard for any pitcher to win 20 plus games in only 27 starts. Noah Lowry won 14 in in 26 starts, which was the best for any pitcher with 27 or fewer starts in 2007. Six pitchers with 14 wins gives you a total of 84, which would be nice, but even with all that rest, there aren't going to be six starters with 14 wins on any team no matter how goodit is. And why wouldn't you want Josh Beckett out there as much as possible?
Of course, there is still the possibility of a trade, but the all buzz involves more pitchers (Haren and Santana to name two). Theo can't be dumb enough to trade both Lester and Buchholz, which would still leaves us six starters.
1 comments:
I don't think it's a bad idea. Buccholz and Lester are much in the same boat as Hughes and Joba. Buccholz and Lester pitched about 140 innings each between MLB and the minors last year, so figure they're not going much over 170 in 2008, right?
You can set up the rotation so that Beckett and Dice pitch every five days, and everyone else rotates around on six days each. And when someone gets hurt, you have a 5-man rotation. Not a bad problem to have.
The Yanks might do the same if Pettitte comes back, with Wang and Pettitte taking regular five-day turns, and everyone else (Hughes, Joba, Kennedy, Moose) going six.
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